Halfords 12V/24V/240V 40l Coolbox Repair?

[pmcdermott]

I have one of the above coolboxes which worked fine until it stopped cooling after a few weeks continuous use when our house fridge packed up. (I know I probably shouldn't have done that). Otherwise good condition!

Anyone know a place I can take it to be diagnosed & repaired. London & South Coast preferably.

I have tried Penguin Engineering Ltd., but they say "wrong type of gas". I have also tried cleaning the dust out of the fan & heat sink, per a YouTube video I found, but no joy.

For reference, here is a link to the product.

Thank you.

 

[pcatterall]

I have one of the above coolboxes which worked fine until it stopped cooling after a few weeks continuous use when our house fridge packed up. (I know I probably shouldn't have done that). Otherwise good condition!

Anyone know a place I can take it to be diagnosed & repaired. London & South Coast preferably.

I have tried Penguin Engineering Ltd., but they say "wrong type of gas". I have also tried cleaning the dust out of the fan & heat sink, per a YouTube video I found, but no joy.

For reference, here is a link to the product.

Thank you.

It looks like a peltier type cooler rather than a compressor powered one. Penguin to my knowledge deal with compressor powered coolers.
There is not too much to go wrong with the peltier units the fan is just driving the air over the cooling plates and pushing the hot air out.
Is the fan working?

 

[andsarkit]

I have one of the above coolboxes which worked fine until it stopped cooling after a few weeks continuous use when our house fridge packed up. (I know I probably shouldn't have done that). Otherwise good condition!

Anyone know a place I can take it to be diagnosed & repaired. London & South Coast preferably.

I have tried Penguin Engineering Ltd., but they say "wrong type of gas". I have also tried cleaning the dust out of the fan & heat sink, per a YouTube video I found, but no joy.

For reference, here is a link to the product.

Thank you.

That looks very much like a peltier cooler rather than a compressor fridge.
They are very simple. 12V goes to the peltier element and it pumps heat from the cool side to the hot side. This one also has a thermostat. You just need to check that power is getting to the peltier. If power gets to the peltier and it doesn't cool then the unit is probably scrap. It is possible that the peltier has been damaged if the fan is not removing enough heat and the peltier overheats.
Does the fan rotate?
If no power, then check the thermostat is connecting and also check all plugs and fuses.
If you have a meter you could also check if it is drawing about 4A.

beaten to it by pcatterall!

 

[pmcdermott]

I agree this is not a proper fridge with a compressor.

Answers to the questions above:
1. Fan is rotating. Checking with a small piece of tissue I can see that it is sucking cooling air in and pushing it out the exhaust on the outside of the box; Similarly on the inside of the box I can see that it is sucking air in and pushing (what I presume should be cooled) air out. I have cleaned the dust of the fan and cooler fins.
2 I'm not sure what the Peltier looks like to check whether it is damaged or whether power is getting to it.
3. I will check the current draw.

 

[andsarkit]

The actual peltier unit looks like this:

You will not be able to see it because it will have finned aluminium heatsinks on either side to transfer the heat/cold to the air. If you can see red and black wires coming out of the heatsink module you can follow the wires to wherever they are connected. (If you reverse the polarity of the connection it will pump heat in the opposite direction - you will have a warm box instead of a cool box.)
Can you check that the thermostat is making a connection to allow current to flow to the peltier? If it is a simple bi-metallic strip you may hear it clicking as you adjust it. The link you provided indicates that the thermostat only works when connected to the mains. That seems unusual but you could try both mains and 12v inputs. (assuming the mains is not just an external 12v 'brick' power supply.)

 

[QBhoy]

might not help if you are just looking for a repair…but I can tell you that the weaco/dometic compressor fridge freezer is an incredible product, if not a little expensive. If you have a birthday coming soon…won’t get much better than one of them. Best thing I’ve ever bought for the boat.so efficient once it’s at temperature it’s unreal. Tickles the battery at best.

 

[iamtjc]

If your fans are working I would suspect the peltier unit itself. They do break as they are brittle and subject to a lot of thermal stress as they cycle on and off. The units themselves are not very expensive and easily found on ebay. You do need good thermal contact with the heatsinks using a very thin layer of thermal paste. If you extract yours from the heatsinks you will probably find the spec (volts and watts) written on it.