Note to self: buy spherical fridge.

@AttilaAsztalos

4 жыл бұрын

...or just convert a Tardis if you have access to one.

@lightdark00

4 жыл бұрын

I was thinking the same, but have the walls be a pressure vacuum.

@boobah5643

4 жыл бұрын

Yeah. at the four minute mark he seems to be saying that a cube is a bad shape for minimal surface-to-volume ratio; compare a cube with eight cubic whatever of interior space (which has six sides of four square units) for an exterior area of 24 square units, while a a one unit cube stretched on one axis to fit eight cubic units inside has four sides of eight square units each, plus two of one square unit each, for thirty-two plus two makes thirty-four square units of surface area. Mind, your spherical fridge of 8 cubic units has about nineteen and a third square units of surface area, and a diameter of about two and a half units.

@kruemmelbande5078

4 жыл бұрын

So the powercable goes onto the bott.... No the to... OK so now im Just gona put that open Plate of soup into there , and ill Just see how fast it will spill everything , that was fast

@Jim0i0

4 жыл бұрын

Best comment

Get a thermal camera and find out about the seals!

@caskwith

4 жыл бұрын

He already has a thermal camera, he is just being lazy! lol

@gauvaindf

2 жыл бұрын

In short, the camera without the improvements will only show what is obvious Because it is obvious that it is a weak point (because it is not a particularly insulating material) and the only way to prove that there is better is to do better and show it with this camera. Joint systems such as windows and modern doors would be more effective, because they are made for that, several hollow joints, or even joint in a porous material. but it's still ridiculous compared to several cm of insulation vs the space without and the thermal bridge created by this situation

I am, more than ever, convinced that I am the only person in this lovely world how actually enjoys the sound of a compressor kicking in.

@finonevado8891

4 жыл бұрын

It can be freaky while being alone in the middle of a silent night

@Hamachingo

4 жыл бұрын

I hate the initial hold but sort of enjoy the subtle noise of the pressure change that follows, with the raising pitch.

@michaels840

4 жыл бұрын

What about the sound when a heat pump goes into a defrost cycle? First time I saw this with all the "steam" discharging, it was pretty freaky.

@LucasM206

4 жыл бұрын

You are not! Few things are more satisfying than hearing the compressor kick in on your air conditioner on a hot day!

@RenigadeWarrior1

4 жыл бұрын

As a current maintenance tech and former appliance repair tech a smoothly running compressor is music to my ears.

Regarding surface area vs. volume, your more cubical freezer should be better for the same cubic footage. For a fixed cubic footage, the more cubical your freezer is, the less surface area it has. (Math in appendix below.) But there is a square-cube-law effect: if you double all the dimenions, you quadruple the surface area but octuple the volume, which improves the ratio. Vice versa, the smaller the volume, the worse the ratio of surface area to volume is if proportions are held fixed. Now, your analysis was still valid: if you double one dimension, you double the volume and less-than-double the surface area, and it improves. But that's just the general rule of increasing the volume in general, regardless of shape. If you take a half cube and double it into a cube, the ratio still improves; it's not that the cube is bad. So, if you're shopping for a fixed cubic footage, you should expect more-cubical is more efficient. Appendix: Here's an example. Compare a 2' x 2' x 2' cube to a 1' x 1' x 8' rectangular parallelepiped. Both have a volume of 8 cubic feet. The cube has 6 2' x 2' faces, for 6*4 = 24 square feet of surface area. The other has 4 1' x 8' faces and 2 1' x 1' face, for 4*8+2*1 = 34 square feet. Rather than prove this in the abstract, I'll just say that you'd probably guess that cubical is either best or worst, and this data shows that if it's either best or worst, it must be best.

@TechnologyConnextras

4 жыл бұрын

OK, so the thing that I should have brought up but didn't because I wasn't thinking about it was that we need to account for practical considerations. A cube would be the most efficient but if you're gonna have a larger refrigerator or freezer, scaling up the cube for bigger models becomes really impractical really fast. So while it's true that making it taller makes it less efficient than just scaling the cube, in the real world that's not really an option.

@wich1

4 жыл бұрын

This. Volume simply scales with 1.5th power of external surface, so the larger the fridge or freezer the more efficient it is going to be per unit of volume, at least during the times that it is closed. In terms of shape the best shape would be a sphere when only looking at the surface area, but that would of course be so ridiculously impractical that nobody would want one.

@UncleKennysPlace

4 жыл бұрын

@@wich1 Except for the late lamented _beer ball._

@GRBtutorials

4 жыл бұрын

Nah, efficiency is overrated. Anyone want to buy my Klein bottle refrigerator? It has zero volume!

@casperes0912

4 жыл бұрын

I love that this channel has comments with appendices...

Yeah, I was waiting for you to get around to the surface area to volume ratio. I wrote a really long detailed comment, but decided to just thumbs up the guy who wrote Note to self: buy spherical fridge.

I recently cleaned out my chest freezer while I've been stuck under quarantine so I rather appreciated these videos.

@SeanBZA

4 жыл бұрын

Still working on that, almost can see half way down it now, and am hitting tupperware of meals frozen in the past.

@troypetryk2043

4 жыл бұрын

Panning Out same

Finally, someone spitting real facts about fridges.

@nickwallette6201

4 жыл бұрын

Yeah, sick of the lies.

@geiger9

4 жыл бұрын

he's our hero who fights "big refrigeration". So sick of that cartel.

@KairuHakubi

3 жыл бұрын

The real cold hard facts.

I really really like the concept of these videos where we talk about things that people stopped talking about many decades ago -- not because these things were "solved" but because people got away with ignoring the problems our planet is dealing with. This is the decade of lifting these issues up on the table again and your videos are playing a respectable role in that!

@AubSec

4 жыл бұрын

Yeah like, Why are Christmas lights still only available in ugly RGB (and sometimes bright orange) colors?

@qwertyTRiG

4 жыл бұрын

As Steve Mould said, Technology Connections is about things you didn't know you were interested in.

I don't know why, but I've really enjoyed these videos. It seems like such an obvious thing that we all encounter, yet no one talks about. I'm sure this will stick in my head next time I go to buy a fridge.

@GameCyborgCh

4 жыл бұрын

Entertaining educational videos with no stupid sponsor spots. Nothing to complain

Fun fact: the weird plastic strip in a French door fridge (the thing that breaks...) is called the "mullion"

@Scorp1u5

4 жыл бұрын

And if it's red, it's called mullion rouge

@stevenplaysbone8791

4 жыл бұрын

I work for whirlpool. We specifically call it the flipper mullion.

@trueriver1950

4 жыл бұрын

Mullions do not only appear in fridges. In a window that is divided into smaller panned of glass, the vertical dividers are called mullions, and the horizontals are transoms. So it makes perfect sense that when they copied the French doors from French windows, they also copied the name of the parts (In England anyway)

@fantabuloussnuffaluffagus

Жыл бұрын

@@stevenplaysbone8791 A mullion is a part of a window. The thing that covers the crack beside the door is called an astragal.

You should do a video about Refrigerators that are propane and electric. The ones in RV's that run off of heating ammonia gas

@DMahalko

4 жыл бұрын

More research is needed to improve small scale absorption cooling. It can work as a sealed system without any mechanical parts, but it needs to have the heating cycled on and off. If it can work with continuous heat, it would be able to use solar thermal heating alone, and would be able to provide food and medical cooling for the poorest of the poor for decades.

@hyperman717

4 жыл бұрын

Dale Mahalko Absorption cooling seems to work fairly well at maintaining cold temperatures, but is very slow to get the temperatures to that point. I know in my RV I try not to open the fridge door for too long because I know that it will take a while to get back down to temperature. As for efficiency, I’m not sure. Haha. But on Gas or electric it seems to do well.

@NoobNoobNews

4 жыл бұрын

@@hyperman717 As I understand it, absorption is less efficient in terms of wattage. However, when you are in an RV, burning fuel to produce electricity and then using it to cool a fridge is terrible. Might as well just burn the fuel directly and get the fridge to work that way. It comes down to an economy of scale situation. You either burn a little fuel for a little absorption fridge, which is most efficient for one person. Burn tons of fuel to run a million electric compressor fridges, which is efficient for you if you are plugged into that grid. Or burn a ton of fuel to run a very very large absorption fridge for a single industrial application, which is a large scale version of the small scale little fuel for one little fridge. From what I have been able to gather, absorption is great for off-grid cooling, but bad for on-grid cooling. However, it is good at salvaging waste heat and converting it into cooling when applied at a larger scale in the context of industries that happen to give off of a ton of waste heat and want to put it to work doing something like cooling the building or something. It is an interesting technology.

@tanya5322

4 жыл бұрын

hyperman717 First, I’m gonna admit that much of the information in earlier replies went over my head, as college physics class was over 30 years ago. And... it’s early 😏 Your opening comment mentions ammonia gas. My chemistry knowledge is even slimmer and rustier than my physics, but what does ammonia have to do with the LP (liquid propane) (insanely cheap right now btw) used in RV refrigerators. And! Once used in household refrigerators. I’ve heard anecdotal tales of estate auction companies finding such units still keeping things cold some 30-40 years old.

@Markle2k

4 жыл бұрын

@@tanya5322 Ammonia has the highest heat capacity of any substance (water is #2) and its key phase change temperatures are particularly good for food storage refrigeration. It was removed from home fridges because of the danger of poisoning a household should it leak. It is still pretty common in commercial situations. The propane fridge works differently than a strict phase change heat pump. It's a bit more complex and a diagram will probably explain it better than this explanation which is likely wrong in some key area: It has some water to dissolve the ammonia on the evaporator side and hydrogen to convert the ammonia (NH3) to ammonium (NH4) on the cool side. The hydrogen plus ammonia reaction is endothermic. First off, you heat the water/ammonia mixture to boil off the ammonia with the propane flame. This travels across to the condenser where it returns to a liquid state. This is then mixed with the hydrogen to create ammonium which is then cooling off the cold side heat exchanger, and boiling due to its very low boiling point, and returns to the water tank. The water absorbs the ammonia and releases the hydrogen back to the other side. The ammonia/water solution gets moved to the evaporator where it all starts over again.

Another thing that's important is making sure you have adequate ventilation around the fridge, if you've got an alcove in your kitchen for the fridge and there's not enough of a gap between the fridge and the walls it warms up in there and your fridge is fighting a higher temperature differential than it needs to

One major advantage of the single speed compressor is reliability, the inverter is a simpler 3 phase motor yes, but unfortunately it has a very big drawback in the inverter driving it is in general built down to a price point. 3 phase motor in industry is the most reliable thing around, when it comes to turning electricity into motion, and will last essentially decades with zero maintenance. Sadly the inverter that drives it is not, and is the thing most likely to fail, after the internal fans used to blow air inside the case, so that the coils and defrost mechanism can be hidden behind a cover so the buyer does not get confused by al this technology stuff. I see all manufacturers loudly proclaim the compressor itself has a 10 year or more warranty on it, in large letters, but in the much smaller print at the back of the manual, there in the 1pt flyspec font they use for all the writing in the "warranty" section, you find this covers only the compressor motor and the pump attached to it, in the hermetic housing. Not the piping, not the case, not the controls or the expensive ( single most expensive part in the unit, as the manufacturers will only sell this as a set with a brand new compressor as service spare) inverter board. Compressor only, and not if it rusts through from the outside, because it condensed water in the off time, and it pooled at the bottom of the case and rusted off the mounting ears. Changed way too many AC compressors under warranty for failing, and those had a 5 year warranty, and I was, due to painting the case inside and outside every year, and cleaning the coils as they corroded, plus good record keeping, able to actually get those warranty claims held up. The supplier did not care, I was buying shedloads of other spare parts in the interim, along with new units on a regular basis. Indoor compressor run in a calm environment I would never change it, but these were all outside in the sun and rain. Fridges and freezers they were never worth repairing once the gas circuit needed anything, at least for the last 20 years, where as before you had separate coils inside and out, that are repairable, even if they are steel or aluminium.

@otto874

4 жыл бұрын

Why does some one run a fridge or freezer outside?

@MichaelFlatman

4 жыл бұрын

@@otto874 cooler outside means higher efficiency.. Maybe also no space in the house.. It's normal for chest freezers in the garage

Your audio is definitely getting better, I trained as a audio engineer years ago but was never able to follow my passion, I still listen to everything through my old DAW and studio monitors and your audio has been improving almost by an order of magnitude since you started, I found this totally listenable even on my monitors which normally aren't that complimentry on audio

Thank you for doing these videos! I appreciate the range of things you cover - from disability accessibility to the ingenuous engineering in appliances and devices. In this case, I really like that you cover the fact that there's competing needs and goals and not all of these are unreasonable given the usage for things. Thank you, your channel has become one of my favorites to follow!

1:10 “there’s a number of freezons for that” ;)

I can confirm inverter compressors being quiet. That and high efficiency were the two highest priorities when choosing a new fridge to buy about two years ago. The previous fridge was so loud it was literally stressing me out because my office/sleeping space is nextdoor to the kitchen. Having a fridge that I can't hear through the wall was an incredible relief.

@Scorp1u5

4 жыл бұрын

Is your refrigerator running?

@Steamrick

4 жыл бұрын

@@Scorp1u5 ...yes it is. I have no idea why you feel the need to ask, but yes.

@Scorp1u5

4 жыл бұрын

@@Steamrick kzread.info/dash/bejne/o4qI2ZerdbXUc5c.html

@qwertyTRiG

4 жыл бұрын

@@Scorp1u5 I now have further questions.

@Jeepers1984

4 жыл бұрын

If only you got a gas one....super quiet!

6:25 The problem is that space comes at a cost too. Like you mentioned in your previous video, for someone living off the grid where energy costs are much higher, but they have ample space, it makes more sense to focus on energy efficiency rather than space and convenience. Likewise for someone living in Manhattan or something where the cost of that additional few square feet of space needed is super high, but the cost of the extra power isn't, it's simply more economical to have smaller units that use more energy. This is why most regulations are so dumb. Different people have different needs. So instead of tighter regulations, what we need is more people like you who teach us the how and why to gain benefits on one end versus the other. It had not even occurred to me that the different shapes of a refrigerator or where the door is located would have such a big impact. Love your videos, keep it up!

You're right. The seals are huge issues. Look how often they become green and moldy from the constant humidity from leaks. They are easily warped and allow air/humidity gaps which is not good. They are actually really easy to replace, but still, there has to be a better way.

@craignehring

4 жыл бұрын

I would like to see a wider door seal with an easy clean feature. I worked for a place that stamped out compressor parts, it blew my mind how many new compressors were no doubt being made every day and this was for the most part prior to the invasion of imported appliances.

@bbgun061

4 жыл бұрын

And the one in the video did not even have a flat surface to seal against! That should be a perfectly smooth mating surface, not textured like the outside. I'll have to check my fridge to see what its mating surfaces are like...

@renakunisaki

4 жыл бұрын

One obvious improvement would seem to be putting additional seals on the fridge part, so that the door seal goes between them.

One more thing to consider: Annual energy consumption ratings are usually based on some sort of an average use case, i.e. 3-4 loads a week for a washing machine/dishwasher. Since a fridge is usually opened much more often than a freezer it is possible that its annual energy consumption is determined with a different methodology i.e. 10 door openings per day vs. 2 for the freezer. Thus a it may amplify inefficiencies that are due to design but also exaggerate the real difference. I had a quick look at a chest vs standing freezers. Only to find out that the energy ratings vary from model to model just as much as between the designs for roughly the same volume (there were some upright freezer rated better than the chest freezers)

@taiwanluthiers

9 ай бұрын

I'm not even sure how yearly consumption is measured with AC units because I'm seeing figures at the store, and my AC uses their yearly consumption in one month. They might assume a use case of something like 1 to 2 hours of use per day or something. In Taiwan that's impossible.

If you want a grossly inefficient minifridge, find one that uses a thermoelectric cooling (aka Peltier).

@cezarcatalin1406

4 жыл бұрын

Well, yes but technically you can get away with a fairly efficient Peltier fridge. The smaller the current through a Peltier the higher the efficiency.

@sixstringedthing

4 жыл бұрын

My partner is a bit of a hoarder and I found one of these peltier mini fridges made to look like a miniature old-timey 1950's refrigerator. Can't find the original power supply (it uses an uncommon keyed rectangular 2-pole socket) which is probably actually a blessing in disguise. I'm thinking about pulling it apart and making a peltier-cooled laptop table for my aging Core i7 gen 2 laptop, which gets a bit hot under the collar at times. It's about the only decently practical use I can think of for the thing.

@squirrelnut

4 жыл бұрын

@@sixstringedthing linus tech tips did something like this. It's not with it due to their inefficient nature.

@sixstringedthing

4 жыл бұрын

@@squirrelnut coincidental timing on your reply, I just pulled the thing apart to tinker with last night after jerryrigging a suitably beefy power supply, it draws a bit over 4 amps @ 12V in cooling mode. LTT is dead right in saying they're not efficient enough, the cold-side heatsink does get quite chilly but doesn't have a huge amount of surface area to absorb heat from the air, and the hot-side heatsink gets so hot just from the ~40W load of the Peltier that I'd need to dig out my old watercooling gear to manage the total heat load effectively. Complete overkill and inefficiency to cool a laptop that's only dissipating about 60W itself. It was fun to muck about with though, as I never got the chance to play with one when I was into overclocking/extreme cooling. 🙂

As for the air leaving the freezer: my freezer has internal drawers: 3 of them which hold the cold air. First of all, you generally only open one of them, and secondly they are vertical containers of air. They do take out quite a bit of space, but they are also a usability feature. Same for the coldest part of the fridge above it for the veggies. That design is pretty standard in EU, and I was really surprised that I didn't see much of it in your vid. The slideout will only be slightly more usable at the cost of efficiency. In Europe we have multiple energy levels, using letters a bit like the US system used at schools (for which we simply use numbers in the range 1..10 of course). For the A level there is also A+ and A++ to distinguish the levels. That probably means readjustment in a while so we can get even more efficient. Almost nobody buys a B fridge anymore, and that's a good thing. It seems to work a lot better than the US number indications.

@KairuHakubi

3 жыл бұрын

So the freezer looks like a chest of drawers? that's pretty smart.

My dad bought a small show-offy mini fridge with a full glass door in the front, which is very thin indeed. It's possibly the word possible combination. Draws as much power as a full sized standing fridge, and runs almost constantly. Would not recommend

@CommodoreFan64

4 жыл бұрын

I have an aunt & uncle who live at the beach, and the 3 story(from the garage to the top floor, and 4 if you want to count the roof deck), and in their open kitchen/ indoor breakfast/dinning/living room, they have a fridge like that with the racks for bottles, and cans, & sometimes you can feel the cold on the glass, it looks cool, but not something I would recommend either, unless you have buckets of cash to pay the power bill each month.

@SeanBZA

4 жыл бұрын

To keep the glass from frosting up there is a heater inside the glass, keeping it above dew point all the time. So it is always going to be warm to the touch, with half the heat going out ad half inside. Tempered glass as well, so it will not turn into shards when broken, so thick, and expensive to replace as well, as you need to have a new door complete, as the inner space is filled with dry argon gas to keep it from condensing on the inside, and thus is sealed at the factory during production.

@Doct0r0710

4 жыл бұрын

@@SeanBZA I guess that's what it should be like, but this is literally just a thin plane of glass. No cables go to the door (thin hinges on the top and bottom), and this glass is definitely not dual plane. It was cheap though, probably a knock off of some real fridge

@SeanBZA

4 жыл бұрын

@@Doct0r0710 Even worse then, but those panels can be only a half inch thick and still work well, i had a small desktop fridge with that, which I got cheap as used, and finally scrapped because it corroded the evaporator coil out.

@xaytana

4 жыл бұрын

It'll be interesting to see the future of glass-front fridges and freezers if we ever find a way to produce aerogel in large dimensions, and if we ever find a way to make aerogel have glass-like clarity.

I'm sure you've seen those chest freezer to fridge conversions online. Much beloved of the off-grid community due to the efficiency of using a chest freezer as a fridge & the energy it saves when compared with trying to run a fridge.

Let's replace the swinging door with a downward sliding panel, so you can put the most commonly accessed items on the top shelf and only expose as much cold air as necessary.

@HebaruSan

4 жыл бұрын

@@emmafitzmaurice499 Good criticism, definitely something that would have to be figured out. First thing that comes to mind is a slot in the floor, or limiting the height and putting it on a stand so the door slides down below the fridge.

@renakunisaki

4 жыл бұрын

@@HebaruSan have the stand be a freezer!

@HebaruSan

4 жыл бұрын

@@renakunisaki Yeah maybe, and the freezer can be a drawer bin that slides out and only opens on the top.

@sus1221

4 жыл бұрын

While we're exploring designs, what about Delorean wing doors? They probably would actually worsen efficiency...but at least they'd look cool!

That compressor startup sound was giving me PTSD from when I lived in a tiny studio apartment and slept right next to the refrigerator

@pespsisipper

3 жыл бұрын

i'm living in a tiny studio and i'm sleeping right next to the refrigerator and i can't sleep

@DEMIAN000

3 жыл бұрын

@@pespsisipper crank the fridge all the way up (coldest possible) 3 to 5 hours before sleeping, then right before sleep crank it all the way down (less cold) so it makes less noise when you are starting to sleep, i hope it helps

The word you wanted for making something taller is "heighten".

@CaveyMoth

4 жыл бұрын

Vertify

@altersami9660

4 жыл бұрын

@@CaveyMoth Laterallate

@jamesplotkin4674

4 жыл бұрын

Just as "longerer" is acceptable, I believe "heightener" is definitely appropriate for Haier.

@smwillia

4 жыл бұрын

Emtallen. Like embiggen.

@BobbinMcferry

4 жыл бұрын

Longerize

Brom Hepot. This actually made me laugh and put a smile on my face. Thanks for that!

As some have pointed out about the inherent qualities of a chest freezer, a chest refrigerator is within grasp if energy savings is paramount. Converting one is a very simple task and here on KZread one can find many tutorials. I myself like the old school capillary manual controls. Most modern refrigerators will never make it to be really "old". Either the compressor burns out or the controls go bad and deemed to expensive to repair... there goes your "green" tech, right to the scrap heap. I have a GE refrigerator that was made around 1984, it has never required any service parts but it does pull on average more power than the modern units. Keeping a freezer or refrigerator full does help to maintain the cold as it prevents the cavity from filling with warm air

@rolfs2165

4 жыл бұрын

The first fridge I bought (after the one I got … fourth- or fifth-hand from a friend died) needed to have its compressor replaced three times in the span of as many years (it always died shortly before it was out of warranty). The last compressor was a different model because the original one wasn't produced any more, and worked like a charm for many years. Don't know what has become of it because I left it behind with the rest of the kitchen when moving (not a common thing to do here in Germany).

@SeanBZA

4 жыл бұрын

Converting is simply a matter of replacing the clone Ranco thermostat with the appropriate fridge model, or retrofitting a digital controller and contactor into the space. then you have both digital readout, and the ability to have it go from fridge to freezer as required, plus the advantages of cheap digital thermostats being programmable for things like on delay, hysteresis and having open circuit sensor protection.

@theodore998

4 жыл бұрын

the chest refrigerator was mentioned in the full video on the main channel

@EngineeringNibbles

2 жыл бұрын

I know it's a two year old video but for reference for future browsers: Had a 1998 GE American fridge, used ~3kwh per day, upgrading to a modern one and now use 320-350wh/day. Old fridge was definitely poorly insulated (exterior felt cold to the touch) and I later learned after changing it out that the insulation had probably flaked and needed to be replaced

Excellent presentation of basic refrigeration principles-- even reversal (in the heat pump) of their most common application. And, for me, a bonus-- until now, I had presumed there was a tiny vacuum pump pulling the freezer door shut when it was closed. Unlike many technology videos, your scripts are detailed enough to be valuable, and address actual usage issues. Clearly, some subjects are not completely addressed with simple, single-factor answers. Echo from the new mike is all but undetectable/unnoticeable-- you had to mention it before it was noticed. On the new inverter motors which run at variable speed for better efficiency, that cost savings also translates into longer equipment lifespan. BTW, the inverter motors also have made their way into air conditioners, where the billions of kilowatts wasted cooling empty rooms around the world will be saved. Finally, we appreciate your mention of the new refrigerant standard R1234YF. At last, we have something with few environmental damages, illustrating a green revolution is a matter of adjusting the new research and technology, not denying it has value.

another reason why mini-fridges are inefficient is the evaporator is small yet doesn't use a fan, doesn't have fins. A chest freezer makes up for the lack of fan/fins in a lot of surface area. the worse heat transfer characteristics the coils have, the higher the compression ration has to be to transfer the same amount of heat. Higher compression ratio = more energy to move and boil off/condense the refrigerant.

I like the echo it makes you seem more omnipotent.

This video changed my life. Thank you very much!

Regarding the seals, the -80°C freezers in my workplace have a seal very similar to the standard fridges, except it's doubled (one seal just inside the other). These monsters have massive insulation, around 10-15cm/4-5in. In any case, many home freezers have a HEATED seal so it doesn't stick. That probably lowers the overall efficiency. As always, great content. Cheers!

@matsv201

4 жыл бұрын

At my last work we had a thermal chamber. Both heat and cooling. It had a large window in the front.. with 5 levels of glass

I think something you missed here is that when you increase the size of a 3d shape. the surface area increases by the square of the radius while the volume increases by the cube of the radius. so larger freezers have a larger ratio of cold air vs surface area of the walls of the freezer for the air to absorb heat from.

@remytherat1357

4 жыл бұрын

he does mention it. around 3:30 ish

@Hephera

4 жыл бұрын

@@remytherat1357 no he's talking about the difference in surface area between two shapes, ie a sphere and a cube. hes not talking about the fact that the ratio of volume to surface area changes when you increase in size no matter what shape you're using.

@RolandHutchinson

2 жыл бұрын

On a related note, he missed the fact that a cube with 2 cu ft. interior would have only about 7.56 sq ft of surface (6 times the square of the cube root of 2), as opposed to the 10 sq. ft of surface of his theoretical 1 x 1 x 2 ft box.

I'm actually looking for a new fridge/freezer combo at the moment and your video has definitely influenced the things I'm paying attention to.

Hi, Technology Connections! If you're going to continue doing videos that look at things like energy consumption and/or insulation of various parts, it may be worth investing in an infrared camera. That would help you investigate the your hypothesis about the rubber gaskets on refrigerators, for instance.

From my observations chest freezer use less energy for mainly two reasons: - The design itself with a front door fridge/freezer might be convenient, but it is a huge flaw. Everytime you open the door the cold air falls down. That's why a fully loaded front door fridge is (or should be?) more efficent. - A fridge is generally opend many times a day, while a (chest) freezer is opend mostly just one or two times per day (it might even stay closed for a few or many days). - That's just a theory: The whole heat pump system works better the bigger the temperature gap is. It might be more efficent to produce a drop of 40 Kelvin than 20 Kelvin. But after seeing your videos: They are many factors.

Audio sounded perfect to me. Keep up the great work!

I literally always thought that chest freezers had a vacuum pump and sucked the air out. I don't know if someone told me that, or I just assumed. I never noticed the suction on a refrigerator, but always on a deep freezer, commercial or home, upright or chest. I seriously thought they got their efficiency from a vacuum... You explained it clearly on the other video, this is because the fresh air is being cooled rapidly and drops the pressure. I'm still rolling back through memories, updating with this new insight. I must have believed that since I was a kid. I remember eating frozen cookies in Grandma's basement, waiting for the "vacuum" to shut off so I could open the door again... Mind = blown.

I enjoyed both of these videos. The audio sounded great on this one. I wonder if the thin walls are on the compact fridges because otherwise the compressor would be “too” efficient and keep it too cold. Manufacturers might want to limit the number of compressor models they make. Also your explanation of why chest freezers work so well answers why grocery stores chose to use the drop in refrigerator units. I always thought those seemed really inefficient but it makes sense that they could be open at the top since the cold air gathers at the bottom. Thanks for the great content.

Dude, you make even box freezers interesting.....what a talent!

The best regulation is a well informed consumer. All legislators/regulators need do is force the companies to list efficiency and related numbers that will inform well enough for a consumer to make an informed decision. Alec (sic?) is doing that service in these videos and one reason (among others) I love his videos. Thank you!

Appliance repair technician here; that plastic swingy bit between the doors is, in fact, a weak point. Both in terms of design and in terms of thermal captivity. That piece is referred to as a Mullion Heater. Its purpose is to heat up and prevent condensation from forming around the door seals when the doors are opened and closed and the fridge's external moisture sensor (typically located at the top of the refrigerator under a plastic cover along with other simple electronics like a door switch and possibly a daughter board on some models) detects high enough moisture in the surrounding air to justify powering that little heating element. The mullion heater saves you wiping down the edges of your door every so often in exchange for a slightly higher total energy consumption for the appliance. It also breaks a lot. Moving parts and wiring don't generally mix, since the insulation on wires usually doesn't like all that rubby, grindy business. If you ever need additional insight on any household appliances or their function, I'm here! I fix them for a living.

@regular-joe

9 ай бұрын

Rural resident here, no repair techs available, can I ask - the fan in my fridge doesn't always turn smoothly, is there a best lubricant for that? Hoping for but not expecting a reply....but, thanks, just in case!

One thing I found interesting in another youtube video was someone cut open a compressor. I never opened one since they are sealed but I was surprised how small the pistons are on these things.

@mrb692

4 жыл бұрын

Robin Kent Makes sense given the high(ish) pressure the system runs under. Pressure = Force / Area, so by reducing the area they reduce the force the motor needs to produce.

@markchriestenson3257

4 жыл бұрын

Also the high pressure line is the thickness of a spaghetti noodle. I found this out while disassembling one.

@Blox117

4 жыл бұрын

you mean im not supposed to drink the tasty refrigerant?

@markchriestenson3257

4 жыл бұрын

@@Blox117 Well... It would be a gas!

@trueriver1950

4 жыл бұрын

Seriously, phase don't do this. The refrigerant is both a greenhouse gas and usually has some impact on the ozone, even if it's an ozone friendly one. The compressor should only be dismantled after the system has been drained off and stored safely for recycling or reprocessing.

Something of interest. My Dad was an electrician and about 50 years ago when I was a kid and I had tagged along with him to an emergency call to repair a freezer system at a food factory (back in the days when "irresponsible" parents did this kind of thing, you didn't need a 2 day safety briefings to enter a factory and hearing protection, safety goggles and gloves weren't required to use a stapler). Anyway, this freezer plant was a huge thumping old amazing thing (~the size of a large bus) and it used ammonia as it's refrigerant. Now days I appreciate how totally dead everybody in that place would have been had that system ever lost it's refrigerant.

Thanks for the follow-up, refrigeration technology is fascinating.

I didn't know this channel was real I thought it was a one time thing. I subbed just now.

So you're telling me I need to design THE SPHERE FREEZER, featuring vacuum insulation like a thermos.

@OGSumo

4 жыл бұрын

IT’S SPHERICAL

@martinxXsuto

3 жыл бұрын

with insulation that reflects in the thermal IR range

I have heard of vaccuum sealed freezer insulation for boat installations. More insulation in less volume, but it costs a lot more.

@GameCyborgCh

4 жыл бұрын

Yeah manufactures of standard fridges and freezers use the cheapest insulation (probably Styrofoam, don't know never sawed a fridge in half). Sure they could use better insulation but no one would buy these since they'd cost a fortune

@makomk

4 жыл бұрын

Apparently some of the premium Samsung fridges use vacuum panel insulation to improve the amount of space inside. They're not cheap though.

@MikeTrieu

4 жыл бұрын

You can buy those VIPs yourself from Digikey and upgrade your existing freezer fridge after gutting the styrofoam/PU foam. It's not that expensive in the long-run when you consider how much money you'll be saving in energy costs.

@kuyaleinad4195

4 жыл бұрын

Hashirama Senju Our 13 year old Samsung Fridge Freezer just broke and can confirm the insulation was just blocks of styrofoam glued into the internal walls of the fridge 🤷‍♂️ We had to pry the back open since the self-defrosting stopped working and the condensers started to form ice so the fridge wasn’t staying at 3 degrees anymore :/

I'm soon going to be living alone and will be purchasing a chest freezer which will be adequate for me. Thanks for informing me on this. Appreciate it 👍

thanks retro dad! glad to finally see the design reasons to why these were soo different to each other for their energy consumption

You're correct about the audio quality being a step down from the first video. Watching them just minutes apart makes it very obvious the main video had much better audio quality.

One other advantage of dual evaporator refrigerators is that because the freezer air is separate from the fresh food section that typically gets opened much more often, the freezer evaporator will take much longer to ice over, so the defrost heater will need to be run less often than a single evaporator setup. Fresh food refrigerator compartments are above freezing, so frost formation on the evaporator can be melted away by running the evaporator fan (blasting the evaporator with warmer than freezing air) when the compressor is turned off (if the refrigerator is designed well, some still have a heater for the fresh food). One disadvantage of dual evaporators is that fresh food evaporators seem much more prone to leaking than freezer evaporators, I guess corrosion is speeded up by being in a wet rather than frozen environment, dual evaporator systems tend to die young. Good video, as a domestic appliance tech, I agree with all of your conclusions and assumptions.

You raised some good points. I too wish we had a fridge that was just like a box freezer.

I appreciate you, I feel the same way about people who leave their computers on 24/7, like you said small gains across the board add up quickly.

When I watched the original I kept waiting for you to describe the bomb ass insulation on cheat freezers. I never get used to how little space there is inside compared to how it looks from the outside.

I recently ordered a 12-24v dc Alpicool 21qt. cooler style compressor freezer-fridge from the internet when it was 55 percent off on black friday. It has a tiny dc variable speed compressor that consumes between 20 and 50 watts. I use it for camping and tailgate parties. A 100w solar panel and 35ah 12v battery is more than adequate to power it up in remote areas. Not only was it less expensive than the Yeti I own, it's actually used more often!

That is a very valuable topic to cover

One thing that I've found as an effective method of improving the door seals without losing your warranty, or safety, is a pair of neodymium magnets with hooks on them acting as a latch. It can still be pushed open with ease because it will just slide off the edge of the metal with a single finger's worth of pressure, but it's just enough force to hold the door closer to the main body a little bit better.

1:55 I know I'm 2 years late but I just watched the chest freezer video and IMO you absolutely did put enough emphasis on the thick walls, I got the idea that the insulation was the point.

I really enjoyed this video, thanks

Thanks! I will think about this. I just wish that the manufacturers put a meter on it, so that we could test the significance of our choices in the way that we use it.

@Technology Connextras Wonderful pair of videos yet again. I'd like to point out to you that there is a good reason why we define heat pumps as separate from fridges, even though they are really the same thing. The calculation of efficiency is useful work done / input energy. This means that heat pumps have efficiency > 1 and engines have efficiency Actually, if insulation thickness is the real reason chest freezers are so much better, then really we should be considering trying to turn small chest freezers on their sides to make them open like fridges. Rig your own racks and you should be good to go. Since fridge condensers switch on so infrequently, I wonder if there is some design change that could make them more efficient. The precision machining improvements we have had over the past half century surely isn't only going into pinning down insignificant digits...

Your audio is FINE! Better than some OTHER KZreadrs whose names I won't mention :)

Super cool dorm fridge hack! Ok, my shed is the party shack. It can be anywhere between 10 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit in there! Yes, there is a heat source for winter. Now I'm an appliance technician so I get how important phase change is. Here's the hack. Summer mode...small rechargeable battery operated fan gets put inside, cooling the restock beer quick. On top of fridge, blowing down the side is another fan I rigged into the harness so it comes on with compressor. It's my little super fridge!

Dude! Your bad audio is better than many channels best efforts.

I haven't noticed any issues with the audio in your main videos: I think it sounds just fine. I probably would not have noticed the echo in this video if you didn't mention it. It wasn't distracting, but now it is. Thanks. :D (I'll get over it.)

I immediately noticed the better audio even before you mentioned.

We use baskets inside our chest freezer, that are designed so they can be slid over each other (a bit like the puzzle) . The hanging basket then fills the space required for sliding a basket.to move. They really enable great organisation of the chest freezer contents. In the Uk they are made by "Hamster Baskets", and are bespoke but a reasonable price. We choose our replacement freezers based on the dimensions of our existing baskets - so far so good, but with insulation getting thicker, I see a problem for the future (ie will need to get new baskets made). BTW they really help when it comes to defrosting - just stack them on the floor and wrap some bubble wrap round them while the defrosting is in progress.

I ran across a video with a really interesting fridge. It was cylindrical and hydraulically lifted the contents up. This leaves the cold air inside but you can access everything at the bottom without lifting things out. I forget the name of the video but it was primarily about a subterranean home designed and built by the guy who inspired the movie Fly Away Home by teaching migration patterns to geese and other birds.

I hope that the specifications for measuring the number of times you open your fridge compared to your freezer is higher, which would make those numbers not directly comparable. It’s probably still correct tho I would be interested in the difference

It would (//might//) be interesting to look into the energy rating test protocols and compare US / Canada to see how that influences the results you noted in the first video, and also to see how the manufacturers play up to them - whether the standard conditions are representative of domestic conditions. Of course, US ambient conditions cover a different range to Candian, so that would account for needing a different performance standard.

Good video people need to think about this stuff. Also the inverter drive compressors have another benefit, they don't have a start up surge. They ramp up slowly

My biggest take-away is that this dude eats a lot of pizza.

So carefully shaped and placed blanket can probably increase the efficiency of your mini fridge.

Probably as important as the style of fridge is where you put it in your house. If you do what many do and put a fridge/freezer in a cupboard or under the stairs (or in any confined area) it'll have to work overtime as the air in the enclosed space will quickly get hot and increase the heat differential between the inside/outside. ....and definitely don't put it in the same area as your household boiler. If you live in a temperate climate the best place any kind of fridge/freezer is in an unheated outbuilding or in your garage. As mentioned in the video though, increased efficiency often comes at a cost of convenience. --- Also, I don't think the argument about a full fridge being more efficient is particularly about thermal mass, more about there being less air able to fall out and be replaced with warm. Eg. if you stacked balloons full of air on the shelves of an empty upright fridge they're going to have a pretty lousy thermal mass but will mean far less warm air enters the fridge on opening & closing the door.

@rolfs2165

4 жыл бұрын

Or the basement, if you have one.

@DEADB33F

4 жыл бұрын

Ah yes. They aren't common here so I didn't think of that.

I don't know if today's upright freezers have it this way. But I remember some upright freezers in the past had unmovable shelves because they attached coolant lines to the shelves to help keep things frozen better by giving the heat more of an area to absorb the heat and remove it. I have a mini upright freezer that has shelves like this. There are actually more variable speed compressors than we know about. You can find them more in campers and RVs since they don't have such a robust power supply like a house does. Campers and RVs only have 30-50amp power supplies in them when connected to power. And a lot of them have power inverters so they can run off of the grid. They have a variable speed that allows the compressor to slowly ramp up so it doesn't put as much of a shock on the power system when it starts up.

Great updating👍 Thanks for sharing👍😀

The thing about the seals is, when they do their job correctly their heat leakage is a tiny portion of the total. When the box is closed the pressure difference between the top and the bottom is very little so it's easy to stop air from slipping through. As for the conducted heat, it is a lot worse than the foam but the area is so much smaller.

I've worked at an electric appliance company for a while, and apparently there are fridges and freezers that have "vacuum bottles" inside the walls for extra insulation. Also foam has the problem that over the years it can absorb water, lowering its thermal resistance. This means that over time the device will get less and less efficient. Also I have learned that there is an Australian company making double compartment dish washers, which is an ingenious idea.

After a quick search, I found a mini-fridge with the lid on top, and the people in the reviews love the lower energy consumption. One even ran it on solar! It's even capable of acting as a freezer if the user desires!

8:53 Yes! Thank you for using UNIVERSAL measurement units! 👍👍👍 Greetings from Portugal.

Things that can improve the energy efficiency of freezers / refrigerators. - closed drawers. This means opening the door will not allow so much air to get out of the cooled compartment. Especially for freezers this makes a lot of difference. (The drawers do not open with the door) - Smaller access doors behind the main door to limit access if you just need a single item. This also limits the loss and is the same reason they use them in stores these days. - the box model (chest / table model) with a pull up layers. (Something like how a toolbox works) this would allow for easier access and allow faster retrieval and filling of the box. (The biggest thermal loss aside from the environment). - a multi layer door seal (so multiple tracks of rubbers) so you have a layer of trapped air acting like a thermal insulator. - heat extractor -> boiler. Ergo the heaters “heat” becomes a resource to be used to add heat to warm stored water or some other useful use for exces heat. Some of these are available in the market. Some have been considered but were at the time not economical viable. (I disagreed with the guy from philips telling me so, but he was only a sales rep....)

Another improvement to the door gaskets would be how much energy is used for the mullion heaters - if the door frame is better insulated it can use less or none. Growing up we had a FORD-PHILCO fridge that had a switch to turn the mullion heaters off in the winter when condensation was not an issue. Only we'd forget and the gaskets would get all nasty with mildew.

@tehgangstadawg

4 жыл бұрын

Most modern refrigerators have a "yoder loop" running warm refrigerant from before or after the condenser running around the mullion instead of an electric mullion heater for a little better efficiency.

That specific mini-fridge has the condenser coils in the exterior skin of the unit, very similar to your exemplar chest freezer. FWIW, I have one of those ~ 2.xx cu-ft Danby units with an external A319 thermostat on it and some low-draw 12VDC circulation fans for storing materials that need to be cool (55°F) but not refrigerated ... works very well.

Heated surfaces like the ice flap dont help, and the 200 watt ice tray heater, 600 watt defrost coil. Hanging clear visqueen in your SxS freezer segments keep cold air from spilling out.

Very informative and interesting video. Just a thought, do you think exploring better insulation is worthwhile or are they pretty good? What if we could have a 1" thick new insulation that is equivalent to 3" conventional insulation.

Fridge door seals could, instead of being flat, have a groove in the door frame, and a ridge in the seal. Another thought is to have a contour to the door frame, such as an inward or outward facing angle, or a concave or convex curve. I do believe some commercial and industrial cold storage doors do have some of these, including more elaborate frame and door sealing interfaces with multiple "steps" to the shape.

Thank you for directing me to a good place to get all my mini fridge needs. I will now shop at Brome Hibo until the day I die.

One of the best insulators for heat is non-moving air. I had two Igloo coolers made with the same plastic shell, but one had their Max Cool insulation while the other had their Max Cold insulation. The Max Cold kept ice almost twice as long as the Max Cool. The difference between the two insulators is how much air is trapped. For more examples, compare sleeping bag fills - plain nylon with Hollofill, Quallofill, Hallofill 808 and other more modern materials.

Something that I think could contribute to inefficiency is that usually heat is transferred to the back of the refrigerator, and that space between its back and the wall gets really hot. In other words, there is a really hot spot right next to something you want to keep cold. It would probably improve efficiency significantly to have that heat source cool down further from the refrigerator, or at least somewhere with better air circulation.

My mom had one of those small fridges with the little freezer compartment and it didn't really get cold. I actually put beer in the freezer compartment to get it cold at all and even then I had to leave it in there for a long time or it would still be warm. If you want really cold beer but you only have the room for a small fridge, get an ice chest instead because the beer will be colder and, even though you can to have a bunch of ice for it, the chest itself is a hell of a lot cheaper. If you have one of those chest freezers, you can always fill some bags with water and freeze them for the ice chest so that you can keep reusing them.

Imo it’s valid to speak of “letting out the cool” when we’re talking about convective losses where the actual cooled air is literally dumping out on the floor. In that case, it’s really not so much energy being let in, as that the air with less energy is physically escaping.

I've added small computer fans to the inside of mini fridges in the past. I've found a big increase in efficiency. It also keeps the freezer section from icing up.

Dude your audio is just fine, relax.

We are all very lucky that the universe created a person so enthused by household electrical appliances.

Would you be able to measure where the weakest insulation points are with a thermal camera?

@syber-space

4 жыл бұрын

Maybe, but it might be difficult to differentiate leak from intentional components. Plus the reflectivity would cause issues for many (not to mention metal conducting heat all over). I'm not sure how much it would achieve, but it might be interesting.

@Steamrick

4 жыл бұрын

Yes, the spots with the worst insulation would be the coldest

@trevorc4413

4 жыл бұрын

Quick look with a thermal camera reveals that the rubber seal is significantly warmer than the metal body. (72 degrees F vs 82) This is probably because the body is metal, and doesn't really mean much.

@SuperVstech

4 жыл бұрын

Sean Todd to properly do so, the system would need to be off, and a very hot mass be inside the box. Trying to see cold escaping, or different heat absorbing into the operating box would be impractical...

@Markle2k

4 жыл бұрын

@@trevorc4413 Put a piece of electrical tape on the metal and your emissivity issues are solved.

I doubt this will ever happen but it’s just a thought Aerogel is a fantastic insulator without taking up a lot of space. If I could become mass produceable, it could be applied to refrigeration units to improve insulation without penalizing interior volume

@matsv201

4 жыл бұрын

Aerogel pellets is around and you can buy them.

I would like to see a video expanding on the subject of refrigerator door seals. I would like to know the different energy usages between and old model with a latching door compared to a modern rubber door seal. I wonder if the more efficient door latch offsets the less efficient insulation due to cheaper electricity costs back in the 1940's and 50's. Does today's far greater importance placed on insulation more than make up for the less efficient rubber seal? Keep up the great work.