Fridge broke - any pointers to what could be wrong?

[asteven221]

Is it just us that find when we use the boat all the time nothing seems to stop working and as soon as we leave the boat for a couple of weeks and nip down to the marina to check all is ok, some item decides to break itself?

It's the fridge this time. It's made by Engel and works on 240v and 12v, auto switching from one to the other as required. All of a sudden it's decided that it won't switch off using the internal slide switch. At this point I have switched off the 12v breaker on the main panel. If I then switch the internal slide switch too off as normal when leaving the boat, it appears to keep running and the compressor motor (I think that's the noise!) then starts to sound as if it's rapidly switching on/off like it a loose connection. It won't stop making that noise until I kill the 240v at the mains switch. The noise is quite severe.

Has anyone seen this fault and can advise, before I start to do some fridge surgery?

Thanks.

 

[rafiki_]

My fridge was running constantly, and changing the thermostat fixed it.

 

[asteven221]

Thanks rafiki for responding. I will certainly look at that. Cheers.

 

[Questor]

We had a similar problem with an Engel fridge.

When we arrived at the boat, "somehow" (women never give straight answers) water or maybe condensate from the evaporator tray got spilled onto the on / off switch which sits alongside. (Took loads of detective work to work this out)

A hairdryer sorted out the problem, and it's worked fine ever since.

 

[superheat6k]

Engel use a unique type of compressor known as the Sawafuji swing motor - try google for further info.

This single cylinder / solenoid driven affair operates on 12vdc, with a transformer / converter providing 12v as priority supply whenever 240vac is available.

I would look first for a bad connection somewhere, as these things are both simple and very reliable. Mine packed up due to a dodgy 12v supply fuse, but worked just fine when 240v was available. A new clean fuse sorted the problem.

I have never had the thing in bits to advise further on the power supply unit, but would expect it is quite simple.

 

[asteven221]

Thanks for the useful info.

When I finally do fix it I will report back in case it's of benefit to others with a similar problem.

 

[rafiki_]

Good luck with the fix!