I wonder if this component both heats and cools at the same time.
Think of how a heat pump works. If you had a coil in one compartment and the other coil in another, you could hear and coil at the same time depending on the flow of Freon.
It does heat and cool independently.
For that reason Iâve been waiting for hot-water-dispenser-integrated fridges to become the norm!
In the absence of some solid smart plug data or a circuit diagram , perhaps the repair manual would reveal something like a heating element replacement part.
The Mains Power Meter signatures are perhaps indicative of something more complicated (simpler!) than compressor + resistive element.
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So I went hunting for information on the Whirlpool water cooler. I will share it here and perhaps some of you more technical Sense users can look at it and post more information in the Community Device Library?
I have not found more technical data but I am still looking.
The manual was of no help:
Just want to thank you all again. It has been a learning experience.
Bob
Good stuff. Thanks for posting the info.
Well, from this you can already see that thereâs nothing particularly magical in the way itâs heating/cooling and every indication that it wastes potential energy.
âHot Water Powerâ = 650W would indicate it has a 650W heating element ⌠which would also keep the water at temperature. Unlike the smaller wattage âkeep warmâ elements found on Keurigs and coffee makers, this one is having to heat reasonably quickly when you dispense hot water and then the hot reservoir is replenished. Thereâs a mini-kettle in there somewhere. â1.3G/hr>176Fâ is easy to do calculations for and correlate with 650W but I will spare you the calculation!
âMax cold water power <100Wâ + the obvious refrigerant coil in the diagram is a clear indication of a pretty normal âmini fridgeâ type of cooling. Heat is extracted via a small compressor and dissipated from that coil at the back of the unit. The coil is plainly visible here, just like the back of a fridge.
So, despite @samwooly1âs hopes (and mine) it looks like the unit isnât taking that heat from cooling the water and using it to heat the water. Itâs not quite as simple (on a small scale) to do that efficiently as one might think BUT the easy thing to do with the design would be to route the bottled water reservoir feed to the water heating element via the refrigerant coil to pre-heat the water. At the small usage scale I doubt that makes sense because of increased device complexity and failure points. We are in the 21st Century though!
Conclusion:
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Hot water: youâre looking for periodic use (in the waveform) of a 650W resistive element. A sudden on for a number of seconds/minutes depending upon hot water usage.
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Cold water: Water is kept cold by periodic activation of a <100W compressor/pump.
Still would love to see this on an HS110 and I think Sense would be interested in this type of device because of the component challenges. At what point, for example, do you or Sense merge a â650W Kettleâ device with a âMini-fridgeâ, as found by Sense, into a âHot/cold Water Dispenserâ?.
Anybody else have one? Need more data!
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Added to the library, here:
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