I have just brought a Weaco CAB 40, second hand, used only once before. I read comments from other people on this forum about how effective their collers are (including one comment about it being so efficient it froze carrots).
I've had ours running off the mains for around 8 hours running at the maximum setting, but at the moment it doesn't feel that particularly cold - it can't even freeze the small amount of water sitting in the machine at the moment.
Do they need time to start working efficiently - if so how long, or could it be that the fault lies with my machine (I was told it was in immaculate condition)? Some advice would be appreciated!
You may find that turning it upside down to disperse the gas ? might help . I have read this here in the past , but can't remeber how long you need to leave it upside down for . Definitely not right, you should have noticed it getting cold very soon after plugging in .
Is it set on the maximum ?, and remember that it probably wont freeze anything on a very hot day, but should still be cold inside .
It relies on the ambient temperature , so if its a cold day, it might freeze the food if left on max setting , but on a hot day it wont, but you'll still have cold drinks .
Unplug it and turn it upside down overnight or for 12 hours or so. Then try again. The coolant goop can settle or get airlocked or some such thing after sitting unused for a while.
Check that it's set to coldest, of course. On the electric dial, of course. There is a seperate one for use with gas.
It will only normally freeze water that is sitting on the cooler bar at the back. A new one would come with a tiny six cube metal ice tray to sit on this bar...if you have it, try that. If not put a freeze-pop or a square of wet cotton wool on the left hand end where the bar gets coldest. You'll soon find out if it's working.
Finally the Combicool usually only freezes carrots and milk solid if it's on the less controllable gas; if the outside temperature is cold already, like a cold night and finally if the object is in the far away left hand corner of the fridge where the bar gets coolest. It's best to keep fruit and veg away from this corner!
I normally alter the thermostat setting low at night & high in the morning.....just common sense that it's warmer in the day and the fridge doesn't get opened durning the night...
My fridge normally takes a good day to get cold, but does depend on how full it is
In my experience these fridges have to be dead level or they do not work!!!
I always take a small spirit level whenever I am camping, once level I have had no problems.
Bob
Thanks for the advice, I think I just need to learn a bit more patience. After leaving it on over night it did eventually get cold. I'll just have to see how effective it is in the south of France this summer, having thought it cooled to 30 degrees below ambient temperature, I realise now that the model I have cools only 20 degrees below ambient temperature.
Thanks for the advice, I think I just need to learn a bit more patience. After leaving it on over night it did eventually get cold. I'll just have to see how effective it is in the south of France this summer, having thought it cooled to 30 degrees below ambient temperature, I realise now that the model I have cools only 20 degrees below ambient temperature.
Well that's the one that I have and it's not at all bad even in heatwaves. Just be a bit careful about what you use it for in very hot weather ie don't keep things like shellfish in it to the next day, or things like pate. Try not to open it too often, shut the lid asap, don't leave food around on worktops to get to room temperature before returning to the coolbox if you can help it and try to put only coldish things into it.
This last was a particular problem for me the first year we got the fridge till I discovered that Hubby was using it to chill down beer that was sitting in a warmish part of the tent...he would take one bottle out to drink then replace it with a luke warm one. Constantly. We got on much better when we kept the beer in a bucket of cold water on the shady side of the tent and only put the bottles into the fridge when they were as cold as possible first.
Bring some of those blue freezer block thingies and freeze them overnight in the sites freezer. (Most sites have a communal freezer nowadays don't they?)Pop em into the Waeco late morning to help it cope with the days heat.
Also try to keep the fridge in the coolest part of your tent, a shaded northern position, and try to create a airflow around it.
How do you get around packing it in the boot and running on 12v ??
I'm alway worried that something will overheat.
I my case we don't - with 3 kids & all the camping equipment taking up the entire boot space, there is no way of plugging the cooler to run off the 12v. I suppose if you had space in your car the cooler could sit on one of the back seats?
I don't bother plugging mine into the 12v in the car either. As long as its good and cold before you start off (chill it down for 24 hours at home) then as long as you keep the lid down it will stay pretty cold for a day. You can always insulate it deliberately by packing the sleeping bags round it.
On the trip home I either carry the wine in it, or the soggy beach towels etc. They don't need cooling, nope!
We've used ours on 12v in the car and it runs very efficiently indeed especially if you plug it in at home first to chill it down. We pack ours with the vents to the rear of the car and just leave that free and pack over the rest of it - no problems!
Our tent in Cornwall a couple of weeks ago was reading 40degs and it had no problems whatsoever you just need to use it sparingly and not cram it all in otherwise salad stuff won't last 5 minutes.
Hi all, can someone help please? I've had a Waeco Combicool CAB-40 for 13 years and it has always worked perfectly. Last week I had mistakenly left it on with two power sources all day, gas and AC power. When I came back in the evening I found it off. I didn't make much of it till I realized that it wasn't cooling as well as before; the inside temperature used to be between 0° and 5° and now it's between 10° and 15° and it won't go any lower, no matter what.
Is it broken? Is it an easy fix? Anyone knows what I've broken exactly? Where can I take it to be fixed? Thanks!
Whilst every multi power source absorption fridge I've come across warns against running on more than one power source at the same time, I've never seen an explanation of the consequences if you do so! That would be vital info in fault finding, so for what it's worth, the following is a large dose of speculation, albeit with some engineering knowledge behind it!
As the 240v operation is thermostatically controlled, I would expect once the fridge chilled down the thermostat would trip out (unless set to MAX, where it may possibly bypass the thermostat!), and stay tripped out as the fridge would be continuously cooling on gas power (no thermostat on gas, only a high/low flame setting), so damage potential may be limited as effectively then only running on one power source.
The refrigerant is Ammonia/Water mix which is quite stable until heated to temperatures likely to be far in excess of those achievable by the combined heat sources. The combined heat sources may cause boiling, and an excessive rise in pressure, which potentially may be too much for the 'plumbing' to stand and a leak may occur, you should get a smell of ammonia with any leakage of refrigerant.
I suspect you may have nothing worse than a vapour lock, which does happen anyway on occasions with absorption fridges. Easy to cure, disconnect all power sources, invert the fridge and leave for a few hours, then stand the correct way up, leave for at least half an hour for the refrigerant to settle, then power up and see if working. If it doesn't work properly, invert again and leave for longer.
If that doesn't fix it, I'm at a loss, there is so little to fail on these types of fridge beyond the actual heating sources and associated controls, there are no moving or serviceable parts in the actual cooling circuit. Any fault finding after that would require investigating the heat sources for functionality.
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Topic: Waeco CAB 40 - do I have a problem?
via mobile 28/7/2022 at 2:48am
