Small refrigerators have a wide range of applications: studio apartments, hotel rooms, rooms in communal apartments or dormitories, cottages and makeshift houses. Our today’s guest will not be an exception: Midea MR1080S.
We will not only measure its dimensions (see our traditional table), but also find out what temperature is waiting for the products on each shelf, what are the features of the upper compartment (is it a freezer? Let’s check!) And whether it is possible to move the door from right to left.
Characteristics
| Manufacturer | Midea |
|---|---|
| Model | MR1080S |
| Type | fridge |
| Country of Origin | China |
| Warranty | 2 years |
| Service life * | 10 years |
| Type | single chamber |
| Number of doors | one |
| Climate class | ST, T, N |
| Total volume of the refrigerator compartment | 94 l |
| Useful volume of the refrigerating chamber | 93 l |
| Defrost system | manual |
| Shelf material | glass |
| Control | electromechanical |
| Energy class | A+ |
| Energy consumption per year | 109 kWh |
| Possibility of hanging the door | there is |
| The weight | 21.7 kg |
| Dimensions (W×H×D) | 472×850×450 mm |
| Network cable length | 1.5 m |
| Retail offers |
* Contrary to common misconception, this is not the period after which the device will definitely break. However, after this period, the manufacturer ceases to bear any responsibility for its performance and has the right to refuse to repair it, even for a fee.
Equipment
The refrigerator is packed in a brown cardboard box with a two-color print, reinforced with nylon straps. In addition to the obligatory shipping information, there is little useful information on the package: the manufacturer’s logo, four icons that tell about the main advantages of the model (low vibration, economy, low noise and the presence of adjustable supports), and a blue rectangle symbolically representing our device.
Slightly more detailed information (model index, serial number and brief technical specifications) is contained in white stickers on the front and side faces of the package.
In addition to the device itself with the boxes installed, we found in the package a container for six eggs, a user manual and a warranty card.
At first sight
The metal case of the refrigerator is made in a gray-steel scale. The plastic parts framing the door are also gray to match.
The side walls of the device are metal, of the same color, there are no decorative elements on them.
The heat exchanger in this model is inside the case – nothing protrudes beyond the dimensions of the rear wall. The wall itself is covered with a plastic sheet with a honeycomb structure.
In the lower part of the “back” there is a niche for the refrigeration unit.
This model uses the SZ55C1J compressor manufactured by GMCC (Guangdong Midea-Toshiba Compressor Company), one of the leading manufacturers of refrigeration compressors.
The unit is filled with R600A refrigerant and mounted on four thick black rubber shock absorbing washers designed to dampen the vibration of the running compressor and reduce the noise level.
The door hinges are initially installed on the right side, but the design allows them to be rearranged to the left. Additional accessories are not required for this.
The door handle is a niche in a plastic frame of the upper edge. Opening the refrigerator is convenient and easy.
The device is equipped with two metal lattice shelves painted in white enamel. Their height is fixed and cannot be adjusted. In the upper part there is a “freezer” (more precisely, a quick cooling chamber) – the coldest zone. Below is a small drawer for vegetables.
The control and lighting unit is located on the right wall of the refrigerator, above the top shelf. Next to it, we see a mechanical activator that turns on the backlight.
The metal shelf of the rapid cooling chamber is a flat heat exchanger: the refrigerant pipes run inside the structure. Under it is a retractable plastic tray to collect condensate. The defrosting system at Midea MR1080S is traditional, drip.
The door of the “freezer” compartment opens up and back, leaving inside the chamber. This reduces the already very small usable volume. The wires leading to the control unit and the copper tube connected to the heat exchanger are rather casually laid along the back wall and are not protected by anything except a small ledge on the heat exchanger.
The transparent plastic vegetable drawer is covered with a glass lid that doubles as a bottom shelf. The lid has no plastic frames.
Three shelves on the door are rigidly built into the body and do not allow adjustments. Their depth is small: you can still put a one and a half liter bottle, but the container for half a dozen eggs that comes with the refrigerator will not fit here.
Instruction
User Manual – 16-page A5 brochure printed on thick paper for two similar models at once.
The document contains many diagrams and drawings, the images are easy to read. The instruction tells about the device of the refrigerator, preparing it for operation, operation of the device, its maintenance and care. The manual ends with a table with a list of possible malfunctions with methods for their elimination and detailed technical characteristics of the device.
Control
The control and lighting unit is assembled in a single housing and is located between the top shelf and the freezer compartment. A ceiling with a lamp is mounted in its rear part, and a round knob protrudes from the body that regulates the temperature.
Management at Midea MR1080S electromechanical. The cooling power is set by turning the handle, on which the marks are applied: “Min”, “Med”, “Max” and “Off”.
Exploitation
Before using the refrigerator, as usual, you should completely unpack, remove the foam pads that hold the shelves, remove the lining from the bottom of the refrigerator and the protective film from the doors and body.
The place for the device should be chosen away from heat sources and places where direct sunlight will fall on the case. High humidity should also be avoided. When installing, make sure that there is at least 10 cm of free space on the sides and back, and at least 30 centimeters above the refrigerator. This will allow air to circulate freely and improve cooling efficiency. Also, the owner must make sure that there is enough space in front of the device for the door to open freely.
Already at a permanent place, the refrigerator must be leveled relative to the floor, achieving a stable position and horizontality of the shelves. Two front legs are used for adjustment.
If necessary, the door can be rearranged to the left side. Additional accessories are not required, and from the tools you will need a Phillips screwdriver, a 5/16 ″ socket head, a spatula or a thin screwdriver to remove the plugs and masking tape to temporarily fix the door.
Before starting work, it is advisable to wash the device inside and out, then wipe it dry.
Before connecting the installed refrigerator to the mains, wait half an hour until the oil contained in the appliance’s cooling system settles. Before loading food into the chamber, it is advisable to let the appliance idle for at least 2-3 hours to make sure it works correctly and to cool down the case.
The manufacturer warns that the low-temperature compartment is not intended for freezing anything or for products that need to be stored in freezers: only long-term storage of chilled food is recommended in it.
The refrigerator is designed for trouble-free operation from the moment of start. The manufacturer recommends interrupting the operation of the device as little as possible, otherwise its service life may be reduced.
This model is not equipped with a door opening alarm: the owner will have to independently ensure that they are tightly closed.
The heat exchanger grilles of the Midea MR1080S are hidden behind the side walls. They noticeably heat up during operation – this is especially evident in photographs taken with a thermal imager.
As usual for refrigerators, we not only measure the capacity with a ruler and tape measure, but also demonstrate the capabilities of the model using more illustrative examples.
The depth of the refrigerator compartment allows you to place a liter juice bag or a 1.5-liter bottle of water on the shelves. On the first and second shelves fit a three-liter pan from Ikea. A 700-gram glass jar can easily fit on any shelf. A two-liter bottle is placed on the shelves only in a transverse position.
If necessary, close the pan with a lid, you will have to remove one of the shelves. In this case, a glass jar with a volume of up to three liters will also fit in the compartment.
The threshold formed by the compartment of the refrigeration unit protrudes noticeably above the glass shelf that covers the vegetable drawer: small jars or tetra packs up to 500 ml can be stored here.
The box for vegetables and fruits is small: a few tomatoes, half a dozen medium-sized cucumbers, a small bunch of grapes and a large sweet pepper that barely fits in width.
The low-temperature compartment is also not striking in size: only two standard 400-gram bags of frozen vegetables are placed here. However, it is not intended for long-term freezing storage: one or two packs of dumplings or semi-finished products can wait in it for dinner. But frozen pizza will not fit here.
The lower shelf of the door allows you to place plastic bottles from a liter to two in it. In the latter case, the cork of a large bottle rests against the middle shelf, but does not interfere with the closing of the refrigerator.
On the middle shelf of the door it is convenient to store small jars and bottles, as well as tetra packs up to 500 ml. A half-liter aluminum can, placed on the top shelf, rests against the edge of the door and is installed with a slight distortion, but this does not prevent closing.
Care
To avoid an unpleasant odor, the refrigerator is wiped from the inside with a weak soda solution, and then washed with warm water and wiped dry.
The outer surfaces are wiped with a damp and then dry cloth.
The refrigerator needs to be defrosted from time to time to prevent loss of efficiency due to ice formation. It is recommended to do this when the layer of frost on the surface of the evaporator reaches 3-4 mm.
To speed up defrosting, you can use a container of hot water by placing it under the evaporator. Frost and frost can be mechanically removed using a wooden or plastic spatula, but sharp metal objects must not be used.
At the end of defrosting, the refrigerator must be wiped dry.
Our measurements
We consider the useful volume of the refrigerator to be the total volume of all drawers and shelves of the appliance, calculated through measurements of internal capacities.
That is why the results of our measurements are guaranteed never to coincide with the values indicated in the documentation by refrigerator manufacturers: they indicate the total volume of the compartments, and we try to calculate the useful one.
The useful volume of the refrigerator compartment is, according to our measurements, 27×40×40 cm³ or 43.2 liters. The volume of the cold zone is 22×38×9 cm³=7.5 liters, and the capacity of the vegetable drawer is 10×40×16 cm³=6.4 liters. Adding to this the total volume of the door shelves (9 × 33 × 35 cm³ u003d 9.4 liters), we get a total useful volume of the refrigerator: 66.3 liters.
We measured the power consumption of the device in the maximum power mode for 3 days. During this time, the refrigerator spent 0.894 kWh, which corresponds to a daily energy consumption of 0.298 kWh,
The noise level with the compressor running did not exceed 36 dBA.
| Usable capacity of the refrigerator compartment | 66.3 l |
|---|---|
| Maximum recorded power consumption | 334 W |
| Daily energy consumption in maximum mode | 0.298 kWh |
| Noise level with compressor running | 36 dB(A) |
Cold room measurements
To simulate the operation of a loaded refrigerator, we used ballast water in four-liter containers in the process of testing the refrigerator compartment. In addition, several plastic water bottles were placed on the shelves and the door.
Measurements of the air temperature inside the refrigerator compartment were carried out using seven sensors: four of them on the shelves, as close as possible to their geometric center, the fifth was lowered into the fruit and vegetable drawer. We placed two more on the shelves of the door: upper and lower.
The total volume of cooled ballast was 15 liters.
Refrigerator operation
According to the operating manual, the temperature inside the chamber depends not only on the installed power, but also on the location of the product to be cooled. We turned on the refrigerator with ballast in the maximum mode and followed the temperature changes in the chamber during the day (hereinafter, the shelves are numbered from top to bottom). The measurement results can be seen on the graph.
For approximately eight and a half hours, the compressor ran continuously, after which it switched to intermittent operation. The temperature inside the device gradually decreased for about four hours, then stabilized. In the next graph, we’ll take a closer look at temperature fluctuations.
The design uses a classic on / off type compressor. The power of the device is adjusted by turning the engine on and off.
It can be seen from the graph that at all measurement points the temperature fluctuates with a period of about 25 minutes over a very wide range, decreasing when the compressor is turned on and gradually increasing after it is turned off. The fluctuations are noticeable even in the vegetable drawer, but they are strongest in the low-temperature zone: with a minimum of -25.9 ° C and a maximum of -7.1 ° C, the amplitude is almost 19 degrees Celsius.
We consider it necessary to emphasize once again that the above graphs do not illustrate the consumer qualities of the refrigerator, but the features of the logic of the operation of the refrigeration unit and the circulation of cold air between the zones of the chamber. One should not be surprised at such, at first glance, significant fluctuations: chilled products have a much greater thermal inertia than the air in the chamber, and tolerate cyclic temperature changes normally.
From a consumer point of view, the average temperature in different zones of the refrigerator is much more important. We measured it during the day on each of the shelves of the refrigerator compartment in the maximum cooling mode. The data obtained were summarized in a table.
| Temperature, °C | Maximum | Minimum | Medium |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freezer compartment | −7.1 | −25.9 | −18.6 |
| First regiment | −3.3 | −6.6 | −5.2 |
| Second regiment | −2.3 | −5.1 | −3.9 |
| Third regiment | −2.8 | −5.2 | −4.1 |
| Vegetable drawer | +1.0 | −0.8 | +0.2 |
| Door, bottom shelf | −2.1 | −3.1 | −2.5 |
| Door, top shelf | −0.9 | −1.9 | −1.4 |
Defrosting the refrigerator
To evaluate the thermal insulation of the case and understand how long the device is unplugged, we turned off the pre-cooled device with ballast and watched the temperature change.
In the first half hour after turning off, the temperature in the “freezer” chamber rapidly crossed the zero mark and caught up with the average for the entire refrigerator: the open design of this compartment provides free heat exchange with the main compartment and is not designed to maintain sub-zero temperatures for a long time. For an hour and a half, the temperature in the chamber remained within -2 ° C, and then crept up, overtaking the readings of sensors in other areas of the device.
It was coldest of all in the lower part: on the middle and lower shelves, in the vegetable box and on the bottom shelf of the door. Nine hours after the shutdown, the temperature in these zones did not exceed +5 ° C, and after 21 hours it approached plus seven. This is a very good result.
findings
Due to its small size and good power, the Midea MR1080S refrigerator can be used as the main device in a studio apartment, country house, office or hotel room. Its capacity, of course, is not suitable for a large family, but for a single bachelor or even a young couple, he will be a true friend.
Measurements have shown that at maximum cooling power, the device is able to maintain a stable sub-zero temperature and withstand a long power outage. Low operating noise allows you to place it even next to a bed in a hotel room or dorm room – sleeping next to a refrigerator is quite possible.
We can only attribute the design of the low-temperature compartment to the disadvantages of the device: although a stable temperature is maintained in it when the door is closed, the leakage of the zone leads to a rapid increase in temperature even with a short opening: it cannot be used as a full-fledged freezer. A significant disadvantage, in our opinion, is also the small volume of this department.
Pros :
- high cooling capacity
- low power consumption
- low noise
Cons :
- no freezer
- small volume of the rapid cooling zone
- drip defrost system
