"Prima" 72 bottle wine fridge review (+Cybercool)

[tdnsfo]

If the fans in these prima fridges dont change speeds, anyone know what element controls the temperature? I have a feeling the overall motor is dead. Is it expected to be obvious what part has failed when i pull the back off the fridge?

[daz]

If the fans in these prima fridges dont change speeds, anyone know what element controls the temperature? I have a feeling the overall motor is dead. Is it expected to be obvious what part has failed when i pull the back off the fridge?

No compressor so no motor, except for those in the fans; the Prima is a peltier (thermoelectric) cooler. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peltier_cooler

I suspect your problem is the same as the one I received a PM about (see above), most likely a failed electricity supply module.

[sbv]

Tdnsfo,

As daz said there is no motor. Electric current is sent through heat sink which creates heat transfer from inside to outside. Fans cool down heat sink allowing it to extract more heat from inside of fridge. When fans stop, heat transfer (from inside to outside) is slowed or stopped.

Does your light and temperature reading still work? If so then it is likely the fans. When you open the back (lots of screws though) it should be obvious if the fans have stopped. There are lights in the circuitry and if these are on and the fans are stopped then I am sure it will be that the fans have seized up and can be replaced. If you are worried about cost just try one first rather than all.

If light and temp reading is off, then it could be electricity supply module, which I was able to bypass and get my fridge working again.



Daz,

I had the supply module problem but changed user names as I forgot my password and just registered again.

[tdnsfo]

Hi SBV and other wine fridge gurus,

I finally got around to opening the back of my fridge and i noticed that the top 2 fans had the red and green lights on but were not working at all. The bottom fan was also not working but the lights were flashing and there was a clicking sound. I actually went to Jaycar today and took photos and a avi video clip to show the guy in the store. Unfortunately he was no help and said he was not a 'technician' which was disappointing given were he works. My first inclination was to buy a new power supply unit, however your earlier post suggested a problem with the fans. Can you have a look at this youtube clip and let me know if you think it is a fan issue or if the fridge is totally dead, never to be resurrected again?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Psk2Bbr ... wSrtlx5s4k

cheers
SC

[odyssey]

For the record my prima is now on its last legs... reading 25 at the top... is cool at the bottom. I've gotten about 4 years out of it.

I will see if I can replace some bits and pieces.... otherwise it will become a passive cellar.

The Cybercool still purrs along at 14 degrees.

I do not recommend Prima.

[newworld]

Got an Aldi wine fridge for ~$160. Couldn't be happier. It's a 40 bottle unit, but I've squeezed 53 bottles in it:

I've only measured the temp at the top and the built-in thermometer seems very accurate.

I store mostly claret bottles with the screwcap/cork pointing towards the door. One burgundy bottle is squeezed in on each row facing the other way to the claret bottles. I can get one more bottle sitting perpendicular to the others between them and the door at the front which acts as a showcase as the label is in full view though the glass door.

The bottles in the bottom 2 shelves are all parallel to the door and it's not easy to squeeze them in.

2 bottles are half size stickies.

My thinking is: If I can fit find more space I can buy more (good) wine. I've been slowly increasing the numbers from 40. I think it is physically impossible to fit more now. But who knows

[Phil H]

Hi TDNSFO
Just had a look at the video, and the first bit of advice is Be Very Carefull it appears in each of the units there appears to be a switch mode power supply, which operates at lethal voltages. Even when disconnected from the power point, the capacitors can store enough voltage to give you a zap! You will notice there are 2 wires (blue & brown) on the top right hand side- this is where the 240v supply comes in.
However if you feel confident to progress, first disconnect from 240v supply, and wait a few minutes. Next try isolating each unit one at a time, to see if one of these units is causing all the troubles. Do this by by disconnecting the blue brown wire connector. If disconnected, make sure it is isolated and not touching anything - you do not want the chassis to become live. You can also check if the fan is causing the problem by disconnecting it from the board, and if the wire is long enough, swap it to other boards.
The fans do not look anything special, and appear 12v dc computer type, that jaycar should stock.
It is all a process of elimination, but once again Be very careful 240v will kill.

Good luck

Phil

[odyssey]

Good advice that. I just gave myself a shock whilst touching one of the onboard heat sinks whilst the unit was plugged in (not the interior/exterior heat sinks, just a little one on the electric board), which was surprising. Didn't expect the current to be passing through the heat sink but could be anywhere I guess.

Anyway it looks like it's the fan as I plugged the fan into the middle board (which works when plugged into the middle fan) and it didn't work.

Unfortunately it resulted in the lower fans working overtime to match the thermostat, blowing hot air all around the rear of the unit, which was being slowly absorbed back in through the upper heat sink, with its internal fan (which still works) blowing the warm air straight onto the upper wines - thus making the top warm and the bottom really really cold. Would have been better for the wines if the whole unit had completely shut off, really.

I'm a bit peeved had I had a few nice wines sitting there at the top of the fridge, for at least a couple of days if not weeks at almost warm glass temperature (which I assume is 33+ odd degrees) including a 90 cullen reserve and 90 leeuwin cabs, 91 Mt P. Rosehill, 98 & 96 Bin 389, and some lovely Bay of Fires pinots - amongst others.

grrr

[odyssey]

Have replaced the fan (with the correct voltage 12V and of course connected red to red and black to black) but then the PCB for the uppermost fan blew - no lights on it any more.

Connected the new fan replacement to the middle PCB and it worked fine. Looks like the PCB is stuffed... maybe I'll try to replace the fuse...

[Dooley]

Hi all, this is my first post here. Hubby and I are about to move to an acreage the Macedon Ranges with a crappy uninsulated 80s house and no decent place to store our wine. We will have a huge 3-bay colourbond garage, and I'm thinking of getting 3-4 of the 72 bottle Cybercool units and putting them there.

It sounds like the Cybercool could handle the summer heat, but I'm actually wondering more about winter cold. It gets well below zero out there frequently in the winter. I know those units don't heat, and that there would be some insulation from them and a bit from the garage itself. Do you think this situation would result in too much temp variation on the cold end? I know wine stored at a colder temp develops more slowly, but I can imagine temp variations would still be a bad thing.

Thoughts from the collective brain trust?

Cheers,

Dooley

[odyssey]

Hi Dooley and welcome!

Whilst the insulation helps to reduce daily fluctuations and would prevent it freezing, it's only a stop gap measure so your wine would not greatly differ from the outside average. It would stay at a consistent temperature where it simply won't age for half of the year, but also experience a 10 degree seasonal fluctuation.

In Sydney where the temperature ranges 8-16 degrees on average, my fridge sits at pretty much exactly 12-13 with little-or-no fans running. During summer it sits at 14-15 with the fans running regularly.

I imagine that since the temperature around Ballarat averages 3-10 during winter your wine would sit at 6-7 degrees in June and would only hit the ageing minimum temperature (12 degrees) between October and April:

http://www.weatherzone.com.au/climate/s ... e&lc=89002

In short, in my opinion I think it might be marginally better than having no fridge at all but it probably still wouldn't be much good without some kind of thermostat-controlled gentle heating that kicks in between May and September.

You could always try to find a way to integrate floor-heating mats into some insulation but then it's probably cheaper to buy a proper fridge with heating element, or build an insulated room.

Cheers
Andrew

[tpang]

Hi Dooley,

why are you thinking of 3-4 72-btl units when you could be getting 120+ units? I would suggest larger capacity fridges (esp. those without glass doors) for wines that you want to keep for the longer term, and just a single 72-btl one for wines that you're likely to drink soon.

As Andrew indicated, the insulation should prevent freezing, and locating it in the garage should prevent any sudden freezing events from occurring. Don't think a bout of freeze would impact on white wines too much, not sure about reds though.

Terence

[Dooley]

HI Andrew and Terance,

Thanks for your advice on this. The idea of going with multiple 72 bottle Cybercool units is purely a cost one. Four of those holding up to 288 bottles would cost me about $16-1700 including shipping.

In the limited research I've done, I haven't found any larger units to store that amount of wine for anywhere near that. Do you know of any?

We're planning on building a new house with an underground cellar at our place, but that probably won't be for 3-4 years, so I'm just trying to keep my costs to a minimum since it will not be a long term plan. We have SO many things we will have to spend money on to get this property up to scratch!

Cheers,

Dorothy

[phillisc]

Not that I have a fridge, my wine is all in professional storage, but sounds like amateur electrical capers/hour and when will we read "Death by Prima."

Be careful lads, cooked wine is not worth your life.

Cheers Craig.

[chrisbatten4]

HI Guys hoping someone here can help
My prima was originally freezing up at the bottom so i pulled off the back to relies one of the fans had died, i replaced all 3 back fans and now it is working great, but unfortunately i cant get the internal temperature below 21 degree's

any ideas? thanks for your time

Chris

[AaronL]

I'm not a refrigeration specialist, so take this with a grain of salt. The Prima fridge runs with a compressor circulating the refrigerant gas it contains. If your fridge is no longer cooling, it's likely that your fridge has sprung a leak and all the refrigerant has leaked out. It would be very costly/difficult to fix, so if this is the problem, you're probably going to need to replace it. For what it's worth, I had a Prima and when it failed to cool, this was the problem that it had and the fridge was replaced. It does sound odd that it was freezing before you replaced the fans.

Hope you have better luck with yours. Perhaps Santa can bring you a new one for Xmas?

[TiggerK]

Yeah, from what I've heard and been told, if it won't cool then almost always it's time for a new fridge, just not worth repairing. Might be worth asking a fridge expert though!

[Phil H]

Aldi have a wine fridge on sale this Saturday: 50 bottle capacity for $399

ALDI: https://aldi.co/2gsn

[odyssey]

I'm not a refrigeration specialist, so take this with a grain of salt. The Prima fridge runs with a compressor circulating the refrigerant gas it contains. If your fridge is no longer cooling, it's likely that your fridge has sprung a leak and all the refrigerant has leaked out. It would be very costly/difficult to fix, so if this is the problem, you're probably going to need to replace it. For what it's worth, I had a Prima and when it failed to cool, this was the problem that it had and the fridge was replaced. It does sound odd that it was freezing before you replaced the fans.

Hope you have better luck with yours. Perhaps Santa can bring you a new one for Xmas?

72 bottle Primas don't have coolant, they use giant heat sinks and fans (peltier cooling).

It sounds like chrisbatten4 has the peltier model since he had to replace the fans.

Chris, give it a couple of days to cool as the wine has a large thermal mass and it is summer to boot, but if your problems contine I have done the same thing as other posters and bought a blower fan and variable voltage transformer. It is doing the trick.

Also be aware that peltier models only cool to 10 degrees under current room temperature.

There is also the possibility that the fans you used have a lower rpm than the originals at the same voltage. The fridges adust their fan speeds, must be by changing voltage.

Also use a cheap multi-measuring (via a probe wire) digital thermometer/hygrometer as the reading on the built in thermostat is ALWAYS wrong. I put mine back in this week and discovered my older "14" degree thermostat/fridge is actually 17-20.

Need to do a mass wine transfer when cooler months come about.

[AaronL]

I'm not a refrigeration specialist, so take this with a grain of salt. The Prima fridge runs with a compressor circulating the refrigerant gas it contains. If your fridge is no longer cooling, it's likely that your fridge has sprung a leak and all the refrigerant has leaked out. It would be very costly/difficult to fix, so if this is the problem, you're probably going to need to replace it. For what it's worth, I had a Prima and when it failed to cool, this was the problem that it had and the fridge was replaced. It does sound odd that it was freezing before you replaced the fans.

Hope you have better luck with yours. Perhaps Santa can bring you a new one for Xmas?

72 bottle Primas don't have coolant, they use giant heat sinks and fans (peltier cooling).

Thanks for picking up on this. Probably would have helped if I had've read the thread first

The fridge that I had that died was a Lemair, not a Prima. Apologies to all the Prima followers.