Short Term Residential Refrigerator Defrost Cycle Suppression

[KWyer]

Ok kids, lets play a game. Let's say I have a nice Solitude with a residential fridge, which I love, but I need to do some sporadic 2 to 3 day boondocking between full hookup sites and I want to conserve battery capacity by skipping a few days of defrost cycles knowing that I will be back on full hookup soon and can resume regular defrost cycles at that time. Why would engineering and installing a defrost heater wire interrupt switch not be a good idea to make this happen and does anyone have any other ideas on how to accomplish this? I have already research other stories where the defrost heater connection had come loose or was not properly re-connected and the refrigerator continued to function until the frost buildup became too much for the system.

KW

[howson]

KWyer -- I understand the basic concept but don't know some specifics. Out of curiosity:

1) How much power is drawn during a defrost cycle and how often does the cycle run?
2) Is the cycle triggered only by time?
3) If the refrigerator is powered off (and then back on) does the cycle reset?
4) I can't remember if your trailer has any upgrades to the 12v system. Is it OEM (with a 100A wet cell battery) or are their installed mods to facilitate boondocking?

On the assumption the defrost cutoff switch is a good idea, the only downside that comes to mind is the possibility of accidentally triggering the switch or forgetting it is on. Some type of visual indication (small red LED that is triggered on when defrost is disabled, etc) might be a consideration.

[ncitro]

KWyer if your unit has the Samsung residential (possibly other models as well) I know there is a service mode you can enter, in there are a bunch of features(specifically I know this is used to manually advance the ice maker during winterizing). Possibly in there it can be disabled?

[KWyer]

KWyer if your unit has the Samsung residential (possibly other models as well) I know there is a service mode you can enter, in there are a bunch of features(specifically I know this is used to manually advance the ice maker during winterizing). Possibly in there it can be disabled?

I have been wanting to go down this path also but so far I have not been able to find documentation on what types of configuration changes could be made in that interface and if any would allow you to suppress the defrost cycle. If anyone knows how to find this documentation it would be much appreciated.

KW

[ncitro]

I have been wanting to go down this path also but so far I have not been able to find documentation on what types of configuration changes could be made in that interface and if any would allow you to suppress the defrost cycle. If anyone knows how to find this documentation it would be much appreciated.

KW

What make and model of refrigerator do you have?

[KWyer]

What make and model of refrigerator do you have?

Samsung RF20HFENBSR/US

[Jlawles2]

Most likely the easiest thing would be to find the control board (usually on the bottom of the refer toward the front). From there determine what wire(s) come off the defroster relay to the coil and put an in line switch. I know when the relay failed in ours, nothing prevented it from continuing to run and eventually freeze the coils up.

[ncitro]

Samsung RF20HFENBSR/US

Hopefully someone with that model will be along with the service guide, I know it's used to cycle the ice maker, and manually run a defrost. Hopefully you can disable the defroster in there as well. For what it's worth I never worry about mine, I let it run as normal, but I added a significant number of batteries and solar to handle the load.

[howson]

Samsung RF20HFENBSR/US

Not sure if the below helps...note I had to split the doc into two pieces to upload.



rf18_series 1.pdf

rf18_series 2.pdf

[KWyer]

KWyer -- I understand the basic concept but don't know some specifics. Out of curiosity:

1) How much power is drawn during a defrost cycle and how often does the cycle run?
2) Is the cycle triggered only by time?
3) If the refrigerator is powered off (and then back on) does the cycle reset?
4) I can't remember if your trailer has any upgrades to the 12v system. Is it OEM (with a 100A wet cell battery) or are their installed mods to facilitate boondocking?

On the assumption the defrost cutoff switch is a good idea, the only downside that comes to mind is the possibility of accidentally triggering the switch or forgetting it is on. Some type of visual indication (small red LED that is triggered on when defrost is disabled, etc) might be a consideration.

This looks like the power draw during the defrost cycle.





As for your question #4: I have added 400ah of LiFePO batteries to the system and based on some testing I am getting about a 150ah drawdown each day primarily from the refrigerator operation with the ice maker on via using the 1000 watt inverter that came installed from the factory. I would love to isolate the power draw from the defrost cycle and the ice maker operation as I suspect that would have a significant impact on the power draw per day.

[KWyer]

So if your interested in this topic area, I just ran across a source that has pretty much everything you might want to know about refrigerator power consumption. Enjoy!

https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/...?pub_id=907664

[KWyer]

Not sure if the below helps...note I had to split the doc into two pieces to upload.



[ATTACH]n104920[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]n104921[/ATTACH]

Thank you so much for this information!!

KW

[KWyer]

Not sure if the below helps...note I had to split the doc into two pieces to upload.



[ATTACH]n104920[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]n104921[/ATTACH]

Ok, so I did a detailed read through of the technical documentation and there does not seem to be a configuration setting anywhere to suppress the defrost cycle so it looks like you would need to interrupt the circuit either for the defrost sensors or the defrost heater to suppress the defrost cycle actually happening.

It seems obvious that if interrupt the power going to the defrost heater elements that it should have the same effect as unplugging the defrost heater wire but I am not sure what effect interrupting the defrost sensor would cause. Would it cause the defrost to run constantly or would it keep it from initiating? Anyone have any knowledge or experience with this area?

KW