Fridge not working

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Scotsailor

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So first time out on boat this year and fridge not working. Absolutely nothing …it’s a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 32.2 with Danfross fridge. Think it’s a Roma. Any ideas very welcome
 
Have you got power to the fridge? If you haven't is it fused/circuit breaker?

I'm sure there are experts here who will sort it out for you.
 
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Scotsailor said:
I think so but I’m going to check it with a meter. I’m away from my home port right now
Click to expand...

this is the usual boat danfoss fridge diagram if it helps

Dan-2.JPG


if you need part numbers etc shout.
 
I had the same problem this spring.
I suspected an electrical problem so wired direct to the battery and by passed the thermostat. The fan worked and the electronic module got warm but fridge still not working. So probably the electronic module / pcb was faulty.
Toyed with getting a man in, if I could find one, but the economics of spending lots of cash for someone to tell me it was broke was not appealing. The old unit was 17 years old.
I decided to cut my losses and replace the lot with new. Delivery took 2 days only.
On removing the old unit there was pressure released so my suspicion of faulty electronics was possibly correct.
Sorry, not the news you want to hear.
 
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New unit was £450.
The suspected culprit, electronic control unit about £170 but no guarantee that it was the problem.
I decided to pay up & look big, rather than keep throwing money at it.
Possibly a refrigeration man could have fixed it but I couldn't find one prepared to visit & work on a boat.
 
First check power to unit, then sort out C and P this is the thermostat and it should run if you have power to the unit, if it dies you have a faulty thermostat, most faults are with these, just as units at home, the thermostats are the same and cost £10. If nothing works it’s either the controller or compressor motor, this is hard to check on small units. There is no pressure control on these units so even with gas loss the compressor will still run for short periods. He small condenser fan will most likely run if the controller is ok but compressor not. Compressor not expensive if you your a fridge engineer as I am, but not cost effective for me to change one with parts and labour costs. Simpler to change whole unit for DIY gus
 
My Danfoss fridge failed with a faulty controller. Slightly different symptoms as in my case the fan would run then stop and the compressor was not running. I opened up the control box and found some badly soldered connections inside, so I carefully re-soldered them, actually replacing one wire link completely, and that cured it.
 
If I had a £450 fridge that wasn't working and I thought it was the stat or the controller rather than the motor or the gassy bit I'd be wanting to replace the controller etc.

£170 is ridiculous.

I'd almost certainly buy one of these: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/KKmoon-1...287276?hash=item3d41396bec:g:X3cAAOSwRMtZZ9Va and re-wire into that.

My only concern would be the wiring diagram shows 20A and this is 10A. So this is what I'd do:

Check you have power to the controller (if not fix the power)
Check if you bypass the controller can you get the motor to run and therefore the fridge to go cold. If so, I'd replace the 20A fuse with a 10A and repeat a few times to make sure the motor is fine and start up currents wont blow the fuse. (a normal fridge draws less than 10A)
Then I'd buy one of these units. Find somewhere to mount it (not huge)... Drill hole into fridge for probe.
Youtube describes the wiring https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0x45ukcxVA (guy is clearly mad because he is heating his tractor to 25C in snow!)
He says you'd need to re-program each time - pretty sure thats not right. The 240V versions are used on fridges etc that get powercuts and dont need re-programmed.

If you try it and it doesn't work you are £11 down. If it works you save £159 on a new board or £450 on a fridge and even save dumping some old CFC for a few more years...
 
ShinyShoe said:
If I had a £450 fridge that wasn't working and I thought it was the stat or the controller rather than the motor or the gassy bit I'd be wanting to replace the controller etc.

£170 is ridiculous.

I'd almost certainly buy one of these: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/KKmoon-1...287276?hash=item3d41396bec:g:X3cAAOSwRMtZZ9Va and re-wire into that.

My only concern would be the wiring diagram shows 20A and this is 10A. So this is what I'd do:

Check you have power to the controller (if not fix the power)
Check if you bypass the controller can you get the motor to run and therefore the fridge to go cold. If so, I'd replace the 20A fuse with a 10A and repeat a few times to make sure the motor is fine and start up currents wont blow the fuse. (a normal fridge draws less than 10A)
Then I'd buy one of these units. Find somewhere to mount it (not huge)... Drill hole into fridge for probe.
Youtube describes the wiring https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0x45ukcxVA (guy is clearly mad because he is heating his tractor to 25C in snow!)
He says you'd need to re-program each time - pretty sure thats not right. The 240V versions are used on fridges etc that get powercuts and dont need re-programmed.

If you try it and it doesn't work you are £11 down. If it works you save £159 on a new board or £450 on a fridge and even save dumping some old CFC for a few more years...
Click to expand...

That would be fine if I knew what I was doing. My knowledge of electronics is restricted to "it works, it doesn't work"
I had a spare thermostat, but that didn't help. I tried connecting + & - direct to the battery and bridging the thermostat connections C & T. The fan worked in short bursts and control module got warm, that's all.
All this while hanging upside down in a locker and checking connections with a torch & mirror:(
I couldn't find a knowledgeable bloke prepared to come and check it and if I had, how much would he have charged?
Meanwhile the beer is getting warm!
 
Thank you to everyone for your advice. Update … got the fridge working by bypassing the thermostat. So I need a new thermostat. Much cheaper than a new fridge! Thanks
 
Thank you to everyone for your advice. Update … got the fridge working by bypassing the thermostat. So I need a new thermostat. Much cheaper than a new fridge! Thanks
 
Call into your local Wolsey Climate center trade counter, ask for a fridge thermostat , your current one will most likely be a ranco VT1 or similar. Will cost about £12, it has a thermocouple that just feeds into the cooling plate with two electrical connectors on the thermostat. You can easily remove this and take it to them. It’s fitted into the housing with either a centre spindle nut or two small bolts
https://www.wolseley.co.uk/wcsstore...oof-medium-w/std.lang.all/06/00/620600_wm.jpg
https://www.wolseley.co.uk/product/danfoss-no-1-service-thermostat/
 
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Scotsailor said:
Thank you to everyone for your advice. Update … got the fridge working by bypassing the thermostat. So I need a new thermostat. Much cheaper than a new fridge! Thanks
Click to expand...
FOR what it’s worth the replacement thermostats even from danfoss themselves are quite useless - you would be better off wiring in an electronic thermostat control unit they can be had for £2 on eBay, I went this route after fitting a replacement danfoss which created a freezer rather that a fridge

Wider range on a control unit and you can just program in the exact temperature you want your beer at rather than a dial from large squares to small squares!
 
You would be surprised at the failure rate of electronic thermostats, the small output relays fail very regularly, mechanical thermostats are used in their millions as they are simple and relatively reliable.

I’ve change 4 electronic thermostats this week alone, converted each to a slave output contactor to help with switching load. And these are both Corel and Elliwell, neither cheap at £90 each.

Reliability has to be always seen in context
 
Daverw said:
You would be surprised at the failure rate of electronic thermostats, the small output relays fail very regularly, mechanical thermostats are used in their millions as they are simple and relatively reliable.
Click to expand...
Electronic thermostats are also used in very large numbers... I have about 20 fridges at work - none have mechanical thermostats because they aren't precise enough, and I've had one controller fail in 20 years (we never investigated the cause - the replacement part was £20). Compressors etc - a different story!

Is a mechanical thermostat not also switching a relay in some of these set-ups?

The issue is almost certainly with sparking across the relay as it switches on and off. That can be minimised with capacitors...
 
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