New Fridge - setting up monitoring

Just got a new fridge, and I thought I would try monitoring operating parameters with my home automation system. I 've got sensors for kWhs used, ambient room temperature, freezer and refrigerator temps and the temperature of a sensor on the back of the unit. I was hoping this should give me enough of a baseline to be able to detect "out of whack" conditions before they show up in a puddle on the floor or a failure to cool.

I discovered in my old fridge that as freon leaked, the kilowatt hours used shot way up before I noticed the problem in the fridge temp (that became obvious on a very hot day when we had the A/C off and the kitchen temp was about 20 degrees over normal. Unfortunately, on the old box, I didn't have good baseline figures from the early on when it worked well. That's why I am trying to determine what information I need to be able to have my home automation system (HomeVision, CPU-XA, ActiveHome and more) record and process to alert me that there's an issue with the unit.

I suspect that the electricity consumed daily will rise as the dust on the coils builds up. That should be detectable by looking at the average daily power used figure. I am recording ambient, backplate and internal temps as well in case the power usage increase is due to other factors, like this stinking endless heat wave. I also want a baseline on energy consumed and back plate temperature in case I decide to put a filter on the air intake to minimize coil cleaning. I found out the hard way that an added filter can decrease air flow on some devices to the point of overheating the motor. If the filter blocks too much airflow I would expect power consumption and the back plate temperature to rise conspicuously.

Reading this over, I realized I need two more monitors. A battery-backed dialer that can call my cellphone to tell me to buy dry ice because the power or compressor failed and a door alert to let me know if the dog manages to open the door again! She's been unable to do it with the new box because the magnetic seal is incredibly strong - much stronger than the old one. Took nearly ten pounds of pull as measured by a fish scale. But she might figure out how to do it in time. She's been watching very closely. In fact, I nearly spit out my coffee because she was eating when the new unit started up when it first arrived and she went off on it as if the fridge had made a move on her food. She's still not quite comfortable with it.

Any suggestions on something I might have overlooked are cheerfully welcome. Bad attempts at comedy or remarks on my sanity, with much less cheer. (-:

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green
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I'd like to be the first to cast a vote for sanity, haha :-)

Did the amperage actually go up? Or was it simply that the compressor was running a lot more due to the lack of cooling? I'd expect the later. It will be difficult to early detect a problem based on electrical operating conditions. An internal temp sensor is all that most manufacturers use as an alert system.

Reply to
jamesgangnc
1) You must be an engineer? 2) Please consider a logger for how often and long the door is open. That's a major factor in power usage.
Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Did you ever use a kill-a- watt meter, they are accurate, easy to use and record Kwh usage over several days. They are great for doing you own energy audit of most all apliances and devices.

Reply to
ransley

Yes. And I've always been able to spot a fridge failure without a dozen sensors monitoring my fridge. After all, it's a fridge not a Boeing 777.

Reply to
trader4

His frige may outlive him, I could understand monitoring boiler flue temp or furnace temp at the coil or computer core temp, but right its no aircraft.

Reply to
ransley

We once had a cabin up on a mountain. On occasion, the power would go out and the refrigerator would let food thaw. When power returned, the only clue would be misshapen packages or a scent, so I wanted a sure-fire way to know not if there was a power failure, but whether a failure had affected the freezer and refrigerator contents.

The solution was inexpensive: a high/low thermometer from Radio Shack. When we'd go to the cabin, I'd simply look at the high temp and instantly know if the power had been off and if damage had been done.

Nonny

Reply to
Nonnymus

Hmm. Commercial coke machines, really just fancy refrigerators, already come with onboard sensors and alarm systems, web page control consoles for remote management, and modem (maybe even LAN by now) jacks. They even Phone Home when they need refilling, or the cash box is full. It'd be trivial for a manufacturer to add that to a home fridge. Probably already on the 'to do' list for the smart power networks the tree huggers keep pushing. Master Control up in the sky dials back the power whenever the temp is within acceptable range, and it hasn't logged a door opening in the last hour or something.

Another damn appliance smarter than the bipeds living there....

Reply to
aemeijers

Fridges don't, typically carry that mush value in food contents to make this worthwhile. Fun but not worthwhile.

Freezers, however....

I discovered in my old fridge that as freon leaked, the kilowatt hours used shot way up before I noticed the problem in the fridge temp (that became obvious on a very hot day when we had the A/C off and the kitchen temp was about 20 degrees over normal. Unfortunately, on the old box, I didn't have good baseline figures from the early on when it worked well. That's why I am trying to determine what information I need to be able to have my home automation system (HomeVision, CPU-XA, ActiveHome and more) record and process to alert me that there's an issue with the unit.

I suspect that the electricity consumed daily will rise as the dust on the coils builds up. That should be detectable by looking at the average daily power used figure. I am recording ambient, backplate and internal temps as well in case the power usage increase is due to other factors, like this stinking endless heat wave. I also want a baseline on energy consumed and back plate temperature in case I decide to put a filter on the air intake to minimize coil cleaning. I found out the hard way that an added filter can decrease air flow on some devices to the point of overheating the motor. If the filter blocks too much airflow I would expect power consumption and the back plate temperature to rise conspicuously.

Reading this over, I realized I need two more monitors. A battery-backed dialer that can call my cellphone to tell me to buy dry ice because the power or compressor failed and a door alert to let me know if the dog manages to open the door again! She's been unable to do it with the new box because the magnetic seal is incredibly strong - much stronger than the old one. Took nearly ten pounds of pull as measured by a fish scale. But she might figure out how to do it in time. She's been watching very closely. In fact, I nearly spit out my coffee because she was eating when the new unit started up when it first arrived and she went off on it as if the fridge had made a move on her food. She's still not quite comfortable with it.

Any suggestions on something I might have overlooked are cheerfully welcome. Bad attempts at comedy or remarks on my sanity, with much less cheer. (-:

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Josepi

I only had the Kil-o-watt meter on the machine during the final stages of what I assumed to be a pinhole leak in the coils in the freezer compartment due to some oaf manhandling them during a rapid defrost. (me)

What I saw was a constant increase in the KWH's used. I assumed that to keep an unvarying temperature inside the unit it was working harder and harder (longer, actually) to cool as it had less and less refrigerant. Or that the compressor was experiencing greater friction from having less refrigerant.

I was monitoring the room temperature as well. When that shot up high enough, the freezer temps began to rise almost in perfect correlation to the room temp. Only when the room temp got below 70 would the refrigerator maintain normal inside temps. All this leads me to believe that long before I notice a change in the internal temperature of the unit, I would see a rise in energy consumption. In any event, just like medicine, it's probably a good idea to have as many "base level readings" as you can. That way, when they change substantially, it's a pretty good idea that something's wrong.

We'll see.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

Father was one, and I started out in his footsteps but then got sidetracked. To my wife's eternal annoyance, I am a home automation enthusiast. Her take is "we wouldn't need all this automated crap if you weren't too lazy to get up an turn off a light." That's probably true but it hasn't changed anything. She actually likes *some* of the features of an automated house, but clearly not nearly as much as I do.

That's actually a great idea. I knew we kept you around for a reason despite all the folks who'd like to lynch you for being a top poster. (-: (just kidding!)

Tracking "door open time" will allow me to determine if increased energy usage is from mechanical issues or just greater use. That might also mean tracking humidity because the unit has to work harder if lots of humid air is allowed in during long openings like the ones that occuring during loading after a grocery trip. I've also decided to track peak current draw (now at 760 watts) because I assume that any nascent compressor problems will cause that number to increase. I can also set a variable that rings an alarm if the door open time exceeds a predetermined value.

The old box would probably still be alive had it closed properly on one very humid night. It didn't take much time at all to encase the coil in a block of ice and during my impatient defrosting efforts, I cracked a solder joint. Since it was 30+ years old (Westinghouse) I figured it was time for a new one, even if we plan to move soon. It was worth it just to have ice cold beer again.

Thanks for your input!

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

Did you ever use a kill-a- watt meter, they are accurate, easy to use and record Kwh usage over several days. They are great for doing you own energy audit of most all apliances and devices.

Yes, that's what I was using to calculate the increasing power usage during the fridge's final days. I have four of them now - Fry's was selling out the old model (where you had to do your own math) for $12 each so I got three extra ones. One to leave on the refrigerator 24x7, another to leave on the window AC in the bedroom, a third to lend out to friends and a fourth to be perpetually lost somewhere in the house.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

Even when you're traveling and away from the house? How do you do that?

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

battery-backed

You have a great faith in modern manufacturing that I don't think is warranted considering all the refrigerator issues that crop up regularly on this list. But in your house, you can do what you please, obviously. In mine, I like to use technology to keep ahead of the repair curve. Someday, items like refrigerators will contain an ethernet jack and can be remotely monitored for abnormal conditions with ease. In the next house, we'll have an autostart generator, but where I am now, the power rarely goes out but I want to be on top of it if it does.

FWIW, I do have a number of extra heat, CO and other sensors covering the furnace, the hot water heater and the A/C if only because I have a great interest in home automation.

For now, I am quite happy to know that I've taken as many precautions as required to prevent coming home and finding all the frozen food melted and refrozen.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

A while back I bought a nice magnetic fridge thermo that Bob Bass found on the net that has an RF sender for the freezer and refrigerator compartments and high and low alarm settings. That's what got me started on automating the temperature (and other) readings.

I wanted the home automation system to call me if the conditions indicated a power or mechanical failure in the fridge. You can get one hell of a stomach-ache eating refrozen food if it's sat out long enough. As you point out, sometimes the clues that refreezing has occurred can be mighty subtle. Tupperware containers don't get misshapen. I always leave something in a cardboard container on edge in the freezer to make it obvious that a meltdown has occurred.

Speaking of which, once upon a time, when I did photography as a side line, I was doing a food shoot of a Thanksgiving dinner. The turkey had been out under the lights for about 4 hours and then we put it back in the fridge in case we had to do a re-shoot. Well, the guys we shared the studio with saw the turkey in the fridge a week later and made turkey sandwhiches. That was the first time I had ever seen someone turn green (right before the sluices opened at both ends of their alimentary canals).

You can't be too careful with your food storage these days, especially with all the recalls and salmonella poisonings.

Thanks for your input!

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

There's an idea for dieters - a refrigerator that charges you a quarter every time you open the door. Probably ends up saving energy, especially if you have teenagers that like to stand in front of an open fridge for a long time with that "deer in the headlights" look.

Eventually, all major home appliances will have LAN enabled monitoring features built in. The problem is that every manufacturer wants a proprietary system. When that river is crossed, we'll see LAN jacks on everything. I'd hate to think my power company would EVER be able to tell me how cold my beer should be. That's when I'd go off the power net completely.

Just as long as they don't get "smart" like Microsoft and have a little paper clip pop up and annoy the living hell out of you. "I see you're looking for something to eat. I see you weigh more than government recommended target weight. You may access only the vegetable crisper." PS. If you do hate Clippy, just rename ACTORS directory in Windows to DEADACTORS. One of the more valuable things I've learned from Usenet.

Thanks for your input!

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

"Mush" is what I am trying to avoid my freezer contents from turning into. It's not very much more effort to monitor both compartments if you're going to monitor the freezer. Besides, this is my hobby.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

Have you automated a solenoid to push you out of bed when something goes wrong in the middle of the night?

Reply to
hrhofmann

Nice. In that case!...LOL

Temp probes have to be run trough the case. No RF will get out of a metal straight jacket.

I have used a high low alarm thermometer (as suggested elsewhere here) and it beeps every 5-10 minutes until reset. Wire has to break the gasket seal though.

"Mush" is what I am trying to avoid my freezer contents from turning into. It's not very much more effort to monitor both compartments if you're going to monitor the freezer. Besides, this is my hobby.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Josepi

"PLEASE STEP ONTO WEIGHT PLATFORM FOR FRIDGE DOOR RELEASE OPTIONS"

There's an idea for dieters - a refrigerator that charges you a quarter every time you open the door. Probably ends up saving energy, especially if you have teenagers that like to stand in front of an open fridge for a long time with that "deer in the headlights" look.

Eventually, all major home appliances will have LAN enabled monitoring features built in. The problem is that every manufacturer wants a proprietary system. When that river is crossed, we'll see LAN jacks on everything. I'd hate to think my power company would EVER be able to tell me how cold my beer should be. That's when I'd go off the power net completely.

Just as long as they don't get "smart" like Microsoft and have a little paper clip pop up and annoy the living hell out of you. "I see you're looking for something to eat. I see you weigh more than government recommended target weight. You may access only the vegetable crisper." PS. If you do hate Clippy, just rename ACTORS directory in Windows to DEADACTORS. One of the more valuable things I've learned from Usenet.

Thanks for your input!

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Josepi

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