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- Express 330
Anyone have any advice on fish locker refrigeration? I would like to add a cold plate and 12 volt compressor to the transom locker.
Fish locker refrigeration.
- Thread starter Time Bandit
- Start date
I'm just in the middle (literally, I just mounted the plate 30 mins ago) of adding a cold plate to my drink cooler on my 2002 330 express. What do you need to know?
I'm using a Webasto air cooled unit, bought from defender. They sell kits that are plate+compressor and have different sizes. You can bend the plates to an L or U shape, carefully....
While I'm sure technically this would work fine retrofitted in a fishbox, I would be a little worried about having the plate exposed. If you were serious about it, I might be inclined to go a layer of styrofoam, then a plate fiberglassed in.. but I haven't seen how the factory does it...
If you need a lot of cooling power you'll probably be looking at a water-cooled unit.
I'm using a Webasto air cooled unit, bought from defender. They sell kits that are plate+compressor and have different sizes. You can bend the plates to an L or U shape, carefully....
While I'm sure technically this would work fine retrofitted in a fishbox, I would be a little worried about having the plate exposed. If you were serious about it, I might be inclined to go a layer of styrofoam, then a plate fiberglassed in.. but I haven't seen how the factory does it...
If you need a lot of cooling power you'll probably be looking at a water-cooled unit.
- Joined
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- 68
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- Express 330
Thanks, keep buying ice until I decide. Probably need water cooling. We’re in South Fl.
the webasto water cooled units are interesting - they basically replace your AC intake through hull with a special thru-hull that’s also a heat exchanger. All of which makes sense considering the bilge is hot anyway with the generator etc.
Plenty of room to add this in the bilge. Like I said, the part I’m not entirely clear on is mounting the plate where it could get damaged by a fish thrashing around.
How did your project turn out? Got any pics? I’m thinking about adding one to the helm cooler on the 330 I’m doing now.
Refrigerating the 330 cockpit cooler went great. If you give me a couple of days, I can get you the exact part numbers I used.
I’ve only run it on shorter (3-5 hour) trips and it has no problems keeping food and drinks just above freezing - With the setup I’ve got I haven’t seen it actually go below frozen yet, but it works great for my purposes. (I expect that if you put already frozen stuff in there it would keep them frozen)
I’ve only run it on shorter (3-5 hour) trips and it has no problems keeping food and drinks just above freezing - With the setup I’ve got I haven’t seen it actually go below frozen yet, but it works great for my purposes. (I expect that if you put already frozen stuff in there it would keep them frozen)
I had one set up in the 01 330 I had . It was a long time ago. I was looking at a cockpit freezer like the new ones have. I would think your set up would last better out of the elements. Thanks for the help it would save me a lot of time looking .