Problem with Waeco CFX 50 Cutting Out

[SaltBoxII Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close SaltBoxII]

Hey All,

Hope this is in the right spot..

We've had an intermittent problem with our two and bit year old CFX 50 basically from new. Before taking it back to the agent for a second time, I'm trying to eliminate everyting that I can and find out if there's any similar cases out there..

What we’re seeing is after a few days, and usually when the alternator is off, the cooling just seems to stop, with no error lights or warnings. The single green compressor indicator light is solid on, however the temp slowly creeps up to ambient and the compressor cannot be heard. The fridge will not start cooling again until it's turned off and back on (yeah..) even with the alternator spinning again.

This used to only happen say once a month. Now it’s every other day and it's basically never cool when we need it...

We dropped in to the repairer in November, mainly as I'd figured out that it was source of a very annoying noise from the back of the car... turned out to be the compressor jumping around (and perfectly normal of course).. While there, they checked the cut out and couldn't fault it.

Since getting it back, we chopped the merit plug off and hard wired the Waeco cable to the dedicated line back to the second battery, which unfortunately made no difference.. The cable to the battery is the cable that ships with the Waeco wiring kit (RAPS12RU2), but without the voltage controller thingo. There's nothing else inline apart from a fuse, and there’s no apparent voltage drop.

When the fridge cuts out, the battery is typically sitting above 12 volts with the car off. Today when I noticed it had stopped again, the second battery was sitting at 12.35 volts.

The only thing I haven’t checked yet is the current draw when it’s running to see if it's sucking more that it should, but even then, it's not running the battery even remotely flat so shouldn't be a problem.

With the alternator running, it seems happier, but it’s hard to know exactly when it cuts out.. on 240 it’s fine of course and ran for two weeks solid over Christmas...

The second battery is an Optima D34. We used to get a solid 3 days out of the fridge without running the car, but are now lucky to get a few hours if that.. I do have another new D34 in the camper so might even swap it out to see if it's the battery.

Thanks all and appreciate any feedback.

[brogers Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close brogers]

Waeco CFX Manual:

The device is equipped with a multi-level battery monitor that protects your vehicle battery against excessive discharging when the device is connected to the on-board 12/24 V supply. If the cooler is operated when the vehicle ignition is switched off, the cooler switches off automatically as soon as the supply voltage falls below a set level.
The cooler will switch back on once the battery has been recharged to the restart voltage level.

In “HIGH” mode, the battery monitor responds faster than at the levels “LOW” and “MED” (see the following table).

Switch-off voltage: "Low" = 10.1 V "Med" = 11.4 V "High" = 11.8 V
Restart voltage " "Low" = 11.1 V "Med" = 12.2 V "High" = 12.6 V

[SaltBoxII Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close SaltBoxII]

Waeco CFX Manual:

The device is equipped with a multi-level battery monitor that protects your vehicle battery against excessive discharging when the device is connected to the on-board 12/24 V supply. If the cooler is operated when the vehicle ignition is switched off, the cooler switches off automatically as soon as the supply voltage falls below a set level.
The cooler will switch back on once the battery has been recharged to the restart voltage level.

In “HIGH” mode, the battery monitor responds faster than at the levels “LOW” and “MED” (see the following table).

Switch-off voltage: "Low" = 10.1 V "Med" = 11.4 V "High" = 11.8 V
Restart voltage " "Low" = 11.1 V "Med" = 12.2 V "High" = 12.6 V

Ah yes, thanks; I should have mentioned that it's always set to low, and the voltage never gets that low. It also never switches back on unless it's reset, so I've ruled this out.

[Limo Guy Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Limo Guy]

I had similar problem with my 65 litre Waeco, in the end only working on 240 v the service agent had to replace the circuit board.
In W.A. Waeco Dometic have their own service centre as well as agents and I got better results dealing with them as some of the service agents are useless.

[Playdoh96 Member Find all posts View Profile Close Playdoh96]

Mate I'd start with the battery. I have very little faith in the Optima batteries these day's. They come as standard fitment in some of the equipment I look after at work. They seem fine, but under load are next to useless. From my experience they fall over with very little warning. Would be a easy test with a multimeter or get it load tested at a battery joint. Good luck

[Guest Close Guest]

The last time I had the fridge only run for a few hours was when the battery had dropped a cell. Ended up with melted ice cream which the kids weren't impressed with.

I conducted an experiment by charging the battery with a 240V 7 stage smart charger. Then I kept hourly records of the voltage. I found that it kept dropping and never settled at the fully charged state of 12.7-12.9V.

Took it back to the supplier and confirmed that the battery was a dud after a load test.

So get your battery checked out. Another test to do is to monitor the voltage when the compressor kicked in. It will drop when under load and the fridge thinks that the battery is low on charge and turns off.

[SaltBoxII Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close SaltBoxII]

Thanks everyone! I'm starting to lean on the battery now.. This morning, the fridge was out again after driving last night, with the temp back up to 12 deg.

With the car off, battery was sitting on 12.0V. After stop / starting the fridge as usual, the compressor spun up, and the battery dropped straight to 11.6..

Picked up a Waeco cable this morning so will jam the fridge on the camper, which is conveniently stored at my office. Will run it for a day or so and see what happens. Will then get the battery tested somewhere.

[Guest Close Guest]

Sounds like either the battery isn't getting charged or it has dropped a cell.

[Scruffy Member Find all posts View Profile Close Scruffy]

Mate I'd start with the battery. I have very little faith in the Optima batteries these day's. They come as standard fitment in some of the equipment I look after at work. They seem fine, but under load are next to useless. From my experience they fall over with very little warning. Would be a easy test with a multimeter or get it load tested at a battery joint. Good luck

Optima = standard fit to Jeeps and Chryslers! LOL! We had loads of trouble with them when I worked for Jeep and it makes me laugh to see people speccing them as second batteries!

[D4Dforme Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close D4Dforme]

Father in law just had a Yellow Optima go down after 9mths in my old 100 series.....wasn't even used as a fridge battery it got replaced under warranty so see how it goes......I switched to Exide allrounders 18mths ago they have been doing the job so far.

A few people I know of that have Waecos here in Darwin have had trouble with high ambient temps especially when locked in a hot car they go into fault mode at the drop of a hat apparently saying that my 18mth old Engle has now had 2 warranty repairs also.

[SaltBoxII Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close SaltBoxII]

So quick update.. Fridge has been running for 24 hours now off the other D34 in the camper, that hasn't been charged for 2 months.

Voltage has dropped from 12.9 Volts to 12.4 with the fridge set to 0 deg, so more like I would have expected.

The D34 in the car, now without the fridge, is struggling to settle above 12.5, so pretty sure the battery is stuffed. Now off to get it tested, attempt warranty etc, or just switch to something else..

[GEEEXL Member Find all posts View Profile Close GEEEXL]

how old is the Optima?

not the first o have heard of failing

[SaltBoxII Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close SaltBoxII]

how old is the Optima?

not the first o have heard of failing

Two and a half years. Cheers.

[SaltBoxII Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close SaltBoxII]

OK, so interesting result today.. Headed in to work to check the fridge running on the good battery, and lo and behold it's gone in the partially dead mode, stopped cooling, and temp up at 22deg.

Check the battery voltage, and it's bang on 12 Volts.

The light on the fridge was the usual solid green (which means compressor is running), however there's no compressor noise. This time, as it was silent at the office, when I stopped / started it as per usual, I could hear the compressor trying to tick over, but not actually start. Sounded like a starter motor on a flat battery. So new Waeco cable direct to different (good battery), and same behavior with the fridge..

So my thoughts now are, faulty fridge, and dead battery in the car.. Bummer, I was sort of hoping I could replace the bad battery and move on.

I'm suspecting that there's maybe something up with the compressor and it simply won't run below 12 volts, and it never has. and this would explain why I've never seen it hit the low voltage cut out. It thinks the compressor is running (green light solid), but as it's not, it's not consuming any more power. I think the bad battery in the car is just an unlucky coincidence..

Next step is to head to the agent next week armed with a bad and good optima and the fridge and try and confirm my thinking and sort something out.

In the meantime, I have two high CCA starter batteries in the boat (not Optima). I could whack the fridge on there and see what happens, thus ruling out Optima altogether, but I'm pretty convinced anyway..

The only other question I have, has anyone here with a CFX actually seen it run down to low voltage cutout, and does the orange LED actual flash?

Thanks everyone for help so far.

[krypto Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close krypto]

I've run my CFX50 below 12v with no problems so it sounds like something is not right with the compressor