Danfoss BD35F 12v fridge running warm

[Waughey]

I have a Danfoss BD35F. It stopped working a few weeks ago. The compressor and fan are working but the fridge unit now runs warm rather than cold! I think it might be a gas problem although I see no sign of a leak.
Any thoughts would be welcome. I have tried to find an engineer to look at it but to no avail. The boat is in Northumberland. If it is a gas problem does anyone have any advice as to how to re-gas?
Thanks
Adam

 

[Yngmar]

Sounds like the gas went missing. In which case it's not a simple matter of refilling, the place where it escaped from has to be found and sealed. Then the air that's now probably in the system needs to be thoroughly removed with a vacuum pump.

The tools for this job (manifold with hoses and adapters, vacuum pump, bottle tap valve, refrigerant) are about 150 EUR or so, but the required refrigerant (often R134a) can be hard to source. Sometimes you get lucky on eBay.

On kit/retrofit fridges where the evaporator comes separately and is joined with self-sealing quick connectors, it's common for those connectors to fail after a while. Ours could be stripped apart, cleaned up, fitted with new o-rings and just a tiny bit of silicone grease and have not lost gas since.

The boat-fridge-fixer-people you can sometimes find near marinas tend to charge 200-300 EUR for the work (once - you may need multiple visits if you can't find the leak or have more than one). They're also often lacking basic understanding of their work. You may get lucky and find a regular (land) refrigeration person who doesn't mind stepping on a boat, do the same job for 60 EUR or so and are likely to actually know what they're doing.

 

[vyv_cox]

There is an article by my son Owen on diagnosing fridge problems on my website. Recharging marine refrigeration systems

 

[luke collins]

Try a caravan place. If you struggle send it down to us in Leicester. We will pressure test and find the leak before recharging. Pm me for further info. Please check first it’s on 134a. If on R12 it’s too old to repair effectively.

 

[Waughey]

Thanks for all your replies. Very helpful. I will try the caravan community and see how that goes.

 

[vas]

before you do any of that, how about using a multimeter and making sure the V you get at the spade terminals is what it should be?
sometimes this compressor feels like it's working but due to low voltage it's not actually running (you mainly hear the fan)
I've got an led on both my fridges and the flashes tell me what's the issue. Costs a few cents, crimp two terminals and plug it in. vyv link in #3 has that info.
Following danfoss threads in here over the last 4-5yrs turns out that the majority is voltage drop/connectors/terminals/breakers to blame and not the poor fridge.