Not auto related, but intresting early refrigeration.

[Cornbinder89]

Interesting write up on a monitor top restro.
Humm link didn't work

http://members.iinet.net.au/~cool386/ge/ge1.html

[Cornbinder89]

Think I got the link fixed

[Tom Greenleaf]

Wow! This link worked of the ones posted...........
General Electric Monitor Top Refrigerator - Part 1. Leads on to part 2.

Others just another home page for a server I think.

Antique things are one of "my" things and have exactly NO refrigeration anything from back when if only for display,

[Cornbinder89]

There is a slightly newer one for sale in Omaha, I'm tempted but really have enough on my plate right now. I have an Absorption Cycle 'fridge in my truck going on 22 years. Uses ammonia and heat to cool. Silent, which is good 'cause I sleep near it. Anything that can handle 22 years in a semi is a good item.
Speaking of my truck, it was in the mid 90's and I had to turn the A/C down! I guess I've got it set up right! With the big condenser, the only time the engine fan kicks on is when I'm sitting at a red light. IIRC the fan switches on at 225 PSI and off at 175. Even with temps in the mid 90's I bet running down the road my high side is not more than 150 or less.

[Tom Greenleaf]

I saw the show and do watch sometimes ANTIQUIE ARTIFACTS the show that travels and call themselves "Pickers" as in looking for "Barn Finds" or however stored junk of all sorts. I do recall a couple refrigerators one with a clean round ball on top to hide its guts. Not sure to me what concept was but would highly thing compressing as gas and expanding it type things. The equivalent of an evaporator was on top just looking at them as the cooled air would fall thru the inside.

All those types predate me and don't own one. I did have the ones with an inside corner was frozen you could make ice or freeze a package of something and just the cool off of that passively fell to bottom of those. Got rid of those still working as they were total energy pigs and uneven temps inside could freeze things you didn't want frozen.

These you defrosted as the ice built up periodically would depend on humidity and how often they were opened.

If a power outage (way too common everywhere I've lived in Massachusetts) that ice wet everything inside. Those doors locked shut with a latch on a pull handle - all of them by any maker which was fine but obviously not funny if a child was locked inside even if they are discarded the doors of a refrigerator must be removed still and agree with that.

For the same basic era the alternative was an ice box! That meaning you had ice delivered in a block and placed up top and a drip pan at the bottom to empty or it spilled.

Trivia: Ice was cut from ponds just for that lasted all Summer packed tight in combo of saw dust and hay really kept it as ice till the next Winter to replenish supply. TMK ice from areas known to freeze ponds and small lakes could be transported to almost anywhere in the US packed in saw dust.

Those barns (aptly called ice houses) are still around!

As a nut case for neat things had a ton of the ice tongs used to pick up and carry the blocks cut to a useable size.

More trivia: If you wanted ice cubes you didn't do that. You used another aptly named tool called an ice pick and chipped at the block for what you wanted.


Even more: You put just a sign on your door how many blocks you wanted each week delivered each week by a vehicle horse pulled or a truck .

Again even more: Kids would wait for the ice man (nothing PC about it, it was a guy's job) and get some chips if the person allowed was like an early ice cream truck which would follow as the routine.

What floors me is for the course of history just the US this is recent stuff mostly less than 100 years old is nothing for time.

Keeping in mind Boston was incorporated as an area I think in 1620. Hey - there are homes that old still all around pre marking off land clearly but was soon here anyway.

More Trivia and I'm not Googling this: Boston was not called Boston rather it was Shamut for the native American Indian tribe that was there. I was also an island you could only get for ages at low tide! All around it has since been filled from a large hill by horse and buggy from Newton, MA hill is totally gone.

Names you might know. Boston's streets or neighborhoods called "Beacon Hill" would be to a lighthouse. Back Bay is an area built up totally land now is real estate mostly row town homes usually 4 stories high touching/sharing walls.

Road were cut rock called cobble stones and had built the first public rail cars in the US right here.

The hard part was it's all landfill very well done but VERY difficult to make tunnels now still worse because it's totally built up such that you tear something down if you want something else.

Well known for no parking! There were no personal cars and carriages and horses were behind your home at one end was aptly called the alley.

In short the point is refrigeration is new barely considered antique at all commonly things 75 years old or more.

I'm about 22 miles from real Atlantic Ocean any area that far inland can't see Boston and most have nothing to do with it which includes me. Rolling hills of what was almost all farmland.

In short cooling anything isn't even old at all by a device of any kind in comparison,

[Cornbinder89]

I lived in apt in Chicago that still had an access door from the back stairs for the Ice Man to deliver right into the ice box. Talked to some oldtimer in Maine about cutting ice. Also up there they drive trucks across for timber that is only accessible in the winter. Up in northern MN oldtimers remember cutting into the peat bogs for ice on JUly 4th!
What is interesting to me is the methyl-chloride refrigerant, real low pressure but they still got enough cooling.

[Tom Greenleaf]

Have to say I don't know anything about that gas for use as a refrigerant if used as a condensable gas at all or something else? I'm surprise even within last 100 years at the sealing of gasses being real tight and lasting tight.

Back to the ice saved from Winters? Last Winter here was I'd call normal but cold didn't last long enough between a couple warm ups many lakes declared unsafe for recreational use about all Winter also means thicker ice if you wanted to save it would be a real problem I would think?

[Cornbinder89]

Ammonia can be used in a "conventional" compressor type systems but must use steel as brass and copper can corrode when exposed to it. It is more generally used in absorption type refrigeration where heat is used to boil a mixture and separate gases that will absorb heat when they re-combine. Because it can cause respiratory distress or even kill, the amount and therefore the size of the systems are limited where ever humans are about. Large ammonia (capacity) systems can be made quite small because of the large amount of heat it can absorb. Water/bromide is another common absorption refrigerant system, it is mainly used in large buildings that have "waste heat" that can power the system. Hospitals are a big user. commonly called "chillers". In many parts of the world, household refrigerators run on kerosene, they are lit for about an hr or 2 and then cool for the rest of the day, any fuel can be used but kerosene is the most common. My 'fridge uses a modified version call "continuous absorption" where it is heated all the time and continuously cools. The "guts" are made by Electrolux, which holds a patent on the design, my cabinet was made by Dometic but they no longer make it, and another mfg makes it, also Robur" made it at one time. Even when the truck cab is over 80 deg it will keep close to or below freezing. It has the great advantage of running on 12 v, 120 v or LP. but in practice, any heat source that can "boil" the mixture in the "generator" will work. In other counties the electric heaters are 24 and 240 volt units.
Makes you wonder what effects a "bad ice year" would have been 100 years ago.
For many years refrigerated trailers used a "bunker" of shaved ice that a small gasoline engine (lawn mower type) drove a fan that circulated air over the ice and thru the trailer.

[Cornbinder89]

Methyl-chloride is used with centrifugal compressors with low high side pressure (IIRC he said 50 psi in that write-up) there are modern replacements, but I can't think of the "R" number right now. SO2 is another old refrigerant that isn't used any more. Both of these used in the compression cycle type machines, but the pressures are different than what we commonly see today.
edit: don't know why I keep saying Methyl- Chloride when he say Methyl- formate, Age enhanced reading I guess!

[SamuelSalinas]

Thanks for sharing.