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12volt LEC refrigerator.


Nightwatch

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Hello.

Returned to boat after a week away.

 

Our fridge has decided it doesn’t want to be a fridge anymore. I may be a fuse. It may not be. I don’t have a spare midi 30 amp fuse at present.


How long should a LEC 12v fridge last that is in full time usage?

 

Hoping it’s the fuse though.

 

Regards Martyn n Crew.

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Is it sitting there totally silent? 

 

Or is the compressor running continuously for all the world as if the fridge is working but its warm inside the cabinet? 

 

If the former, it's probably a failed thermostat. If the latter, I'd say it has sprung a leak and lost its refrigerant.

 

But to answer your actual question, a decade or two would be a reasonable life to expect.

 

 

 

 

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Sitting quite happily silent. The issue I have is that since installing the fridge eight or more years ago, we have laid flooring, but not under the fridge. So, will have to either take up the flooring or take off the worktop.(preferable).

I can be such a muppet at times. One day I will engage brain.

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7 minutes ago, Nightwatch said:

Sitting quite happily silent. The issue I have is that since installing the fridge eight or more years ago, we have laid flooring, but not under the fridge. So, will have to either take up the flooring or take off the worktop.(preferable).

I can be such a muppet at times. One day I will engage brain.

That fridge must fit very tight unless you laid a very thick floor, if it is tight lack of ventilation wont help it.  You say returned from a week away, your battery voltage is OK I take it?

 

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58 minutes ago, Nightwatch said:

Hello.

Returned to boat after a week away.

 

Our fridge has decided it doesn’t want to be a fridge anymore. I may be a fuse. It may not be. I don’t have a spare midi 30 amp fuse at present.


How long should a LEC 12v fridge last that is in full time usage?

 

Hoping it’s the fuse though.

 

Regards Martyn n Crew.

Have you checked the fuse?

 

 

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Voltage is okay. On shore power.

 

The fridge replaced a smaller one, and I had to raise the worktop by a half inch for it to fit under. I realised that the space around the unit was tight, but no real options to do anything about it other than cutting holes in the cupboards either side. In warmer weather, we would open the cupboard doors. Genius eh! Fitted bog standard laminate. Have purchased but not fitted yet, a grill/vent to cover a hole as yet still to be cut. Need to get a round tuit.

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20 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

That fridge must fit very tight unless you laid a very thick floor, if it is tight lack of ventilation wont help it.  You say returned from a week away, your battery voltage is OK I take it?

 

 

Good suggestion. 

 

In my experience of a dying battery, the fridge runs for a minute or so draining the last bit of battery voltage, shuts off with a low voltage error (single red flash on the LED IIRC) then the batteries recover slightly with no load and the terminal voltage rises a bit, the fridge notices and starts up again and the whole cycle repeats for days on end but with ever longer gaps.

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48 minutes ago, MtB said:

Is it sitting there totally silent? 

 

Or is the compressor running continuously for all the world as if the fridge is working but its warm inside the cabinet? 

 

If the former, it's probably a failed thermostat. If the latter, I'd say it has sprung a leak and lost its refrigerant.

 

But to answer your actual question, a decade or two would be a reasonable life to expect.

 

 

 

 

I prefer the idea it’s a thermostat rather than a new fridge. The unit is eight years old,with poor ventilation.

Edited by Nightwatch
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You are going to have to get in there with your volt meter and see if there is any "leccie" getting to the fridge, if there is then short the thermostat out. You could even try wacking the stat up to maximum, that may click it in if it feeling poorly. The problem is they leave the mains AC rated stat in there to switch DC and they don't really like it too much. If it is duff then a digital one from Ebay may be the way to go,

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21 minutes ago, Nightwatch said:

I prefer the idea it’s a thermostat rather than a new fridge. The unit is eight years old,with poor ventilation.

 

I just replaced the stat on one of mine. Symptoms identical to yours. 

 

Empty the fridge and get the controls cover off. The the temp control knob is attached to the stat behind. Get the stat out, remove the two wires from it and connect them together. After a few seconds you should hear the compressor kick in. If it kicks in, the stat has failed. If still no compressor, then the fridge is goosed and can be repaired but will prolly need a new compressor, which costs more than a new fridge. 

 

Stat failure is particularly probable on a converted 230V to 12v fridge as they rarely fit a relay to carry the far higher current a 12v compressor draws. They just leave the 230Vac one in place as it will work for a while, but it is switching a far higher than design current, leading to early failure.

 

 

Edited by MtB
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I really appreciate all the comments.

 

Hot news though. Emptied the fridge of stuff we haven’t disposed of, and started to investigate the thermostat.

 

Thats when I noticed the fridge start up. So it’s not a fuse.

 

Question. If! the boat got really cold whilst we were away, it was down to 3 degrees in the saloon last night, could this confuse the fridge into ‘thinking’ it’s very cold in here so I’m not going to switch on? The freezer was not icy, food defrosted but still cold. There was milk in there that is okay as well. Does this make sense?

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1 minute ago, Nightwatch said:

I really appreciate all the comments.

 

Hot news though. Emptied the fridge of stuff we haven’t disposed of, and started to investigate the thermostat.

 

Thats when I noticed the fridge start up. So it’s not a fuse.

 

Question. If! the boat got really cold whilst we were away, it was down to 3 degrees in the saloon last night, could this confuse the fridge into ‘thinking’ it’s very cold in here so I’m not going to switch on? The freezer was not icy, food defrosted but still cold. There was milk in there that is okay as well. Does this make sense?

Quite possibly. I had a boat that had a fridge that had been left switched off all winter with water in the ice cube tray,  In March, the water had some ice floating in it!

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Fridges and freezers have a specific temperature range that they will work in.

Many fridges/freezers won't work properly under 10deg so don't work in garages etc. I had to get one that specifically works down to 0deg as I wanted to place it in the garage.

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12 minutes ago, Loddon said:

Fridges and freezers have a specific temperature range that they will work in.

Many fridges/freezers won't work properly under 10deg so don't work in garages etc. I had to get one that specifically works down to 0deg as I wanted to place it in the garage.

 

Same here.

 

I don't know exactly what the difference is but when we bought a chest freezer for the garage I got one that did the same. There was no cost difference either so it seemed daft not to.

 

Edited by M_JG
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18 minutes ago, Nightwatch said:

I really appreciate all the comments.

 

Hot news though. Emptied the fridge of stuff we haven’t disposed of, and started to investigate the thermostat.

 

Thats when I noticed the fridge start up. So it’s not a fuse.

 

Question. If! the boat got really cold whilst we were away, it was down to 3 degrees in the saloon last night, could this confuse the fridge into ‘thinking’ it’s very cold in here so I’m not going to switch on? The freezer was not icy, food defrosted but still cold. There was milk in there that is okay as well. Does this make sense?

 

Yes. 

 

The thermostat only senses the cabinet temp. It doesn't know what the temp in the freezer box is. 

 

The freezer box just gets cooled when the cabinet stat is calling for cold. Its very hit and miss, there is no separate thermostat for the freezer box on ordinary basic fridges of the type that get converted to 12v.

 

\

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13 minutes ago, Loddon said:

Fridges and freezers have a specific temperature range that they will work in.

Many fridges/freezers won't work properly under 10deg so don't work in garages etc. I had to get one that specifically works down to 0deg as I wanted to place it in the garage.

The difference is the refrigerant used in the system. The propane mix one doesn't like working in a cold ambient temperatures. Its all due to the loss of Freon based refrigerants.  The converted LEC fridge will not have the latest problem gas.

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48 minutes ago, Nightwatch said:

 

Question. If! the boat got really cold whilst we were away, it was down to 3 degrees in the saloon last night, could this confuse the fridge into ‘thinking’ it’s very cold in here so I’m not going to switch on? The freezer was not icy, food defrosted but still cold. There was milk in there that is okay as well. Does this make sense?

So the thermostat has done exactly what it's supposed to do. If your food in the fridge is kept cold, does it matter whether that is due to the functioning of the fridge or the fact that the air temperature in the boat is near freezing?

The lesson is not to leave frozen food in the ice compartment while the boat is unheated in winter.

  • Greenie 2
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1 hour ago, Nightwatch said:

I really appreciate all the comments.

 

Hot news though. Emptied the fridge of stuff we haven’t disposed of, and started to investigate the thermostat.

 

Thats when I noticed the fridge start up. So it’s not a fuse.

 

Question. If! the boat got really cold whilst we were away, it was down to 3 degrees in the saloon last night, could this confuse the fridge into ‘thinking’ it’s very cold in here so I’m not going to switch on? The freezer was not icy, food defrosted but still cold. There was milk in there that is okay as well. Does this make sense?

The thermostat probably only turned the fridge on when the temperature inside it went up above 5 deg C so if the boat was colder than this it wouldn't get called to run.

  • Happy 1
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Just an observation on fuse ratings. Automotive fuses of the type used in cars, which also seem to be widely used in canal boats, are marked with the current that will make them blow. Fuses intended for the applications, such as 13A plug fuses, are marked with the current they can carry indefinitely without blowing. So a 20A automotive fuse would correspond with  a 10A fuse for other applications.  I still have a couple of dad's pre-war 1.25" glass fuses  that were used in radios which are marked with both the blowing and carrying ratings, the former being double the latter  Many years ago there was an international agreement to standardize on the current-carrying ratings but the automotive industry still uses the old method.

Edited by Ronaldo47
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