Refridgerator Failure (Vitrifrigo C130L)

[JoeRickard]

So the refrigerator on my Oceanis 45 (Vitrifrigo C130L) stopped cooling. My initial hope was that it was just a fuse or breaker. No such luck. With multi-meter I confirmed that 12v was getting to the control unit (Danfoss 101N0210). The contacts on the unit appeared corroded and a friend said that those fail before the other parts, so I replaced it with the replacement part SECOP 101N0212, but no go - not cooling. I don't hear a fan going, nor do I feel the compressor vibrating. So what should I check next? Who knows a marine refrigeration resource in Chicago area?

Thanks in advance for your input!

-- Joe

 

[DougM]

Probably leaked out all of the refrigerant. If its the obsolete refrigerant, it might be cheaper to buy a whole new system than to track down the leak between compressor and coil. The obsolete refrigerant is not being produced and existing supply is north of $125 per pound.

 

[jviss]

Are you reading any error codes? From the manual:

LED (optional, Fig. 10)
A 10mA light emitting diode (LED) (6) can be connected between the terminals + and D. In case the electronic unit records an operational error, the diode will flash a number of times. The number of flashes depends on what kind of operational error was recorded. Each flash will last . second. After the actual number of flashes there will be a delay with no flashes, so that the sequence for each error recording is repeated every 4 seconds.​

Error Codes

• jviss
• Jun 27, 2018

 

[jviss]

Also, perhaps there's a resettable thermal overload device on the compressor?

 

[SycloneDriver]

Check the thermostat with a meter.

 

[JoeRickard]

I proved that the problem is the thermostat ... based on a YouTube Video I jumped the Controller terminals C and T to bypass the thermostat ... both the fan and compressor kicked on. Form some reason, I'm finding it a challenge to source the same thermostat (Ranco K50-L3418).

 

[SycloneDriver]

So I nailed it, bad thermostat.

I think the "chip" is just a resistor that sets the compressor speed. The controller sets the speed of the compressor based off of the value of the resistor. The value of the resistor is based off of the evaporator size and maybe some other variables.

Good luck finding a thermostat. I tried to find one for a kegerator once and I ended up using a digital unit instead. The cold machine I installed 2 years ago used a thermostat similar to the one you need. I'm sure a newer design would be fine, just make sure you use the correct resistor.

I wish everything was this easy to troubleshoot.