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384 Refrigerator stopped working

G

Greg H

New Member
Hello all, hope everyone is enjoying the summer sailing season.

We continue to learn about our Morgan 384. I turned on the refrigerator a few weeks ago and all was working well. I left the unit running as we are plugged into the shore power. Sometime later, a week or so, maybe longer, I returned to the boat to find that the refrigerator was no longer cold and the compressor or whatever makes it cold was no longer running. I did a quick check, all other electrical items are working, the breaker for the ref circuit was still on. After reading the forum I saw something the referred to a GFCI that may be in line with the compressor, I am thinking that this may have tripped due to the compressor running long during hot days.

The air vent the goes to the compressor draws from the inside of the cabin, which, during that week may have been really warm.

Is there a reset on the compressor? I will check the GFCI this weekend.

Thanks for any insight.
 
I have not seen a reset on mine. My system has a temp control inside the fridge with a knob; a simple thermocouple type I think..... That did nothing and the compressor ran constantly. It cools well, but I didn't want it getting that cold and running the batteries down overnight, so I added an electronic control that switches an automotive type square relay, and that turns the compressor on and off, pictured below the galley 110v outlet. I will remove the original control when I get time to.
 

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Thanks Dave, we have a temp control mounted outside the box with a sensor in the ref. I will investigate further this weekend. I like your suggestion!
 
It is worth noting that none of our boats came with a refrigerator. Anything there is something aftermarket that was added later. With that in mind _most_ of them use a Danfoss/Secop BD35 type compressor. There is a lot of information on troubleshooting them on the Internet. Check there is power to it, and after that there is a way to connect an LED to it and it will flash error codes.

The GFCI breaker(If you have one) is found on the AC shore power input to the boat. It would not be on any DC system.
 
Thanks Warren!

I will submit a post with the answer to this mystery, once solved, any additional information would be helpful
 
When I bought my boat, the refrigerator in it did not work. I was immediately surprised by the size of the refrigerator - a very large volume. It is not easy to cool such a space. It must require a lot of electricity. I began to understand the problem and found out that the compressor control controller was not working. I ordered a new one on eBay, and the refrigerator worked.
But it worked and did not turn off. The temperature regulator, which is installed inside the refrigerator on the freezer, did not work. Then I found out that initially "Morgans" were not equipped with refrigerators, what the previous owners tried to turn into a refrigerator is an "Ice Box". That is why it has such a large volume. Then I made two partitions from plywood, one horizontal and one vertical, so that the volume of the refrigerator was reduced by about three times. I pasted the new walls with foam plastic and foil-clad polyethylene foam. The dimensions of the new chamber were approximately 21x17x17 inches.
After that, everything worked as it should. The refrigerator has been working properly for half a year now and clearly maintains the required temperature.
 
There are several threads here on rebuilding the icebox. For sure, any compressor will struggle if all you do is use the stock box without adding any insulation. If you do a complete tearout with 4-6 inches of foam and it will use very little power.

It is a common exercise to make the box smaller by just adding insulation inside, much easier than a tearout and rebuild.
 
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