Meeting: Oct. 25 highlights

meeting time: Sunday, Oct. 25
team present: Kevin Hawkins, Justin Khan, Skyler Olsen

topics discussed:

- Our conceptual design presentation is this Friday (Oct. 30). The design of the refrigerator was further discussed and refined. We started a PowerPoint presentation and plan to develop it further on Monday. Significant time was put into trying to develop flow within the presentation. We are meeting with Dr. Kelly on Tuesday (2:00pm, Duke) to practice our presentation.

- From my calculations, thermoelectric modules are too costly, too large (with required heat sinks), and require to much power to use efficiently. I contacted Melcor, a company that specializes in thermoelectric modules and asked if they could confirm my calculations. They sent me a program which calculates the type, quantity and power needed to cool a certain load. The numbers were surprising as they far surpassed the power calculations that I had calculated previously and at last settled the debate of whether thermoelectric modules are a feasible option.

- Insulation was further discussed and no major decisions were made. We will need decide what and how we plan to implement our insulation.

- We decided upon the vapor-compression refrigeration because of its efficiency and reliability. We looked at the Danfoss BD35 model compressor and decided it would be a great fit for our project because it is designed to be used with solar power systems.

- The control system is a point of ambiguity and accounted for a large part of the discussion. The Danfoss compressor can be fitted with a controller that takes care of the entire control circuit requred for our project. The only downfall is that it costs just as much as the compressor at a whopping $220! I would like to try and develop a control system for an 1/8th of the cost.