WAECO drowned. Any ideas?

Dan · 27th March 2016, 04:44 PM

My WAECO CF50 has drowned. It's worked well for 8 years, apart from replacing the thermistor a few months ago (a PITA job).
When it's not in the Landy the fridge serves us well in the patio area. Last night the fridge was drowned by a huge leak from the gutter overhead.
It had stopped working. Unplugged it at the mains and pulled out the display/switch circuit board to spray it with electronics cleaner and dry it. Checked the 240V fuse (OK) and dried the main power board area. Waited a while then plugged it in to the mains again. The internal light comes on but nothing else. No motor, no digital display.
Tried it on 12 volts and the same thing. Internal light OK but no display and no motor.
Any electronics gurus in Landyland know whether it's likely to be the main power board or the display/switch board at fault? Is there an easy way to test them?
I'm not good with fiddly electronics and I'll bet it's just a 20 cent board component that's blown but I'll need to buy a complete $70 board to plug in. Just need to be sure I'm buying the right one!
Any helpful advice (apart from 'buy an Engel'

) would be appreciated.

**Blknight.aus** · 27th March 2016, 05:30 PM

buy an engle, Im great at fault finding them.

if it was plugged in and running most likely it will be the power regulation board (or that part of the main board) thats shot. It does 2 stages of power (or the old ones did) a chopped AC waveform for the motor to run from and a DC supply for the brains. you might get exceptionally lucky and find that the water has just caused a short thats open circuited a dry joint or exposed one. (doubt it)

without having the circuit diagram, circuit logic and actually probing it if its got 2 boards in it replace both.

**Dorian** · 27th March 2016, 06:10 PM

Dan
Some light reading

Waeco Powersupply - The Grey Nomads Forum

I had to replace the polyfuse in mine a couple of years back, and this thread helped me. It doesn't sound that simple for you. BTW I am not the dorian on grey nomands.

Cheers Glen

**Slunnie** · 27th March 2016, 06:45 PM

While at Cape York a friend I was up there with drowned one during a river crossing. It was the circuit board that died. The great thing about it was that there are service agents everywhere, and some bloke living in a bus in the camping ground that we were in at the time happened to be the local service agent! It was fixed quick smart and we were away again.

Dan · 27th March 2016, 10:05 PM

Thanks all.
I'll drop into a WAECO agent later this week and see if he'll let me plug in a working display circuit. This should tell me if it's one circuit or the other (or both, as you suspect, Dave). Then I'll buy what's needed from him.
I read that article, Glen, but it seems the writer knows a lot more about electronics than me!!
Oh, then I'll fix that damned gutter!!

**Blknight.aus** · 27th March 2016, 11:10 PM

just as a side thought you might get lucky and it'll be the power rail to the brain and the display circuit popped it protection..

should be a couple of dollars to fix if it is.

it will also be worth checking to see if it works on 12/24V.

Dan · 28th March 2016, 12:09 PM

Dave, can you explain a bit more what you mean by the power rail to the circuit? And what protection does the display circuit have, apart from the fuse?
What should I look for?
Yes, tried to run it on 12 volts but only the light came on. No motor and no display circuit. Whatever the problem, it's not fussy about how many volts I give it!
Funny thing, I've goolgeg like crazy and can't find any mention of flooding damage like this to a WAECO or what it could be.
Cheers, Dan

**Blknight.aus** · 28th March 2016, 12:31 PM

theres a couple of sides to the power supply in those things.

theres the inputs which is your 240v and 12/24V these have protection on them

theres the output side of them which should also have protection on them (and I dont have the full circuits and while IVe had a very brief look at the diagrams on the linked forum page I havent gone full depth on them because Id have to have it in my hands with a meter to make effective use on them so youre getting best guess here.)

in the newer engles theres 2 sets of power coming out of the supply, the first is the nice low dc voltage stuff for the brains of the unit. lets call that the DC+12v rail.

then theres the AC supply that runs the motor lets just say its 12VAC for the moment.

The DC side of it controls what for want of a better word is a relay that turns the main power to the compressor on and off. IF the control rail is not providing enough juice to the brain for the brain to work then the compressor will appear not to run.

now heres the sneaky bit...

if its blown in just the right way have a look at this post
Waeco Powersupply - The Grey Nomads Forum
from the other forum it shows you how to bypass all the 240-24Vac jiggery pokery and get it to run on a 12v only circuit. IF this works its the main power supply thats shot itself and is most likely going to be part of the protection on the board thats gone.

IF thats whats happened then you dont need to replace the internal powerboard just get an external 240v-24/12vdc supply. A medium size jump pack with a 2A charger that will let you do charge and run at the same time would be ideal.

ok on a close look at how that one works based on the digram.

its a full change over powersupply and all the work is done up on the control board.

the powerboard is responsable for taking 240v and turning it into 24vac (halfwave) for the control board if 240v is available and passing 12-24Vdc to the control board where it is "chopped" into half squarewave AC for the compressor.

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