The Idea that technology and technical support has advanced enough to replace a reliable mechanical
boat refrigerator thermostats with an electronic thermostat is OK for the average armchair sailor.
Blue Water Sailors may be miles away from their
refrigeration system manufacturer’s expertise so either refrigeration is repaired or we feed the
fish with our
food from warm refrigerator.
It is always important to understand and plan for redundancy measures on each piece of important
equipment on an airplane or yes also on a
blue water cruising boat. The standard 12/24 volt boat mechanical snap action refrigerator thermostat is the same one that has been used reliably in home refrigerators for over 30 years with exceptional
reliability. If you have an electronic thermostat at least carry a spare and know how to calibrate it. The refrigerator thermostat on the variable speed BD compressors is a simple OFF/ON two wire switch controlling one to five milliamps of
power to another electronic switch inside compressor’s control module. Redundancy for faulty electronic thermostat operation in many cases has been achieved by an override switch installed either at the compressor’s control module terminals C and T or on back panel of electronic thermostat’s black box. When switch is closed compressor will run at low speed until
emergency bypass switch is opened again allowing refrigerator to be operated manually.