£0.43 Fix for Meaco DD8L Dehumidifier

[Joe_Pineapples]

Hey, found this thread useful in fixing mine so registered to post some more info because although others have posted the same problem no one had identified this repair.

Symptom: unit runs for 3 minutes then goes into "cool down" mode with a solid red light.

You'll probably also notice that the unit doesn't actually emit warmer air for the 3 minutes it runs. I think the red light is it going into temperature protect mode, which is actually true if you read the manual, but is usually.listed as a bad temp sensor elsewhere. In this case all the sensors were fine.

In my case this was caused by a faulty heater element fan motor - clearly the water had gotten into the motor bearing as it had become stiff to turn when I removed it. I presume it's then going into protect mode and not heating up anymore.

To repair you have to open the Dehumidifier to get to it, so top off (6 screws hidden under plastic sticker), sides off (4 screws in sump area) then pull apart with pressure applied to middle of blue strip either side.

You'll need open the PCB cover (2 screws) to snip some of the cable ties on the wiring but once this has been done you can manoeuvre all the bits around so you can see the back of the main fan and dessicant wheel. You may as well disconnect the little 2 wire red plug from the PCB now as that's the heater fan you'll be removing. It may make it easier to remove the button panel (big white connector, use a small screwdriver on the latch)

Once this is done the heater fan comes off with a few screws, can't remember how many. think you have to loosen the main fan cowling woth one or two screws as well maybe. All the screws are the same size so you don't need to worry about that You'll need to remove the metal shroud and inlet pipe from the heater fan. You'll know if it's the heater fan because it's like a much smaller version of the main one.

Once you're here if the heater fan is a bit stiff to turn then that's your problem. A little WD40 or penetrating oil with the little straw applicator to loosen the fan, clean out any dust woth a pick and then I used bike chain lube on the spindle at all the bearing points and let that sink in each way up after giving it a little bit of time on each part each way up. A syringe is helpful here and dint just use WD40 as that'll dry pretty quickly so use a thicker oil, as I say chain lube should be good, I would have used some Teflon lube if I had any.

It's an AC 240v fan so you can test it from mains if you're brave but once it's moving freely and spinning for a few seconds by hand after a quick turn then it should be good to go back together - mine ran perfectly after reassembly.

At this point I'd say also take some time to clean out the condenser unit on the other side (big white plastic thing) and also the black drain piece that is removable too, as mine was full of dust and blocked, which also fixed the unit leaking around the side of the water carrier!

Anyway it's been running for an hour since I fixed it, better than it has for about a year. Mine is approaching 5 years now and is used daily, for reference.

Hope this helps someone as this thread helped me!

All told, I reckon no more than an hour if you're competent, if it's ypur first time and you're being careful, a couple.of hours.

Cheers :^)

Hey, found this thread useful in fixing mine so registered to post some more info because although others have posted the same problem no one had identified this repair.

Symptom: unit runs for 3 minutes then goes into "cool down" mode with a solid red light.

You'll probably also notice that the unit doesn't actually emit warmer air for the 3 minutes it runs. I think the red light is it going into temperature protect mode, which is actually true if you read the manual, but is usually.listed as a bad temp sensor elsewhere. In this case all the sensors were fine.

In my case this was caused by a faulty heater element fan motor - clearly the water had gotten into the motor bearing as it had become stiff to turn when I removed it. I presume it's then going into protect mode and not heating up anymore.

To repair you have to open the Dehumidifier to get to it, so top off (6 screws hidden under plastic sticker), sides off (4 screws in sump area) then pull apart with pressure applied to middle of blue strip either side.

You'll need open the PCB cover (2 screws) to snip some of the cable ties on the wiring but once this has been done you can manoeuvre all the bits around so you can see the back of the main fan and dessicant wheel. You may as well disconnect the little 2 wire red plug from the PCB now as that's the heater fan you'll be removing. It may make it easier to remove the button panel (big white connector, use a small screwdriver on the latch)

Once this is done the heater fan comes off with a few screws, can't remember how many. think you have to loosen the main fan cowling woth one or two screws as well maybe. All the screws are the same size so you don't need to worry about that You'll need to remove the metal shroud and inlet pipe from the heater fan. You'll know if it's the heater fan because it's like a much smaller version of the main one.

Once you're here if the heater fan is a bit stiff to turn then that's your problem. A little WD40 or penetrating oil with the little straw applicator to loosen the fan, clean out any dust woth a pick and then I used bike chain lube on the spindle at all the bearing points and let that sink in each way up after giving it a little bit of time on each part each way up. A syringe is helpful here and dint just use WD40 as that'll dry pretty quickly so use a thicker oil, as I say chain lube should be good, I would have used some Teflon lube if I had any.

It's an AC 240v fan so you can test it from mains if you're brave but once it's moving freely and spinning for a few seconds by hand after a quick turn then it should be good to go back together - mine ran perfectly after reassembly.

At this point I'd say also take some time to clean out the condenser unit on the other side (big white plastic thing) and also the black drain piece that is removable too, as mine was full of dust and blocked, which also fixed the unit leaking around the side of the water carrier!

Anyway it's been running for an hour since I fixed it, better than it has for about a year. Mine is approaching 5 years now and is used daily, for reference.

Hope this helps someone as this thread helped me!

All told, I reckon no more than an hour if you're competent, if it's ypur first time and you're being careful, a couple.of hours.

Cheers :^)

Oh and thanks to @Lomax for originally suggesting this could be the problem on Page 7 of this thread!

 

[poldino]

Greetings, my first post here. I found this thread (and the amazing forum too) looking for information about repairing our DD8Ls. I own several DD8L and never had any problem with them in the past, however regrettably lately few of them ceased working all together during a storm. Below the whole story:
1. After the storm, I found the breakers of the area where the DD8L are installed had tripped
2. When I rearm the breaker / reconnect the devices to power, their LEDs are off and their buttons don't work, however the fan spins at full speed and the heater is also on. Even if I tilt the devices upside down (which normally would shut them off), they keep spinning and heating. This feels very dangerous and I haven't tried keeping them on for enough time to tell if they are actually removing any humidity or not
3. (here it comes the interesting part) Since I own more DD8Ls, I tried to install the control board of a healthy one into the faulty units to see whether the problem was in the control board or elsewhere. When fitted with a healthy control board they all turn on nicely with working LEDs, buzzer and buttons BUT they only operate in LAUNDRY mode and the humidity LED blinks. They allow me to graciously set the fan speed, turn the unit on and off and set a timer but they don't allow me to set the humidity level

Regarding the faulty boards, fhe fuse and DC supply in all them seem ok, so I really can't tell at a glance where the problem is.
Regarding the laundry mode, I read it might be an entirely different problem and might even go away on its own (all units are very clean FYI). But I find weird it happens to all units that suffered this incident.

I believe they are out of warranty (at least some of them), what would you recommend me to do?

Thanks!

 

[Nourish]

Hello All. My DD8L Junior only appears to work with the humidity set the the Clothes drying position - no lights flashing until of course the reservoir is full. Any other setting it will run but not start up again once it's "gone to sleep" - Any ideas what might be wrong?

 

[plumbob]

Hello All. My DD8L Junior only appears to work with the humidity set the the Clothes drying position - no lights flashing until of course the reservoir is full. Any other setting it will run but not start up again once it's "gone to sleep" - Any ideas what might be wrong?

Meaco seem to say almost every issue is down to the filter being blocked.

 

[Momac]

Presumably switching it off completely and starting it up again doesn't cure the fault.

 

[Nourish]

I've had this thing apart a few time and you could eat your dinner off of it and turning it off doesn't reset it

 

[Habebty]

What I would like to know is how to ensure it starts up again after low temperature shutdown which is by design, It seems to shutdown at about 2degC but won’t start up when the ambient temperature rises. I have to unplug it and plug it in again to restart it. Boat an hour away.

 

[Stevedd]

Hi, I’ve got through three dd8l juniors, all failed completely dead. I have realised that it is crucial to clean the inlet filter regularly, they are so fine that even a dirty one looks clean!
Hosever, I have stripped the latest failure, thermal fuses are ok but there’s tiny thing next to the fuses that looks like a miniature diode but is completely open circuit, ie infinite resistance in both directions. It’s about 5mm long. Any ideas anybody?

 

[Momac]

Hi, I’ve got through three dd8l juniors, all failed completely dead. I have realised that it is crucial to clean the inlet filter regularly, they are so fine that even a dirty one looks clean!
Hosever, I have stripped the latest failure, thermal fuses are ok but there’s tiny thing next to the fuses that looks like a miniature diode but is completely open circuit, ie infinite resistance in both directions. It’s about 5mm long. Any ideas anybody?

Try a search on google images which suggests its a temperature sensor

 

[Momac]

I have realised that it is crucial to clean the inlet filter regularly, they are so fine that even a dirty one looks clean!

I always give the filter on my DD8L a wash and then be sure its dry before the dehumidifier is put away for the warmer months.
It has been in use on the boat over the winter for 8 years (bought in Feb 2017).

 

[Stevedd]

Thanks, I’ve been washing mine every month though it’s in a draughty garage keeping my machines and a steam loco free from rust. Looks like you’re right, must be a thermistor but shouldn’t be open circuit, I wonder if it could be the cause of the failure? Must get my magnifying glass out! Not a boat owner these days though had a Signet super 20 at Chichester for many happy years.

 

[Graham65]

Meaco DD8L Junior Dehumidifier faulty - FIXED!!!

The unit in question was approx 7 years old when it exhibited the classic symptoms mentioned earlier in this forum - it has been working faultlessly in a boat galley during the winter from Oct - Apr each year. Standard symptoms as described here and elsewhere, namely, power unit on and after 2mins, the red light appears with no other symptoms or indicators and then goes through its shutdown cycle. There was lots of air being blow out of the grill at the top which felt slightly warm.

I'm grateful at this stage, to the various contributors on YouTube and this forum for the strip-down videos/info which provided a heads up to troubleshooting the unit and swift disassembly & reassembly.

Once the covers were off, I powered up the unit (remembering to refit the water container) so I could see what was actually happening inside the unit (which was spotless inside and not like some of the units shown on Youtube). The large centrifugal air fan & the dessicant wheel were working correctly, but the rotor of the heater motor fan was not turning. I initially suspected seized-up rotor bearings, until I found that I could turn the rotor quite easily by hand (after removing the 240v power from the unit) , so I concluded that the windings were probably O/C.

After testing with a multi-meter, this was indeed proven to be the case...

The motor itself is labelled as a YJ48/100e 240v 50Hz asynchronous shaded pole motor, manufactured by Shenzen Zhaoli Motor Ltd (See Picture)

The next part of this investigation, proved to be the most difficult as I could not find a direct replacement anywhere....with the same spindle profile!! I could find plenty of YJ48 240v 50Hz motors, but the spindle was always a problem - and min order qty was often 1000+ units from Chinese manufacturers directly. It also seems that this particular motor is no longer manufactured by Zhaoli and there was no direct equivalent on their website... or from any of the other manufacturers.

The dimensions of the rotor spindle was as follows (approx);

L= 28mm
Dia = 4mm
Threaded part = 7mm from end, reverse thread - nut needs loctite
Spindle profile = D
Rotation Direction = CCW

As the search continued during the best part of a week, the closest I could find is as follows - what I subsequently found to be the most important dimensions are the mounting hole spacings of 38mm, laminated armature thickness of 8-10mm and rotor shaft diameter of 4mm for reasons described below.





It transpires that these Chinese motors are all manufactured pretty much the same way and with almost identical dimensions. I quickly realised that as the rotor bearings were still OK (well I could spin them freely), I *should* be able to swap the original rotor, complete with bearings & screws on to the new motor stator, if the dimensions matched - it was a gamble. I found the best/cheapest match to be on AliExpress as follows - the motor took about one week to arrive.

To my surprise, the old rotor fitted perfectly onto the new motor stator and spun freely - the rotor shaft alignment was also a good match for the old motor in the fan housing, with the fan fitted.





I would like to say at this point, that you proceed AT YOUR OWN RISK - it is entirely your decision!

As you may have noticed, there are 3 taps on the new winding as it is a 2-speed fan motor, but this is not a problem - It is important that you check which is which before you splice to the Red/Black cable from the control unit. ****DO NOT CONNECT THE RED & BLUE TO 240V *** (incidentally I measured the resistance between the Blue & Red wires beforehand which was approx 75 Ohms)

I could not find any specs on the old motor to check performance of the new motor, so this is also a gamble...

Black - "Common"
Red - (Higher Speed) Resistance to common = 580 ohms approx
Blue - (Lower Speed) Resistance to Common = 620 Ohms approx

I tested the "new" Motor before fitting, with the Black & Blue wires from the coil connected to 240v AC which is supposed to be the slower speed and then the Black & Red wires in the same way, but I couldn't really tell any difference. Once this was left to run for half an house or so with no problem, I put the motor back into the plastic housing and adjusted the centrifugal fan wheel on the rotor shaft so it was clear of the casing and sealed the thread with Loctite.

It was spinning smoothly with a fair draught on testing, so I refitted the motor into the unit and spliced the black & blue wires from the motor to the black & red wires from the control unit respectively. Incidentally this is the easiest of the 3 motors in the unit to replace, so didn't take very long luckily!



I put the covers back on, plugged it and powered on... and it worked!

I left it running for 60mins on full laundry mode - the dessicant wheel was turning (which you can see if you take the filter off incidentally) the fan was blowing. Once the dessicant became saturated after about 15mins or so, water started to drip into the container and the unit kept going. I then left it on in normal mode overnight and the water level had increased to cover the whole of the bottom of the container with a few mm of water.

I wasn't expecting a lot of water as the humidity in the room was already 55% but it did drop the humidity down to 42%

NOTE: I did managed to speak to Meaco Tech Support in the UK (01483 234900) a month ago before I embarked on this journey who were very helpful and explained that they do not keep any parts in the UK, but would try to find out a part number/spec/equivalent of a replacement for me - they did call me back to get some more details of the motor, but have not heard back since sadly.

I hope you find this helpful.

 

[Kire]

Hi! I have a Meaco ddl8 zambezi with error code c4. What could be wrong?
Regards Kire

 

[littledancersadhu]

Found a 6v/12v charger in a bin, and new rectifiyer for under £4 and i have myself a charger for the van now for less than a pint of beer, great when you can repair things cheaply,rather than throw away.

I wish the tillerpilots did not go to the super minute components and solder as the are near impossible to repair "By Design".........Oh... i though the big corporations cared about the planet and bieng "green" all a smoke screen

 

[gej]

Meaco DD8L Junior Dehumidifier faulty - FIXED!!!

The unit in question was approx 7 years old when it exhibited the classic symptoms mentioned earlier in this forum - it has been working faultlessly in a boat galley during the winter from Oct - Apr each year. Standard symptoms as described here and elsewhere, namely, power unit on and after 2mins, the red light appears with no other symptoms or indicators and then goes through its shutdown cycle. There was lots of air being blow out of the grill at the top which felt slightly warm.

I'm grateful at this stage, to the various contributors on YouTube and this forum for the strip-down videos/info which provided a heads up to troubleshooting the unit and swift disassembly & reassembly.

Once the covers were off, I powered up the unit (remembering to refit the water container) so I could see what was actually happening inside the unit (which was spotless inside and not like some of the units shown on Youtube). The large centrifugal air fan & the dessicant wheel were working correctly, but the rotor of the heater motor fan was not turning. I initially suspected seized-up rotor bearings, until I found that I could turn the rotor quite easily by hand (after removing the 240v power from the unit) , so I concluded that the windings were probably O/C.

After testing with a multi-meter, this was indeed proven to be the case...

The motor itself is labelled as a YJ48/100e 240v 50Hz asynchronous shaded pole motor, manufactured by Shenzen Zhaoli Motor Ltd (See Picture)

The next part of this investigation, proved to be the most difficult as I could not find a direct replacement anywhere....with the same spindle profile!! I could find plenty of YJ48 240v 50Hz motors, but the spindle was always a problem - and min order qty was often 1000+ units from Chinese manufacturers directly. It also seems that this particular motor is no longer manufactured by Zhaoli and there was no direct equivalent on their website... or from any of the other manufacturers.

The dimensions of the rotor spindle was as follows (approx);

L= 28mm
Dia = 4mm
Threaded part = 7mm from end, reverse thread - nut needs loctite
Spindle profile = D
Rotation Direction = CCW

As the search continued during the best part of a week, the closest I could find is as follows - what I subsequently found to be the most important dimensions are the mounting hole spacings of 38mm, laminated armature thickness of 8-10mm and rotor shaft diameter of 4mm for reasons described below.


View attachment 190103


It transpires that these Chinese motors are all manufactured pretty much the same way and with almost identical dimensions. I quickly realised that as the rotor bearings were still OK (well I could spin them freely), I *should* be able to swap the original rotor, complete with bearings & screws on to the new motor stator, if the dimensions matched - it was a gamble. I found the best/cheapest match to be on AliExpress as follows - the motor took about one week to arrive.

To my surprise, the old rotor fitted perfectly onto the new motor stator and spun freely - the rotor shaft alignment was also a good match for the old motor in the fan housing, with the fan fitted.


View attachment 190104


I would like to say at this point, that you proceed AT YOUR OWN RISK - it is entirely your decision!

As you may have noticed, there are 3 taps on the new winding as it is a 2-speed fan motor, but this is not a problem - It is important that you check which is which before you splice to the Red/Black cable from the control unit. ****DO NOT CONNECT THE RED & BLUE TO 240V *** (incidentally I measured the resistance between the Blue & Red wires beforehand which was approx 75 Ohms)

I could not find any specs on the old motor to check performance of the new motor, so this is also a gamble...

Black - "Common"
Red - (Higher Speed) Resistance to common = 580 ohms approx
Blue - (Lower Speed) Resistance to Common = 620 Ohms approx

I tested the "new" Motor before fitting, with the Black & Blue wires from the coil connected to 240v AC which is supposed to be the slower speed and then the Black & Red wires in the same way, but I couldn't really tell any difference. Once this was left to run for half an house or so with no problem, I put the motor back into the plastic housing and adjusted the centrifugal fan wheel on the rotor shaft so it was clear of the casing and sealed the thread with Loctite.

It was spinning smoothly with a fair draught on testing, so I refitted the motor into the unit and spliced the black & blue wires from the motor to the black & red wires from the control unit respectively. Incidentally this is the easiest of the 3 motors in the unit to replace, so didn't take very long luckily!

View attachment 190108

I put the covers back on, plugged it and powered on... and it worked!

I left it running for 60mins on full laundry mode - the dessicant wheel was turning (which you can see if you take the filter off incidentally) the fan was blowing. Once the dessicant became saturated after about 15mins or so, water started to drip into the container and the unit kept going. I then left it on in normal mode overnight and the water level had increased to cover the whole of the bottom of the container with a few mm of water.

I wasn't expecting a lot of water as the humidity in the room was already 55% but it did drop the humidity down to 42%

NOTE: I did managed to speak to Meaco Tech Support in the UK (01483 234900) a month ago before I embarked on this journey who were very helpful and explained that they do not keep any parts in the UK, but would try to find out a part number/spec/equivalent of a replacement for me - they did call me back to get some more details of the motor, but have not heard back since sadly.

I hope you find this helpful.

Hi Graham . Checking your dehumidifier is stll running Ok after the repair? Very pleased to find your post, it describes exactly the issue that I've had this week (mines 7 years old too) so i checked thr fan motor and its not rotating. Taken it apart, the heat element is glowing the fan motor is still, elemt cools / fault light goes onto red and the dehumidifier goes into shutdown after couple of mins.

 

[Graham65]

Hi Graham . Checking your dehumidifier is stll running Ok after the repair? Very pleased to find your post, it describes exactly the issue that I've had this week (mines 7 years old too) so i checked thr fan motor and its not rotating. Taken it apart, the heat element is glowing the fan motor is still, elemt cools / fault light goes onto red and the dehumidifier goes into shutdown after couple of mins.

Hi Gej,

It's still working well after the repair so replacing the motor did the trick. I found an alternative motor on Amazon if you get problems with AliExpress.

Jadeshay Electric Motor 220V AC... Amazon.co.uk

 

[gej]

Hi Gej,

It's still working well after the repair so replacing the motor did the trick. I found an alternative motor on Amazon if you get problems with AliExpress.

Jadeshay Electric Motor 220V AC... Amazon.co.uk

Glad to hear it. Cheers. Just had the Ali Express delivered so fingers crossed.

 

[Offpist]

I have now reassembled the dehumidifier, and have done some probing on the control PCB:

• The 1.6A fuse (circled in red in photo) is intact (I had already measured this before disassembly)
• I get continuity on the thermal fuse chain, connected between TC1 and TC (confirming yet again that the thermal fuses are indeed intact)
• The -5V and -12V rails are operating and within tolerance (why negative rails? no idea!)
• There are no signs of life of any kind, even if leads are wiggled or components tapped

It looks like I might need a new control board, unless anyone has any other suggestions?

I have the exact same.. even removed all condensators and meassured them to be ok.

My main suspect at this point is the LNK306PN. It has 300V+ DC inn, but only 2.8V out.

Definetly not 100% sure. but new LNK306PN is on the way.

 

[Offpist]

Sorry, S is the output.. and output is 0V so..

Will swap it, and repport back if it works.

 

[Offpist]

No, that did not solve it.
I did however swap the PCB (main board) and then it works fine.. so I can tell for sure the problem is on the PCB.
I also ruled out the tilt sensor and some of the other components..