Sea Frost refigeration system

[Moparots]

Hello all, new boat owner here, and redoing the galley in our 36 Morgan. I found a " Sea Frost DC 5000 " refrigeration unit for sale. can any one elaborate about this unit. It was mentioned on the ad that it was "too much for his batteries to handle" . You will have to forgive my ignorance about marine electronics, we have a four 12 volt battery house bank, would this be sufficient to run this system?

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Moparots

Hello all, new boat owner here, and redoing the galley in our 36 Morgan. I found a " Sea Frost DC 5000 " refrigeration unit for sale. can any one elaborate about this unit. It was mentioned on the ad that it was "too much for his batteries to handle" . You will have to forgive my ignorance about marine electronics, we have a four 12 volt battery house bank, would this be sufficient to run this system?

Depends on how big the batteries are. 12v doesn't give the battery capacity, you need to have the spec on the amp hours.

Like saying you have an 8 cylinder engine so how fast will the car go. Is that a 327 cu in V8 or a 454 cu in V8?

Will also depend on how well insulated your box is. If it's a stock, 30 year old box then it will be like trying to keep the inside of a cardboard box cold. The cold will leak out as fast as it goes in so the compressor will run non stop. A really well insulated box will cut down dramatically on the compressor running time.

So unfortunately you need to dig up a lot more information to get an accurate answer.

[Moparots]

Thanks Skip. I knew my question was a bit vague, I will get back with more info. My battery system is only a year+ old, lts fed only by (what I believe is shore power and engine alternator) Just got this boat, still figuring it out, quite the mystery. Craig

[skipmac]

First step is to figure out your battery capacity. Not just for a possible fridge upgrade but so you can have a better handle on how long you can run lights and everything else electrical and your charging requirements.

So check the batteries to see what you've got. Hopefully deep cycle batteries for the house loads. Also do you have a separate battery for engine cranking? If you do it takes some of the worry out of using too much power from your batteries. Another thing, are the four batteries wired as one big bank or two separate?

So what Morgan 36? I learned to sail on an OI 36. Not the fastest boat in town but a great liveaboard and the super shallow draft I could go places no one else could reach except in a dinghy.

[colemj]

That Seafrost system draws 41A, so there are few banks large enough to handle it. Yours most assuredly will not unless you have an acre of solar or plan to run an engine/generator many hours/day.

Mark

[skipgundlach]

For a review of our experiences with how many amps a SF unit will eat, see various threads of my conversion (dammit!) from a Frigoboat system which failed.

See also a Richard Kollmann post on the subject, and the thread which follows.

Your system (or maybe only the compressor part?) - along with the mentioned separate 1A water pump, here:

DC5000

What are you going to use for the cold part, assuming you get this?

[skipgundlach]

Hi.

I forgot to mention - though you may already know of it - the morganowners@yahoogroups.com, the FB Morgan Yacht group, and numerous brand-specific fora.

All have umpty dozen experienced folk who can assist with things Morgan.

[Richard Kollmann]

[QUOTE=Moparots;1755185]Hello all, new boat owner here, and redoing the galley in our 36 Morgan. I found a " Sea Frost DC 5000 " refrigeration unit

It is almost impossible to support a large 12 volt refrigeration system compressor on a pleasure boat without running an alternator several hours per day in warm climates. This Seafrost compressor system is always used to freeze eutectic holding plates other wise it would need to be running many short cycles per day. There might be a need for this large system if box to be refrigerated is larger than 8 cu ft in warm climate or insulation is questionable.

Energy management on a 36 ft boat is important so I suggest you do the math on my web site slide show as to the requirements for ice box conversion refrigeration. http://www.kollmann-marine.com

[jcdexter]

I run a large Seafrost refridgerator/freezer system at anchor using a Honda 2000i generator. three hours a day is enough and since the generator puts out AC and the unit is AC there is no loss of efficiency from converting to DC. The Honda costs around $1000 and you could also use it to charge your batteries and make hot water. Might work for you.

[Richard Kollmann]

Originally Posted by jcdexter

I run a large Seafrost refridgerator/freezer system at anchor using a Honda 2000i generator. three hours a day is enough and since the generator puts out AC and the unit is AC there is no loss of efficiency from converting to DC. The Honda costs around $1000 and you could also use it to charge your batteries and make hot water. Might work for you.

But does your refrigerator use over 100 amp-hrs per day?

[billmayse]

I have a seafrost in my Tayana. I don't use is when I daysail because my box is so large it takes it four hours to cool down, and sucks up a tremendous amount of juice. If you're in a marina with electricity and you have a 110 charger you would want to cool down the box the night before. If it is not well insulated, insulate it. If there's excess space in the bottom of your frig(under the bottom shelf), fill it with something so there is less space to cool.

[Windwalker44]

I've got a seafrost system on my Gulfstar 44 which will run both off the engine compressor and / or 12 volt battery system. couldn't be happier with the fact that it actually can make ice cubes.
Call Cleave ( owner/developer) at Seafrost he'll have your answer; 603-868-5720

[Richard Kollmann]

Originally Posted by Windwalker44

I've got a seafrost system on my Gulfstar 44 which will run both off the engine compressor and / or 12 volt battery system. couldn't be happier with the fact that it actually can make ice cubes.
Call Cleave ( owner/developer) at Seafrost he'll have your answer; 603-868-5720

You are lucky to have a hybrid system makes for super refrigeration especially on a 44 ft boat. I had this type hybrid refrigeration for over 25 years on my boat and never ran out of ice cream or ice cubes running engine one hour a day. After a two month cruise I still had frozen stakes purchased before I left.

Unfortunately I believe Seafrost is the only manufacturer left selling hybrid dual compressor systems.

[savoir]

This system would be great on a motor boat but not so good on a 36 foot sailboat. You would be needing a bank of around 10 golf carts to keep it going. With the batteries that you have it would be necessary to turn both the diesel and fridge off once your set temperature is reached or a short run time might totally drain the batteries. I am assuming that you don't have a genset. The viability of the whole thing then depends on the quality of the insulation and the plates. You need a system that can stay cold until you next run the diesel or genset, 8-12 hours maybe.

If you can keep the electricity up to them these units are powerful enough to run a 10 cu ft fridge plus a 5 cu ft freezer. Chances are yours won't be anywhere near this big. Access to shore power helps.

I don't like to be too negative but really doubt that one of these will suit your boat.

[SV THIRD DAY]

The reason they are selling it I bet is because they are swapping over to a more energy efficient 12v system that they can run from their battery bank....so be careful in getting a "Deal" on a system you can't run on your boat. I see that all the time when people take out older engine driven Technautics systems and sell them at swap meets. The buyers don't really know what they are buying but the owner said it "worked great when we removed it from the boat".

Technautics stopped making the hybrid engine driven/120v/12v systems years ago once the 12v systems started to prove their worth. Most cruisers don't want to link their refrigeration into a daily engine run. We literally made thousands of those systems and today we keep pretty busy converting the old engine driven systems to 12v by reusing the holding plate.

The thing you have going for you is that you can call SeaFrost and talk to the folks that made it....so they can give you the specifics. I just spoke to a guy in the exact same situation today looking to buy one of our 30yr old engine driven systems from his buddy. But once we reviewed the costs of converting to 12v....well....he ordered a new 12v system and passed on the "deal" from his dock neighbor. He will now have a new system with a 5 year warranty for less than he would have bought and upgraded the old system for, so be careful of "dock deals" they can cost you more in the long run.