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Post by ca1b16 on Jan 2, 2022 1:49:42 GMT
Hi! I have a CA1-B16 that I bought at the Salvation Army in Seattle about 30 years ago. Except for being moved twice to new homes it has been running continuously since I bought it, keeping my beer and soft drinks cold.
I never paid much attention to this fridge until our fancy 2005 Maytag's compressor died and we had to wait more than a month for a new fridge due to "supply chain issues." During that time we used the CA1-B16 as our only fridge. Imagine that! A nearly ninety year-old fridge runs better and lasts longer than a $2000 contemporary one. Sigh.
Anyway, using the CA1-B16 for something more than just a beer cooler got me interested in how it worked. I found the original GE manual and some stuff on-line showing a restoration. That led me to notice a few things about mine that I don't understand:
(1) I know the oil conditioner is dead. I measured the resistance at the plug with the fridge off and got an infinite resistance. So the heater must be dead. There's also sometimes a rattle when the compressor runs, which I understand can be due to that heater's failure and improper separation of the methyl formate refrigerant and the oil. I'm wondering what the best replacement heater would be and exactly how to remove the dead oil heater and insert the new one.
(2) The power switch on the control on the front of my CA's condenser doesn't seem to be aligned correctly. It has three positions (off, on, and defrost). But the arrow end of the knob doesn't point to those settings. Instead, the knob seems to be on backwards with the butt end of the knob doing the pointing instead of the arrowhead and the spacing of steps not matching the markings on the cover plate. The most clockwise position of the knob is indeed "OFF" but the arrowhead is pointing 180 degrees away from that. And so forth. I know that the temperature control knob can be removed by prying out a small cover in the center and then loosening a screw. But the power switch knob doesn't seem to be attached like that and the manual says nothing about how to remove it. How do I get that knob off? Or should I just leave it alone? Is it possible that the control has been over rotated and damaged?
Any help will be appreciated.
john
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Post by turbokinetic on Jan 2, 2022 14:56:47 GMT
Hi! I have a CA1-B16 that I bought at the Salvation Army in Seattle about 30 years ago. Except for being moved twice to new homes it has been running continuously since I bought it, keeping my beer and soft drinks cold. I never paid much attention to this fridge until our fancy 2005 Maytag's compressor died and we had to wait more than a month for a new fridge due to "supply chain issues." During that time we used the CA1-B16 as our only fridge. Imagine that! A nearly ninety year-old fridge runs better and lasts longer than a $2000 contemporary one. Sigh. Anyway, using the CA1-B16 for something more than just a beer cooler got me interested in how it worked. I found the original GE manual and some stuff on-line showing a restoration. That led me to notice a few things about mine that I don't understand: (1) I know the oil conditioner is dead. I measured the resistance at the plug with the fridge off and got an infinite resistance. So the heater must be dead. There's also sometimes a rattle when the compressor runs, which I understand can be due to that heater's failure and improper separation of the methyl formate refrigerant and the oil. I'm wondering what the best replacement heater would be and exactly how to remove the dead oil heater and insert the new one. (2) The power switch on the control on the front of my CA's condenser doesn't seem to be aligned correctly. It has three positions (off, on, and defrost). But the arrow end of the knob doesn't point to those settings. Instead, the knob seems to be on backwards with the butt end of the knob doing the pointing instead of the arrowhead and the spacing of steps not matching the markings on the cover plate. The most clockwise position of the knob is indeed "OFF" but the arrowhead is pointing 180 degrees away from that. And so forth. I know that the temperature control knob can be removed by prying out a small cover in the center and then loosening a screw. But the power switch knob doesn't seem to be attached like that and the manual says nothing about how to remove it. How do I get that knob off? Or should I just leave it alone? Is it possible that the control has been over rotated and damaged? Any help will be appreciated. john
Hi John; welcome to the forum! Happy that your CA is working well for you and proving that the new stuff is definitely inferior when it comes to longevity! As for the oil heater, these are available from Phoenix Thermal Supply (PTS Heat). Their website below: https://www.phoenixthermalsupply.com/You need to use a 20W heater for a CA to ensure it has the best chance of long life. The description from PTS is as follows: CARTRIDGE HEATER, 120V 20W,
STAINLESS STEEL HEATER, 12mm
DIAMETER, 2-1/2" LONG; STOCKContact the folks at PTS and tell them you're working on a GE Monitor Top fridge and that info above - and they should be able to hook you up. As for the control, it's hard to know unless you share a picture. The CA machines and many other Monitor Top designs contain a circuit breaker inside the control which is the motor's only form of overlaod protection. If the control is bypassed, mechanically jammed "on" or in any way defeated, the compressor will eventually be destroyed, as well as a serious safety risk will be incurred. For this reason, it's important for the control to be in top shape. If the knob is forced to rotate too far, it is possible something is very wrong with the control; or the control might be the wrong type for the fridge. Again, pictures would help. Sincerely, David |
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Post by ca1b16 on Jan 2, 2022 19:19:39 GMT
Thank you for the replay, David!
I'll contact Phoenix tomorrow to get an oil heater. I didn't even know these had one until I started learning about these machines. Mine has probably been dead for a long time. I restore antique radios, so I can probably figure out how to install the heater basedc on things I've seen here and elsewhere.
Attached are some photos of the control. For as long as I have had this CA1 the arrow has been backwards as you see it. When I pulled off the cover it became clear that at some point someone must have used a screwdriver to remove the control (see scratches on screw heads). So maybe they messed it up from the factory orientation.
My CA1 is in the garage, which at this time of year is at about 60 degrees. So I'm running the fridge at 3 instead of the normal recommended setting of 5. Otherwise the cabinet temp drops almost to freezing. (I have a remote temp sensor in the middle of the cabinet.)
I hung an ammeter on the circuit today and when running it's drawing about 2.6 amps, which seems about right. Last cycle turned off at 40.1 degrees.
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Post by cablehack on Jan 2, 2022 23:07:04 GMT
Unusual that the switch knob would be tampered with since that should never need anything done to it. With my CA-1, the Textolite panel on the control had been broken off because whoever 'serviced' it didn't know about the hidden screw. I can't see any evidence of anything being done to the internals of the control and it's always worked since I've had the fridge (I've had it operating continuously since 2013).
I'm curious how well yours is working with no heater, and I assume not having been purged for many, many years. However, it does seem the CA-1 has an easier life than the CA-2 from my experience. What's the frost line like?
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Post by ca1b16 on Jan 3, 2022 1:04:25 GMT
Thanks for the reply, cablehack. My CA1-B16 has been running fine for decades. I didn't even know these had an oil heater or might need periodic bleeding of NC gases until I started reading the manual and saw your CK restoration story on the web. As to where the frost line is I will have to defrost it before I can say. It has a lot of ice on the freezer compartment right now. Since I only used this to cool beverages I didn't defrost it very often and always did that by just unplugging the fridge and waiting for everything to melt off. Now that I've seen the manual I will use the defrost setting instead and more often.
I can't explain the weird arrows on the control. The middle position does appear to be the ON or run position, but it looks to me like the most clockwise position is DEFROST rather than OFF and that the most counterclockwise position is actually OFF (which is opposite of what it should be). Very odd. I noticed in the manual on page 10 that GE describes a universal control unit which could be used on both form A and form B machines. My fridge shows scratches on the heads of the screws that hold the control to the condenser, so maybe someone either replaced the control with a factory mistake or took the original apart and didn't put it back together correctly. I'm very reluctant to remove my control and start messing with it since the fridge runs pretty well. The photos I've seen of the inside of the control make it look very hard to work on.
I am going to replace the oil conditioner with one from Phoenix as turbokinetic suggested. I'm thinking I might just wire it to its own plug rather than connecting it to the starter relay since it wants to be on all the time anyway. At least I might try that to start.
I ordered a S-216-6OS Bristol wrench from MGS and might bleed any NC gases after I see what fixing the oil heater does.
I hate to do much with any old machine of any kind that's mostly working. "If it ain't broke don't fix it," they say. I'm not seeing evidence of overload. It draws 2.6 amps when running and kicks up to about 10 amps for a second as it starts.
Does all that seem reasonable?
john
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Post by cablehack on Jan 4, 2022 0:22:59 GMT
I would agree that it's best not to remove the control unless there's good reason to - the risk being that the sensing tube has to be straightened out to do so. There's only a certain amount of times you can do that before the tube breaks. However, you can, without risk, get the knob off and see if the shaft allows the knob to be fitted more than one way. I used a tiny jewellers screwdriver to lever out the Textolite plug in mine when I had to recalibrate the thermostat. Electrically, you could install the heater as you say, provided the opening in the cabinet top was kept sealed. But, it's not too difficult of a job to use the old heater wires to pull the new ones through. And, it would be a good plan to think about rewiring the cabinet top anyway, since the rubber wire is now very brittle. In my instance with the CA-2, one of the wires was touching the high side line, with crumbled away insulation, www.flickr.com/photos/13469158@N05/6905888745/in/album-72157633054818403/ The casing of the fridge would have been live, had it not been for the fact it was run off an isolating transformer. By the way, even though the heater is connected at the start relay, it is connected to the mains input terminals which are always live - the switching of the motor is completely separate. The current draw sounds about right. 2.6A @ 120V with a power factor of about 0.5 comes in around 156W which is perfect (with no heater of course). For my CA-2 setup, I have a plug in power meter specifically for the fridge. It measures wattage on the 240V side of the step down transformer; all up it typically runs at around 178W; 14W of that is the heater (12W) and the transformer magnetising current (about 2W). The compressor wattage is slightly higher in my instance, because of the 50Hz mains supply. From time to time I look at what the meter is reading. Seeing a constant 14W when the compressor is not running tells me the heater is good, and if the compressor power starts to rise, it can indicate that a purge might be soon required. Conversely, a much lower power reading and a falling frost line indicates an oil slug in the evaporator. I haven't bothered with a permanent power meter for the CA-1, since that fridge just goes and goes, with never a problem (and it's still got the original heater!). In any case, you'll know if something's not right, because the compressor will make a rattling sound - it should only do that if there's been a sudden drop in room temperature. |
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