Norcold fridge light fixture?

[Almot]

As you can see on the photo, the contacts on the metal plate - holding the bulb - are bent/broken. Don't ask me how it happened. The bulb is Festoon type 41mm. For now I've forced/plugged a different bulb into female spade connectors, this bulb has loops at the ends, I don't remember the name.

Q: where could I buy this fixture for Festoon bulb? Or any similar fixture with frosted cover, preferably with spade connectors, I could re-wire different connectors as well. Perhaps a generic car dome light? At this point the bulb size and type don't matter, anything that can be screwed to the ceiling will do.

[wa8yxm]

I do not know if adding the fans to my Dometic (since both Norcold and Dometic use the same technology they should respond the same) improved cooling or not (Suspect it did) but for sure it reduced icing of the fins and the need to defrost.. BIG TIME. Thus well worth it.

[Almot]

I've been wondering about interior fans.
In my Norcold the temp sensor is in the fridge bin, attached to the fins. Freezer cools down only during the time when the fridge does, there is one compressor. Under most any weather conditions it's my freezer struggling keeping 0-2F, not the fridge keeping 36-40. If I add the fan, fridge would reach its 36-40 faster and shut down - then freezer would be given less time to cool down, and this might not be enough to cool it to 0-2.

Spending $80 on this fan attachment I could make things worse, please correct me if I'm wrong.

[Almot]

Have found a festoon bulb holder on Aliexpress: $6 for pack of 2. Don't need 2, though.

Will (hopefully) plug it in the OEM female spade connectors. I think I could attach it to the OEM big metal mounting plate on the photo, to keep the OEM frosted cover. Or discard the metal plate, there are festoon bulbs with frosted tube. Most beautiful is that 31-36mm bulbs start from $0.60 and can be replaced without unscrewing the mount.

[Gdetrailer]

Skibane wrote:

Almot wrote:
Out of curiosity put the temp sensor in my home 110V fridge - stable as a rock, 2 and 38, door openings affect it (not much), and it reverts back to 2 and 38 in a few minutes after the door closure

If your residential fridge is like mine, it has an interior fan - which is one reason why it recovers from door openings so quickly.

Residential fridges "recover" much faster due to the compressor. Fan in a compressor fridge may play a very small roll in faster recovery but the biggest player is not having to rely on and wait for gravity to do the work which is what an absorbsion fridge uses.

Gravity systems work, but if you have ever used a gravity heating system then you would understand just how slow and inefficient it can be to get the temp you want. My sticks and bricks when I bought it had a old coal furnace which a huge 160,000 BTU natural gas conversion burner stuck in it.. No forced air fan, just huge ductwork (12" diameter ducts and two 24" diameter cold air return runs) at an angle accross the basement to a couple of huge vent openings in the first floor.. Took a lot of gas and time to get the house up to temp..

Replaced that with a 100,000 BTU 80% forced air furnace, gas bill slashed to less than a 1/3 of the coal furnace and even on below zero F days is able bring things up to temp within a short amount of time.

Absorbsion cycle is just like my old coal furnace system relying on gravity (hot air rises and cold air sinks, my new forced air furnace the fan moving the air pushes the hot air at a much higher rate like a fridge compressor pushes the refrigerant at a much higher rate than gravity provides.

On edit..

A good example of gravity systems principles is a Lava Lamp..

For a good "primer" on absorbtion cooling systems you can look HERE

Adding a fan inside a absorbtion fridge can make it appear to make fridge recover faster, but it isn't really.. All that fan is doing is destratifying the air layers and distributing the cooled air more evenly.

[Skibane]

Almot wrote:
Out of curiosity put the temp sensor in my home 110V fridge - stable as a rock, 2 and 38, door openings affect it (not much), and it reverts back to 2 and 38 in a few minutes after the door closure

If your residential fridge is like mine, it has an interior fan - which is one reason why it recovers from door openings so quickly.

[Almot]

License plate light should work, thanks.

Fan is more interesting yet. I only think that it will increase propane consumption. No, my Norcold doesn't have LAT, the light is Off when the door is closed.

Deviating from the topic - when I started monitoring the temps I was appalled. At 68 ambient and with the fridge side in shade, it has to be on the setting 3 or 4 to keep freezer at 0-2 and fridge at 40. At ambient 70 and/or when sun is shining on that side, it can't bring the freezer below 5 or 10. After a few days frost covers the freezer back wall and is accumulating near the freezer door, in one particular corner - must be poor door seal in this spot. To frost on fins I grew accustomed already, it's always there :). Don't know whether things would get any better on grid power.

Out of curiosity put the temp sensor in my home 110V fridge - stable as a rock, 2 and 38, door openings affect it (not much), and it reverts back to 2 and 38 in a few minutes after the door closure, - and never any frost. Just ranting, sorry.

[wa8yxm]

LED's may sound like a good idea. In fact I will tell you another way to do 'em that is fantastic. However the incandascent lamp in an RV absorption cooling unit MAY (Do you have an LAT switch on your unit Low ambient Temp) serve another function (That switch overrides the door switch and turns the light on full time, the slight amount of heat causes things to work better when it's cold out)

Mine was a dometic. I was full time.. I put one of these in
https://rvcoolingunit.com/Norcold-3-fan-Special-Deluxe-Fan-with-White-LED-lights-15-34-inch-wide-P5661665.aspx
Or one like it. Mine had white LED's and it not only provided light (I still kept the interior light) but kept about 3/4ths of hte fins frost free. I added an additional fan to help keep 'em all frost free.. Big help.

I wired it to the interior light circuit (NOTE be very careful doing this use volt meters to probe for power as the connection points may not be what you expect)

[Skibane]

How about a LED license plate light?

[enblethen]

How about one of these LED light fixture

[IAMICHABOD]

Maybe this YouTube Video may be of help.