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Subject:Solution - Re: Dometic fridge (external) fan replacement...
From:Steve Williams <steve@WILLIAMSITCONSULTING.COM>
Date:Mon, 29 Aug 2016 08:47:11 -0600

Hi,

I used the approximate specifications from the GoWesty fridge fan
replacement & bought a 120mm computer fan from my local computer store.
I went for a good quality, quiet fan with slightly less cfm's than the
GoWesty fan.  Theirs is 85 cfm & I got a 78 cfm fan (to get something
very quiet - 27 db and a "reasonable" current draw - 0.16A, 1.92W.

Other people have mentioned the computer "muffin fans".  They come in so
many sizes/capacities the "muffin fan" designation was a bit ambiguous
which was bothering me.

Thinking about volume... 75 cubic feet of air seems like a reasonable
amount of air to be moving!  That's almost 3 cubic yards of air moved
per minute (assuming no restrictions).   The fan I got was a 4 wire fan
and after a bit of research found that pin #1 is ground, pin #2 is +12v
and the other 2 pins are for speed control & speed sensing (feedback to
a computer which I don't care about).

I butchered an old power supply to get a piece of tin with a big round
hole in it to make a 90 degree bracket.  I used the same mounting holes
as the original fan but made the bracket the full width of the fan.  I
isolated vibration sensitive components as much as possible using bike
innertube rubber.  I did use 2 screws to attach the fan to the bracket &
2 of the rubber isolation mounts that were included with the fan.  I
didn't like the idea of having 4 corroding piecies of rubber in the back
of the fridge so compromised with 2 screws.

The fan does stick out a bit from the back of the fridge, but given it's
the same size as the GoWesty one, I'm hoping it all fits back in :)
I've washed all the fins & waiting for everything to dry.

I also opened up the combustion box and cleaned it out.  It wasn't in
too bad of shape.  I also removed the jet & tried to clean it, but it's
such a TINY jet, I really didn't do that great of a job.  Just poured
some solvent through & flushed with brake cleaner & compressed air.

Here's a photo to how I set the fan up.  The photo is hosted on my home
server so might be a bit slow to load... not the "instant" Internet we
are all so used to :)

http://www.williamsitconsulting.com/misc/DometicFan.jpg

Thanks for everyone's input.  At a bare minimum, I won't be woken up in
the middle of the night by a squealing fan :)

Cheers,
Steve Williams

http://www.williamsitconsulting.com/misc/DometicFan.jpg

On 28/08/2016 12:08 AM, Steve Williams wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The fan on my Dometic fridge started squealing quite loudly when it
> starts up.  Not so great in the middle of the night ;)
>
> I am just going to replace it with a computer fan.  I've got a few old
> PC's that I can butcher.  I figure I can cut up the metal from a power
> supply to make a suitable bracket.  Looking at the orientation of the
> existing fan, I'll have to make a 90 degree bracket which isn't too
> challenging if I use a power supply to cut up.
>
> I can't be the only person that's had to do this.  What size fan (cfm?)
> did you use?  What RPM did you use?  I'm going to try to find a fairly
> quiet fan, but really don't know what the cooling capacity should be.
>
> Thanks,
> Steve Williams

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