Fridge in truck toolbox

Scoutman

Explorer
I just picked up a Dometic CFX-35 with the intent of placing it in my truck toolbox. Since I have an open truck bed and no space in the cab this will let me keep it secure and out of the elements and the convenience of having it with me all the time. One thing I need to address, after I get proper wiring to it, is the ventilation. I've seen fridges in trailer tongue boxes before but I'm curious if anyone has ever had any instances of one overheating and if so what were your conditions? Would a simple vent be sufficient or would one with a powered fan be needed?

Forgot to take a picture of it in there but will do that next time I get a chance.

For example, here is a Schutt trailer tongue box with an ARB-50 in fairly close quarters. I can't tell if the box has any ventilation or not.

Xventure-XV2-12399-1024x682.jpg
 

mep1811

Gentleman Adventurer
The fridge needs to vent heat. Adding a fan to the toolbox would defeat having a weatherproof box.
 

poriggity

Explorer
Yes.. You will need to vent this setup.. It won't work properly if you don't. I've seen it when I block the fans on my arb at all it does not work as efficiently and the compressor gets warm.

Sent from my LG-H810 using Tapatalk
 

Scoutman

Explorer
The fridge needs to vent heat. Adding a fan to the toolbox would defeat having a weatherproof box.

Any openings cut in the box would be in the 'wings' or overhangs to the bed rail and any vents would be louvered. That's also where the power would enter either through a grommet-ed hole or some sort of bulkhead connector.

41NuIPSL9aL.jpg
 

Scoutman

Explorer
The main vents are on the sides with some small vent holes (much smaller than they appear in the picture) in the end closest to the handle.

One side has a fan already running (I believe pushing air out). Wondering if it just needs some place to exhaust that air to.

CFX-35US.jpg
 
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Stumpalump

Expedition Leader
Yes. Let the heat blow out. Push in soffit vents or a ceiling AC duct vent from lowes/Home Depot would be easy. Better yet and bulletproof would be expanded steel.
 

Scoutman

Explorer
I was considering a fan, just not sure if it's needed just yet. On our truck camper fridge it had a little 12v fan that was switched on via a temperature switch located on the cooling fins of the evaporator.
 

pugslyyy

Expedition Vehicle Engineer Guy
I would be inclined to try a fan, just to minimize the strain on the fridge. Much cheaper to burn out a little 12V case fan than a fridge compressor. :)
 

KevinsMap

Adventurer
Back in the day, this kind of engineering was part of how I began my career... though submarines are a bit more complicated. But the tight packaging is nostalgic, and the basics are the same. So here it goes.

The fridge is designed to operate in an "infinite" volume of ambient air, continuously renewed by simple convection. The onboard fan simply partakes of that easily accessible ambient air. The manufacturer will have a specification for this, in the form of a minimum air-gap on all sides. Find this. Follow the spec. That little fan is certainly NOT designed to move the air very far. Just far enough to dump the heat outside of its own box.

You do not need to use a second fan. In fact, you could quite easily cobble together a fan-vent combination that made things worse (by creating dead air spaces in the last places you want them). Not a dig; this is a common engineering error. And you are always going to be fan-function dependent, even if properly designed.

Instead, ensure an unimpeded spec air-gap surrounding the fridge that passively flows a very high volume of ambient air, with the fridge in place. That means BIG vents, both as low as possible in the airspace, and at the very top. Think minimally interrupted continuous-length vent, all sides of the fridge, with an opening width of at least twice the air-gap spec. I will not get into the details of passive flow induction, but equal vent areas top-and-bottom is generally ok (yes, you can do better... but it's complicated). The vents can be angled 90 degrees to the direction of flow above or below, but straight-through flow is always best.

You should not rely on vehicle movement to create pressure, just the opposite. In fact, all vents should be shielded from capturing the wind. Now that's counterintuitive - why? Because the wind may just be blowing in the exact opposite way that you need, stalling air flow and creating dead air space. That is easy to do in a narrow, confined space. Nearly impossible in "infinite" ambient. You want the heat generated by the fridge and discarded by the fan to help drive the flow, just as it would do in ambient.

So: all the vents must be designed to stall the wind, creating no pressure on the actual vent opening. You do this by layering the vent space; the vent opening is behind an exterior shield, and the space in-between is open to ambient in all directions. A functional example of this type may be easy to recognize - the mushroom shield on most well designed vehicle snorkels. Since your fridge vents will be highly elongated, not in the round, it will look very different from a snorkel. But the function is very important.

Your idea is a good one, with very efficient use of space. I hope this helps.
 
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Scoutman

Explorer
Thanks for that response Kevin. That does give some good things to think about. I believe that for the size box//fridge I'm working with, if I use the right type of vents, the toolbox will effectively be just another insulated outer shell. The toolbox is only about an inch wider than the fridge is and that space can be filled with sheet foam which is sort of like the insulated blanket wraps they sell for these fridges. That means that the vents on the toolbox will be very closely aligned to the vents in the fridge. In the end I'm really just pulling outside ambient air from the forward wall of the box and pushing it out to ambient air aft of the box. What I took from your post was that I need a good shielded vent cover and that adding a fan can make things worse by forcing air movement in a way that the mfg didn't intend. I have a few ideas, now I need to take some measurements. :ylsmoke:

I suppose for the picture in the first post that the box is big enough to have sufficient air flow around the fridge. Looking at the Schutt site their box is 19" front to back and an ARB 50 is ~15".
Cabinet-Open.jpg
 

KevinsMap

Adventurer
That means that the vents on the toolbox will be very closely aligned to the vents in the fridge. In the end I'm really just pulling outside ambient air from the forward wall of the box and pushing it out to ambient air aft of the box.

That little fan in the your fridge will struggle to do that. Not impossible, but it will be really tough to get this deceptively simple design right. Yes, it looks like a short distance to your eyes; to the poor little fan, it looks like a great big wall of reluctant-to-move air. In other words, a dead air space that will heat up faster than it moves out of the way. Narrow spaces have high flow resistance.

Think like you are the fan; what does it "want" to see? It is designed to "want" a continuously refreshed infinite volume of ambient air, surrounding both intake and exit vents. It is not designed to refresh that airspace, itself. Indeed, it does not want to push or pull the air very far; just in and out of its own enclosure (the fridge). No farther! The heat it pumps out will help a little to keep the air moving, but heat builds up fast in dead air so this becomes the primary problem if flow is restricted in any way. Heat will build up faster than it can flow away, carried in the air.

So if the two vents (fridge fan and box exit) are to be closely aligned, they had better be very, VERY close (much less than an inch) - and the size of the exit vent should at least 3 times (3X) the surface area of the one on the fridge. This very large exit vent will be essential, as will equally generous intake vents, especially with louvered vents which restrict flow substantially. Even this design can get really dodgy, if the air supply is taken from the interior of the surround and that interior heats up due to the function of the fridge. It gets complicated in a hurry.

Err on the side of overkill, if you follow this path... your poor little fan will thank you ;-)

A passive-flow design, as in my first post, is much easier to get right. It is what your fan really "wants". Hope this insight works for you.
 
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KevinsMap

Adventurer
Another note; a straight-louvered vent in very close proximity to a fan restricts flow severely. The swirling flow of the fan is forced into a very different flow direction by the straight-line orientation of the louvers. To the fan, it is almost like flowing against a wall. If the fan is designed this way (as in many house attic vents), "more power!" is used as a quick-and-dirty compensation for good flow design. In other words, brute force.

The fan on your fridge doesn't do "brute force".

So any vent in very close proximity to the fan (less than 1 fan-diameter away) should not be louvered, or restricted in any way. But for the fan to have any hope of getting the air moved out of the fridge AND the enclosure (a task it was never designed to do, and will not do well) that vent to ambient must be very, very close indeed - much less than 1 inch - and as I have already cautioned, even this might be dodgy.

Like I said before; this gets complicated, in a hurry.
 

Stumpalump

Expedition Leader
Rewire the fridge fan with a cut out switch so it runs any time the fridge is plugged in instead of only when the compressor is running. Flip the switch to put it back to stock operation.
 

Stevigee

New member
Not sure I understand this. but could a vent like a snorkel work? and keep mositure out of the box when moving. I want to put a fridge in a tool box on the tongue of my teardrop.
 

Scoutman

Explorer
I think I have a solution that will work. I've gotten a good reliable power source in the box now and the parts came in to cut the vent hole. So far it's been working ok without it when I tested it this weekend.
 

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