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Re: Samsung refrigerator

Reply #25 –
Yahoo Message Number: 70040
Lyle, Dallas and Sharon, and anyone I've missed here!

You all have our gratitude for the wonderful information. We'll be ordering the refrigerator and anticipate the joys of not having this blankety blank Norcold anymore!!!! This group impresses us so much with all of the help and time given by so many knowledgable people who are happy to share what they know and their experiences.

Thank you!

Mary and Mike Frederick
06 Inspire 51784
Welch, MN

Re: Samsung refrigerator

Reply #26 –
Yahoo Message Number: 70071
Mary and Mike,

Are you still in OKC? Will you be coming thru Tulsa any time soon? You can reply on my private email.
Kevin Burns

00 Affinity 5865

Re: Samsung refrigerator RF197****

Reply #27 –
Yahoo Message Number: 70081
Mary,

I am mistaken, I just noticed that I did put the RF197 in my coach and not the RF195. It does fit flush in the same cabinet as the Norcold 1200LRIM did with the floor modified to add another 5+inches of hieght. This is great news since you will not have to see it sticking out further than just the doors. Here is a picture of my install in the photo section of this group.
photos/album/370769381/pic/1671201942/view?picmode=&mode=tn&order=ordinal&start=21&count=20&dir=asc
I just took my infrared heat gun to the sides and the bottom of the refrigerator and there is only a 1 degree rise over the room temp of the refrigerator shell in that cabinet. I have less than an inch a space on the front trim sides combined. The top of the cabinet is so tight I can't even slide a piece of paper in it. The rear and top vent for the old norcold is completely sealed off so the only way the refirgerator gets cooling is the bottom and the 1 to 3 inches of space around the inside of the cabinet and bottom.
The side trim narrows to less then an inch of space as I mentioned. This refrigerator puts off very little heat and is using somewhere around 10 amps to 12 amps per hour (which explains the little or no heat). I am getting 10 amps of draw and Lyle is getting 13 amps on his amp meter. We both have other electrical draws going on and different inverters so that may explain the 2 amp difference.

You are going to be very happy with this conversion.

Dallas 2004 intrigue 11688

Re: Samsung refrigerator RF197****

Reply #28 –
Yahoo Message Number: 70087
Dallas,

Thank you very much for the specific and important information, Dallas. We are interested in the cabinet depth for sure. The pictures are great! Now to get one ordered. Mike's talking to the folks at Lee's RV who seem to know about this Norcold fix needing a fix just to get us home and then get the coach to the fellow who will do the work. Perhaps you've already mentioned this and I'm not remembering, but what batteries are you using? We had all new ones put in, I think Interstate ones plus the starting one, just 2 months ago, and I wonder if we'll need more. I'm sure Mike knows what's what with that, but I'd like to know your kind. I saw the picture you posted of the batteries. Looks good especially since batteries are so important!

Sitting in the Twin Fountains RV Park in OKC where the coach has been since last fall and we've been several times, we've seen maybe 4-5 CCs here. I make a point of asking each time if they're on the CC blog just in case it's somebody we "know" from the blog. So far, no luck though. Everybody loves their CC however!

Thanks again.
Mary

06 Inspire 51784

Re: Samsung refrigerator RF197**** AGM Batteries

Reply #29 –
Yahoo Message Number: 70088
Mary,

That is the Eagle Scout in me to be helpful!
The subject of Batteries is a very popular and contentious subject on this blog. If you doubt it then search 'AGM'. The AGM's (Absorbed Glass Mat) are far more expensive than the flooded cell batteries that you probably have in your coach, at least twice as much. $200 vs. $550 each. The big advantage to AGM's is they take a faster charge (saves generator recharge time) and they never need maintenance. The flooded type batteries need to have their water checked frequently to keep them in top shape.
I put the AGM's (DEKA brand from Les Schwab tire center) last year because I did not want the batteries gassing and presenting a problem to my inverter that shares the same air space. There are other brands of AGM's out there but I think all of them except for Lifelines are built by the same manufacture. Lifelines have slightly different recharging characteristics according to my inverter instructions. This has to do with where the voltage of the batteries float (12.5 volts) when fully charged. Not a big deal.
The cost of going AGM's was not a factor to me but the maintenance issue and charging capacity was. You will find that some on this blog call it being 'lazy' if you do not want to take the time to fill your batteries with water frequently (once a month). They are right! But I do not like the idea of batteries that put off corrosive and explosive gas anymore than I like Refrigerators that can leak ammonia gas (explosive too). If you have flooded batteries (they have filler caps on the top) and they have been recently replaced, then keep them. They put out just as much electricity as the AGM's (or close enough to the same. They cost far less and may last as long but not likely given that you have to maintain them properly. From a cost/benefit analysis, I think one cost less and the other has better benefits. :)
For my purposes, I like out of site out of mind and I do not like getting battery acid on anything. I also like the fact that you can recharge AGM's faster too. One misconception is that you do not need to ever add more battery acid to a flooded battery, just water since the water along with hydrogen gas boils out of the flooded batteries and not the acid. Hydrogen comes from the water H2O not the acid. But if you over fill the battery then you have acid coming out and if it boils and gasses (overcharging) too much then you have corrosion issues on what ever that fluid touches.
My CC coach came with only two house batteries (flooded) and I wanted 4 house batteries so I did not have the room to have enough space to stick my head or mirror in the battery bay and see the water level in each cell so I went AGM.
If my wife had to maintain the flooded batteries then the coach would never leave the driveway (no reflection on other wives out there!). That was an easy sale to her even though it meant spending $550 each for them. That's a lot of fuel money but they are paid for and I can totally ignore them for another 6 years. (Priceless)

Dallas 2004 intrigue 11688

Re: Samsung refrigerator RF197**** AGM Batteries

Reply #30 –
Yahoo Message Number: 70089

Dallas,

How did you connect the second inverter, and how difficult was it to close the acces/vent ports for the old Norcold?

Tom R

2004 Allure 31026

Re: Samsung refrigerator RF197**** AGM Batteries

Reply #31 –
Yahoo Message Number: 70091
Tom,

I removed the original xantrex 2000 watt square wave inverter and installed a magnum 2800 pure sinewave inverter. I only have one inverter. I had to completely gut my battery bay with a plasma cutter (makes the job cleaner) and then weld up an entirely new battery bay to take (5) 8D batteries and the new inverter (same size as the old one). If I had just left the battery bay the way it was I could hav easily exchanged the inverter for the other one straight up.
photos/album/370769381/pic/913077625/view?picmode=&mode=tn&order=ordinal&start=1&count=20&dir=asc
By the way, there was no need to change the old inverter out to run the new Smasung residential refrigerator. It is one of the few refrigerator manuafacturers that say it's ok. It will run on the modified square wave. There is plenty of watts in the 2000 Xantrex to run the refrigerator and everything else. I did it because of other electronics I have in the coach that do not like anything but the pure sinewave. For example, a ceramic heater will fry without a pure sine wave. Did that! A George Forman grill will choke on one also. Did that too! A microwave will take longer and screw up you popcorn setting. I did not like that! :) Anyone want a good used 2000 xantrex sitting in my garage with all the accessories?
I cut a piece of plywood board, waterproofed it and put it up in the hole in the roof, then took some 1 inch pink styrofoam board (doubled it up) and cut it to a slight bit oversized and stuffed it into the same hole. Did the same for the side vent hole. screwed a thin plywood board on to the wall and then went outside and and put a 1/2 inch white styrofoam board behind the vent panel. I still have the vent panel look from the outside but it is completely sealed off. Trick is to cut the styrofoam board about a 1/4 bigger than the hole and wedge it in there so there is no air gap.
You can get these foam boards at any hardware store. They come in sheets sometimes as large as 4' x 8' but you can find them precut down to 2'x4'.

Dallas 2004 intrigue 11688

Re: Samsung refrigerator RF197**** AGM Batteries

Reply #32 –
Yahoo Message Number: 70096
Dallas, thanks for taking the time to write all of the info on the inverter and the batteries. Great to know all of it!!!

Mary and Mike
06 Inspire 51784

Re: Samsung refrigerator RF197**** AGM Batteries

Reply #33 –
Yahoo Message Number: 70099
There are other brands of AGM's out there but I think all of them except for Lifelines are built by the same manufacture. Lifelines have slightly different recharging characteristics according to my inverter instructions. This has to do with where the voltage of the batteries float (12.5 volts) when fully charged. Not a big deal.

Dallas,

Not sure I understand the float voltage reference for Lifelines at 12.5, 12.2 is 50% discharged and float should be in the middle 13's. Could you please clarify that?

Tom

Trans-Specialists/Lifeline Batteries
01 Magna 5999

www.trans-specialists.net

Re: AGM Batteries

Reply #34 –
Yahoo Message Number: 70102
Tom,

Your right, I may not be correct on the float numbers (that is were my batteries settle out at about 92% SOC after getting up to the float using the generator). I was making referrence to the fact that my Magnum Inverter has setups for two AGM types unless you want to customize a setting. AGM1 refers to Lifeline AGM batteries and AGM2 refers to most other AGM batteries.
This was not clear to me initially and I set my battery selection to AGM1 and could not get the Magnum converter to find the 100% SOC after three days of charging. So I resorted to reading the instructions, (guy thing), and found out that I belonged to the AGM2 group so within an hour the Magnum figured out my SOC (state of charge). I have since tried the AGM1 setting and again it could not find the SOC so I have to believe that the Lifelines have their own unique charging characteristics for the magnum converters.
When I bought my AGM's last year, I was at a Les Schwab dealer getting all new tires and I had a mismatched set of flooded house batteries (4D and 8D). I wanted to just replace my flooded batteries with the same but somehow I was convinced by the battery guy to go with the AGM's, glad I did, but that was one expensive trip to the tire store. Nothing against lifelines, I just did not know about that brand until after I bought mine.

Dallas 2004 intrigue 11688
 

Re: AGM Batteries

Reply #35 –
Yahoo Message Number: 70103
Thanks Dallas, that clears me up.. I had two older Magnum's in a Prevost I owned and upgraded a board to allow user programmable settings. Magnum is a great company, they sent me the boards free exchanged. You made a smart move getting rid of those gassing corrosion forming wet batteries, AGM is the way to go, although a little pricey.

Just a note on the Lifelines.. I had a friend/customer who discovered he had out of date Lifeline AGM's he bought new in 2008 that were date coded 04 and 05. Needless to say he was upset that the repair service facility sold him out of date batteries as new.

I explained to Lifeline what happened, not their fault and Jim the owner said his name was on the batteries and he just this week replaced all 6 AGM 8d's including shipping FREE! Now that's service.

Tom

Trans-Specialists/Lifeline Batteries
01 Magna 5999

www.trans-specialists.net