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Old 08-26-2021, 03:39 PM   #1
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Vitrifrigo refrigerator/freezer issue.

On our D44 the PO replaced the drawer reefer with an upright (after enlarging the pantry area to hold it) Vitrifrigo dual voltage unit in 2015. The freezer is still working great (it is holding at zero degrees without running all the time). The refrigerator won't go below 52 degrees. I've cleaned the heat exchanger and the fan is working. It's a model DP26001BD4-F-1. I'm assuming the compressor is working because the freezer is doing fine. Any thoughts on what to check? BTW, checked the door seal with a dollar bill and it is snug (but not tight) all around. All suggestions welcome. Or, do you know of anyone who will work on one of these in the Bellingham, WA area?
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Old 08-26-2021, 04:19 PM   #2
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I think the DP2600 has just one compressor, maybe the BD50?

Anyway, a friend with a DP-150 had this problem (one BD50), and we went through a bunch of troubleshooting. In his case it only happened in super hot weather (120ºF), which I'm sure you are not having in Bellingham. (Or is it hotter than usual though?)

Sounds like you are saying this is a new problem, and presumably you have not changed the installation, so it's likely not that.

One thing we checked for was the condition of the the cold plate that sits vertically on the back wall of the refrigerator portion (at least the DP-150 has one there, and it is also a two-separate-door unit with one compressor). It should have light frost on it.

Does yours? Or is it "bare" as if the refrigerator were off?

PS: I don't necessarily think any of these problems would be yours (none were on my buddy's), but have you put a light on the Danfoss troubleshooting terminals? They will blink various codes if there is an error, and it can't hurt to check. Some refrigerators come with a light already but I don't believe any of the Vitrifrigos do (at least not my C-130 or my friend's DP-150)

What you do is put an LED bulb across terminals D and + on the electrical module for the compressor. This is the vertical black unit that will have a vertical row of quick connect tabs and wires going to them. On my BD35 it is just to the left of the black "ball" of the compressor, but they can be oriented a bit differently on different models.

I believe you can also do this by putting a voltmeter across and looking for the pulses if you have no bulb (it would be like flash-flash-flash, pause; flash-flash-flash, pause for example if you had the 3 blinks error code). Of course if you have a chance to add a permanent light it's handy for future reference.
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Old 08-26-2021, 05:07 PM   #3
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Does the cabinet have sufficient ventilation? It should have a low intake vent and a high exhaust vent. I did this to our Vitrifugo refer in our last boat and added a 50 mAmp fan blowing into the cabinet in the lower intake vent. The refer started working much better, froze ice cream and kept the fridge compartment in the 40s. We also use a RV fan that helps circulate the air in the fridge compartment. It runs off a D cell and really helps. We get the fan at Camping World, I believe. One D battery lasts for quite a long time.
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Old 08-26-2021, 05:14 PM   #4
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I find there is often poor ventilation, but OTOH in this case it sounds like the unit has worked fine from 2015 to now (right?).

Have there been any changes to the cabinet/setup/ambient conditions/etc. in this time frame?

Still curious about the cold plate in the refrigerator (light frost or nothing), and if you have any error codes (doesn't sound like there would be but seems like a good thing to rule out).
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Old 08-26-2021, 05:43 PM   #5
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In a regular fridge, there usually are two air vents between the fridge and the freezer. The one on top close to the evaporator fan pushes cold air into the fridge compartment, the one below returns air to the freezer compartment. Sometimes the vents can be blocked or closed. Make sure the evaporator fan blades spin. Sometimes the plastic fan comes off the axle.

My RV fridge had a similar problem. Warm on the fridge side, somewhat cold on the freezer side. It turns out, the defrost heater element was bad and the evaporator completely iced up, thus no airflow into the fridge. I replaced the heater element for the evap coils and the fridge has been great for the last 5 years.
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Old 08-26-2021, 07:33 PM   #6
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Have you defrosted it to the point of getting the inch or two of ice off the bottom of the plate between the fridge and freezer?

As that ice builds, it becomes a pretty good isulator and the fridge gets warmer.

No defroster on the Vitrifrigo 2600.

I have one so I have about 5 years experience with one.

Pull out the drip pan on the top of the fridge compartment and feel for the ice buildup.
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Old 08-26-2021, 11:56 PM   #7
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In a regular fridge, there usually are two air vents between the fridge and the freezer.
I'm just going by the Vitrifrigo DP150, which is the slightly smaller sibling to the DP2600 the OP has. Both have a separate fridge and freezer compartment (two separate doors, not one inside the other). There is one compressor and one mechanical thermostat located in the refrigerator.

In the DP150 there is no air transfer between the freezer and the fridge (to speak of, not saying it's hermetically sealed). There is a cold plate in the freezer and also in the refrigerator on the back wall (the type that is painted white with "veins" running through it).

On my buddy's DP150 he had this vexing problem where as the weather got hotter (we are talking extremely hot here; Arizona in summer, living space at ambient temp) the freezer got colder as the refrigerator got warmer.

So where before, let's say you had the thermostat dial on 75%, the freezer might be at 12ºF and the refrigerator at 38ºF. (Even at its best it was a balancing act to keep ice cream frozen and produce not frozen, but it did work out just fine.)

When it started malfunctioning, the freezer at the same setting would be at say, 4ºF and the refrigerator at 48ºF. At it's peak of badness, the freezer would be at around -12ºF and the refrigerator at 55ºF. (By then it was at full setting on the thermostat, but at any rate the concept was the same.)

When the refrigerator was so warm (and the freezer SO cold), there was almost no light frost on the cold plate in the refrigerator section (but there should be; not a ton, just a light film). DC wiring was robust and anyway it was the same when plugged directly into household AC (this control unit was AC/DC) and bypassing everything else. No error flashes.

We installed the refrigerator ourselves and had added around 2" of extruded polystyrene to the top, sides and back, and 3" to the top. There was a vast amount of ventilation because (this was in an RV) the cutout used to house a propane refrigerator, and so there was a huge air vent down low on the outside of the RV (just outside the compressor), then a chimney up to a roof vent (this is how propane refrigerators are installed, because there is a fire burning in the back, essentially).

We changed the resistor on the compressor to make it run at the full 3,500 RPM. No real change.

When the weather cooled down, it went back to normal. (This was all happening during the first season of Covid, so between that and being in Arizona --plus the owner's tendency to ignore things -- no marine refrigeration techs called in).

This summer, back to the same problem, but only in extreme heat.

(This whole time the RV was in storage under a roof, but the refrigerator was still being used as spare food storage.)

So this problem sounds very similar, and I'm guessing the DP2600 is set up similarly, being the next model up in the size range (i.e two separate doors, one thermostat and compressor). As I mentioned up above, it was always a slight balancing act to keep ice cream hard but not freeze the fridge, but workable. It was only when it got very hot that this weird spread occurred. Freezer got super super cold; fridge got warm.

We never totally solved it (I might have pushed harder by calling techs, but it wasn't my refrigerator and the owner is a bit more laissez-faire). We only know what it seemed not to be (not the electrical supply; not poor installation, not anything that throws an error code), and that when the weather cooled down it went right back to normal (so nothing "broken" that precluded normal operation later on). We both have other Vitrifrigo refrigerators with Danfoss compressors so are used to how they work (usually).

OP: Sorry if this seemed to be turning into a story of my buddy's refrigerator. I only elaborated because the problem sounds SO similar to yours (except you are not in Arizona), and as far as I know the DP2600 is very similar to the DP150 but a bit larger.

Here is a photo of the DP2600. As you can see by the notch, the compressor is at the bottom of the refrigerator section.

I can see the cold plate at the rear of the freezer section. I can't be certain, but it looks like on this model the cold plate for the refrigerator might be on the "roof" of the refrigerator vs. on the back wall like the DP150. Otherwise they look very similar.

OP: Is there any light frost on that plate in the refrigerator? I'm not talking big honking ice dams (obviously that's not good), but merely a light frost that should be there when it is working.

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Old 08-27-2021, 05:34 AM   #8
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While there is no air transfer between the two compartments, a HUGE amount of ice can build up on the plate at the top of the fridge and insulate that compartment from that plate.

If you have never done a deep defrost and taken a big chuck of ice out of the fridge..... check the simple probable issue before all these compartment alterations, fan additions and electrical upgrades.

My Norcold of similar design did the same thing,
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Old 08-10-2022, 02:00 PM   #9
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Having a problem with my Vitrifrigo DP2600 DC/AC model refrigerator. The fridge was installed June 2017. It has been on pretty much 24/7 except when I defrost it, which I do about every other month. The temp is set a little above 3. About 1-2 months ago, it “self-defrosted” while I was away from the boat. I am sure all ice buildup was gone by the time I discovered the defrost. Breakers were still on. I cycled the breakers and it started back up and ran fine until yesterday when it defrosted again. I cleaned up all off over night and switched the breakers off. I turned the breakers back on this morning. It started back up. It has been running and cooling for the past 3 hours and there is a light coating of frost on the walls, top and bottom of the freezer compartment as there normally is. Neither time was the ambient temperature inside or outside the boat very high. The space is well ventilated top and side. Any thoughts to share?
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Old 08-10-2022, 02:16 PM   #10
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It's not that uncommon for the AC side of the Danfoss / Secop compressor control modules to fail. Try leaving the AC breaker off and letting it run on DC only and see if it does it again.
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Old 08-10-2022, 04:04 PM   #11
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It's not that uncommon for the AC side of the Danfoss / Secop compressor control modules to fail. Try leaving the AC breaker off and letting it run on DC only and see if it does it again.
That is a good place to start. Sounds very reasonable to me.
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Old 08-10-2022, 04:21 PM   #12
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In a regular fridge, there usually are two air vents between the fridge and the freezer. The one on top close to the evaporator fan pushes cold air into the fridge compartment, the one below returns air to the freezer compartment.

I just had the same problem on my home fridge. The top vent has a little solenoid driven door that broke. It would close but not reopen. Fridge was running 50+, freezer -10. Temp fix was to remove the door, but then the fridge would get down to around 25 deg. Replaced the door and all fixed.
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Old 08-12-2022, 07:00 AM   #13
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That is a good place to start. Sounds very reasonable to me.
I never did understand the thinking behind a Danfoss AC/DC fridge especially since the control modules - actually a mini-inverter - often fail and are not inexpensive and the fridge has to be removed from its enclosure to replace it. Why? The compressor runs on 12 volts. When on shore shower, the fridge converts AC (the control module) to DC anyway. What is worse, when not on shore power, the boat's inverter (85% efficient) inverts DC to AC, sends the AC to the fridge whereupon the fridge converts it back to DC (more conversion losses). How does that make any sense? Why not just get a fridge that runs on DC only and eliminate two middlemen and a less-than-reliable control module. I don't get it.
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Old 08-12-2022, 08:28 AM   #14
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I never did understand the thinking behind a Danfoss AC/DC fridge especially since the control modules - actually a mini-inverter - often fail and are not inexpensive and the fridge has to be removed from its enclosure to replace it. Why? The compressor runs on 12 volts. When on shore shower, the fridge converts AC (the control module) to DC anyway. What is worse, when not on shore power, the boat's inverter (85% efficient) inverts DC to AC, sends the AC to the fridge whereupon the fridge converts it back to DC (more conversion losses). How does that make any sense? Why not just get a fridge that runs on DC only and eliminate two middlemen and a less-than-reliable control module. I don't get it.
Good point. On my sailboats I had the Danfoss powered icebox conversion units, DC only. They ran perfectly well off the battery charger when plugged into shore power. Just make sure the charger is big enough to cover the fridge on top of charging and other DC loads. A dual voltage unit would best be connected to an AC circuit that doesn't run through the inverter. That way it can only go to AC when actually connected to shore or generator. If you can't do that dual voltage is pointless.
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Old 08-12-2022, 12:54 PM   #15
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Originally Posted by catalinajack View Post
I never did understand the thinking behind a Danfoss AC/DC fridge especially since the control modules - actually a mini-inverter - often fail and are not inexpensive and the fridge has to be removed from its enclosure to replace it. Why? The compressor runs on 12 volts. When on shore shower, the fridge converts AC (the control module) to DC anyway. What is worse, when not on shore power, the boat's inverter (85% efficient) inverts DC to AC, sends the AC to the fridge whereupon the fridge converts it back to DC (more conversion losses). How does that make any sense? Why not just get a fridge that runs on DC only and eliminate two middlemen and a less-than-reliable control module. I don't get it.
Any good setup would keep the AC side off the inverter so it runs on DC when away from shore power. Plus, there's power conversion going on regardless. The Danfoss compressors are not 12v DC. The control module powers them with lower voltage 3 phase AC.
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Old 08-12-2022, 01:09 PM   #16
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I had similar symptoms to the OP, but in my case it was failing on the 12v side. I switched to AC full time and it went for about a year before it failed on AC.

A new $200 controller solved the problem.

I didn't see any big changes in power usage when switching between DC and AC through the inverter.

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