Frigoboat BD35 suddenly "just cool"

[Distant Shores]

Originally Posted by typhoon

Any Luck Paul?

How does the battle go ?

Fixing boats in exotic locations ,

Regards

No joy so far. Duncan at Mid Atlantic Yacht Services will come tomorrow and take a look. Meanwhile we are eating out at the excellent restaurants on the islands :-)

Paul

[ColdEH]

Sounds like torture. I work with a chap From the Azores and he occasionally brings in some home cooking for us, so I know it is tough

Hope you get it all fixed up. Good you found a dealer for Frigoboat there , they should get it sorted.

We are heading next month for a 2 week cruise in the Thousand Islands , looking forward to a little time on the water.

Enjoy the wine .

John & Andrea

[Richard Kollmann]

Distance Shores, It you followed my five step troubleshooting email and believe compressor is not operating at normal speed check ground wire connection at both ends. The BD35 and BD50 compressors are three phase and a poor ground connection has caused this problem before. Is the red troubleshooting LED flashing a 3,4,or5 flash Code?

[Kenomac]

Our's seems to have given up, only one of the two compressors is working. Replaced the module and getting tired of throwing money at the problem. Will try to hunt down a new dual compressor unit in the morning. Shouldn't be too difficult because Frigoboat is made here in Italy. Our Fridge also gave up today, but that fix is easy, just a thermostat.

How's it going in the Azores?

[Distant Shores]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

Our's seems to have given up, only one of the two compressors is working. Replaced the module and getting tired of throwing money at the problem. Will try to hunt down a new dual compressor unit in the morning. Shouldn't be too difficult because Frigoboat is made here in Italy. Our Fridge also gave up today, but that fix is easy, just a thermostat.

How's it going in the Azores?

Life is ALWAYS good in the Azores - we've been eating out at their excellent restaurants :-)

Today our fridge tech came and brought back our BD35 unit, it is installed and appears to be working again. He has left his gauges on it to make sure all is OK. We have removed the keel cooler from the circuit and left it with just the air cooler (this was my suggestion after the forum advice of problems with them)

Paul

[sailsunfurled]

I have keel cooled version. The freon started leaking right after spring. I am not planning on pulling the boat until this winter for a bottom job.

It would be great to have the air cooled option. How do you select between air and keel with the freon flow? A valve?

[Distant Shores]

Originally Posted by sailsunfurled

I have keel cooled version. The freon started leaking right after spring. I am not planning on pulling the boat until this winter for a bottom job.

It would be great to have the air cooled option. How do you select between air and keel with the freon flow? A valve?

Both were connected in series so the coolant went through air cooler and keel cooler. we disconnected the keel cooler from the circuit... now it just runs through the air cooler.

[Scott Berg]

As a few have commented, Danfoss compressors basically NEVER fail. What does fail are the digital frequency controllers that convert 12/24vdc to three phase AC that runs the compressor.
Every boat should have a spare...

[sailsunfurled]

Originally Posted by Distant Shores

Both were connected in series so the coolant went through air cooler and keel cooler. we disconnected the keel cooler from the circuit... now it just runs through the air cooler.

Thanks. My keel cooler leaks freon at the joint where the tubes enter the keel cooler.

[Kenomac]

Great news regarding our Frigoboat units. Yesterday, nothing was working and we determined the refrigerator thermostat had also gone bad. Last evening we rewired the freezer controller that we'd replaced a day earlier.

Today, woke up and the two freezer compressors were working although the water pump wouldn't shut off, and the fridge continued to warm. Jerry rigged a bypass for the faulty thermostat and made some calls to locate a new thermostat. A visiting cruiser came over to borrow a drill bit and gave us a refrigeration guy's phone number. Called him up and he came over to the anchorage three hours later. He replaced the broken fridge thermostat, relocated the position of the freezer thermostat sensor, charged all four compressors with coolant and. WE WERE FIXED!! No more continuous running water pump, ice forming in the trays, ice cream is hard, and three compressors are now working to freeze stuff. Total cost 230 euros for the technician and the thermostat and $150 for the controller purchased at the boat show last Fall. Much cheaper than replacing the double compressor unit I thought that I needed to replace. The fridge remains keel cooled and the freezer both fan cooled and water pump cooled.

[Muckle Flugga]

Originally Posted by stevensuf

It is low coolant levels, mine worked fine, but if heeled over for any length of time failed to work, went to just cool, topped up the coolant gas and problem solved.

This is too confident a response. It may be low coolant level, but may well be something else. I have long experience with frigoboat. See my next reply.

[Muckle Flugga]

Frigoboat units are generally excellent and reliable, but they are prone to an occasional buildup of moisture and compressor oil that can bung up the capillary tube coils, particularly in the vicinity of the evaporator.

This will cause an intermittend fault which will be easily masked by any tampering with the pressures of the gases, as offgassing and refilling will tend to force the oil/moisture into a different location or diffuse it temporarily. What tends to happen is:

1. Unit "runs" but only cool to touch, no frost on plate and no joy to owner.
2. Owner frets that it is the compressor, or the keel cooler, or the gas pressure.
3. Owner gets "refrigeration engineer" onboard, who spends a lot of time and a fair amount of the owners money.
4. The system cools down! Owner is pleased. Beers are had cold. All is well with the world…
5. Problem returns… go to step 1.

This is because the problem of moisture/oil in the system is finicky, can come and go, often masquerades as some other issue, and is hard to resolve satisfactorily. Many actions of rectifying or tinkering with other aspects of the system may well relieve the problem… temporarily.

I am not saying this is definitely the case in your case, but I have had a lot of adventures and miseries with these systems, which as I said are wonderful when working. It may be something else. But in the cases I have experienced (a good number), ultimately the problem is an inadequately sized or disfunctional inline drier.

https://great-water.com/product/filter-drier-inline/

These components are not necessarily cheap, but are easy to replace and should be larger than may appear necessary for a system which is operating of has operated long term in the tropics.

You may have joy with a high pressure pump aspiration of the system. But IMHO this will never be fully effective until and unless you replace the inline driers. If you are trying the aspiration option, running a hairdrier over the capillary tubes while the suction is ongoing is a good way of encouraging escaped compressor oil or recalcitrant moisture in the system to flow more freely or evaporate.

Hope this helps.