Oh my; where to start? I’ve been away from the blog so long, and have so much to discuss, I fear I know not where to start. I’ve written quite a bit about refrigeration in the past, but that…
Oh my; where to start? I’ve been away from the blog so long, and have so much to discuss, I fear I know not where to start. I’ve written quite a bit about refrigeration in the past, but that…
I enjoy designing vapor compression machines. It all started with a refrigerator. I have thought long and hard on how these mainstays of modern living could be improved and someday I will make some of them a reality. In the…
The evolution of the household refrigerator is not a well known story. There seems to be few people interested in the subject. Perhaps it is not as romantic as the development of the automobile. Nonetheless, a concerted effort was put…
I’ve been thinking quite a lot about refrigerator designs and what steps I’m going to take in developing them. I tend to take on a lot more than I can chew and then when it all becomes too overwhelming, I…
In Part 1 I complained a good bit about the design of conventional refrigerators. Since I was a little kid, I thought that surely their must be a better way make a refrigerator more convenient and at the same time consume…
I have some issues with the current state of domestic refrigerators. Anyone who has read my other posts is probably well aware of this fact. A Better Refrigerator, The Killcap Refrigerator and Hand Crafted Refrigerators. I have a great deal of…
I’d like to talk about dehumidifiers; what they are, how they work, design failures and improvements I’d make. The dehumidifiers I write of are a specific kind, but probably the most common. They are the small white plastic towers people…
The refrigeration compressor is where all the ‘magic’ happens. To understand the process of compression is to understand the fundamental principles of mechanical refrigeration. A compressor is the mechanism that allows us to reuse that same refrigerant over and over.…
I’ve been collecting antique refrigeration books for a little while now and so far, my favorites have been two editions of ‘Household Refrigeration’ by H.B. Hull. It is a beautifully laid out book covering both thermodynamic engineering principles relating to…
Phase Change Materials, usually abbreviated as PCM’s are wonderfully useful for thermal storage applications. These materials make it possible to store large amounts of heat relative to a substance’s mass. They do this in a similar way to the working…
I recently purchased these two books from abebooks.com. They are the second and fourth editions, 1926 and 1933 respectively. I don’t remember what they cost, but I would have easily payed double. They are filled with illustrations and descriptions of…
Refrigerants are the blood of a vapor compression system. They are pumped round and round in an infinite loop of compression and expansion. The types of materials selected for use in refrigeration are based on a number of factors, the…
As it stands right now, the machine I would most like to develop is a pedal powered refrigerator and possibly freezer. The compressor and drive mechanism will consist of a metal framework supporting a heavy flywheel perhaps 40 centimeters across…
If you ask most people, “What are the most important things we are going to need in a peak oil world?”. I can guarantee that a better refrigerator won’t make it into their top 20. It probably won’t even come…
Notice the individual cabinet like doors on the refrigerator and the swinging drawer at bottom. Most units were belt driven external drive in this book. There was extensive use of flooded evaporators with low side floats at this time. I…
I caught the refrigerator bug again. It happens every few months, I get a job, I quit a job, I change my musical taste, I read a few books; but then, it comes back with a fury. That damned refrigerator…
This blog represents my intentions to catalog and possibly share personal musings on the subject of entropy. Of primary interest to me is the study of the universe and the distribution of matter and energy throughout, with special regard to…