Picked up a used Norcold fridge several months ago with the intention of eventually having it permanently mounted in the back of my Scout (as in I was planning on bolting it up through the bottom of the floor cargo floor). I had it running continuously running in the garage since as a second fridge, and finally took it out for a test run in the Scout yesterday. Worked great all day long in the 110*+ heat on a separate, isolated battery, even being open to the sun and frequently being opened for water. Let it run overnight on that same battery, and it finally gave out sometime during the night. When I opened it this morning, it was still cool, though not cold, and had a considerable amount of condensation inside.
Of course, this is to be expected, given the current humidity level, basic laws of thermodynamics, frequently opening it, and these things aren't like typical in house fridges. But it got me thinking of ways to make life easier for minimizing this, and future cleaning since it won't be an easy feat to remove it from the truck at a later point.
What I was thinking of doing was to add a drain similar to what many ice coolers have, connected through a ball valve and drain hose to the outside so I can just spray the inside down and let the water drain out, then leave a small package of something like Damprid in the fridge to help minimize future condensation issues.
I didn't find anything related to desiccants on this forum, and Googling it just brought up a bunch of posts of people attempting to avoid frost in the freezers with a typical response of "why bother? Just defrost on a regular basis like everyone else". I put my fridge into freezer mode once, just to see if it would do it, and I don't plan on using it as a freezer often enough to be concerned about frost issues.
Anyone else already go down this path? In theory, it seems like a sound idea, but I don't know if it will end up being say, prohibitively expensive trying to keep the moisture out and I should just plan on occasionally emptying it, washing it out, and just dealing with it...
Of course, this is to be expected, given the current humidity level, basic laws of thermodynamics, frequently opening it, and these things aren't like typical in house fridges. But it got me thinking of ways to make life easier for minimizing this, and future cleaning since it won't be an easy feat to remove it from the truck at a later point.
What I was thinking of doing was to add a drain similar to what many ice coolers have, connected through a ball valve and drain hose to the outside so I can just spray the inside down and let the water drain out, then leave a small package of something like Damprid in the fridge to help minimize future condensation issues.
I didn't find anything related to desiccants on this forum, and Googling it just brought up a bunch of posts of people attempting to avoid frost in the freezers with a typical response of "why bother? Just defrost on a regular basis like everyone else". I put my fridge into freezer mode once, just to see if it would do it, and I don't plan on using it as a freezer often enough to be concerned about frost issues.
Anyone else already go down this path? In theory, it seems like a sound idea, but I don't know if it will end up being say, prohibitively expensive trying to keep the moisture out and I should just plan on occasionally emptying it, washing it out, and just dealing with it...