Wine Fridge

How I fixed my Cuisinart CWC-1600

It had stopped cooling a while ago, decided to take a look and see if I could fix it, nothing to lose.

I did some searching, and found generic stuff, but nothing real specific on the CWC-1600, so writing this in case it helps anyone trying to fix their wine fridge.

I ended up having to change the peltier module and two caps to make my cooler work again.

Some info first.

This type of wine cooler uses a peltier cooler. That's why it won't get as cold as a normal refrigerator, and if the room is too hot then it won't get as cold

When you apply 12 volts to the peltier module, one side gets hot and the other side gets cold. In the 1600, the side facing front is cold, and the side facing back gets hot.

In my 1600, the display still worked, and I could change the temperature setting. This is a pretty good indicator that the main board was working.

There are not many parts in the 1600. There is the main board, and the cooling module.

The cooling module includes the peltier, two heatsinks, two fans and assorted hardware to hold it together, with a piece of styrofoam for insulation in the middle.

I didn't take pictures taking the unit apart, just when I put it back together. So I will say how I disassembled, but just have a picture of the wiring, and some pics from after I reassembled.

Unplug, empty, and move somewhere you have space to work on it. I did it on the floor.

Turn around, and remove back cover.

After removing the cover, I plugged back in, and saw the rear fan wasn't working, so I thought the fan might be bad.

I took enough apart to remove the back fan, and applied 12VDC to the fan. I had a small setup from my PC stuff that I used for this. A 9V battery probably work too, just make sure to put positive to the red wire. The fan worked, so that was not the problem.

Then, I unplugged the peltier, then plugged the fan back in, and the fan worked.

I measured the resistance across the peltier wires with it unplugged, and it said about zero ohms, so I knew it was bad and needed to be replaced.

You have to disassemble all the important parts to get to the peltier.

So unplug the fan and peltier from the board, and cut the tie.

Then you remove the 4 screws in the corners around the peltier/heatsink/fan module, and pull it out of the cooler.

Had to remove stuff to get to the peltier. Start with the little fan, remove the four little screws on the side of the small heatsink that hold the fan bracket to the module. In the pic above, you can see wires in a white tube. They go to the fan, you need to slide them towards the fan so the fan can move. Then slide out the fan/fan bracket from the module, and pull the wires out sliding under the grey gasket.

Unscrew the two long screws on the sides of the small heatsink, that you can see now that the fan is gone. They are the middle ones, in the black things with 3 holes in a row. You probably have to flip the assembly over to see the heads.

Removing the styrofoam insulation was a little hard, because its glued down. I used a flat head screwdriver, and pried it up along the outer edge until I could pull it off. Some of the styrofoam stayed on the heatsink, but I used this to install the styrofoam in the same orientation.

I unscrewed the four screws that were holding the black 3 hole things in place, but I think you can leave the in.

After you remove the styrofoam and metal block in the styrofoam, you will see the peltier.

Before I fixed, I cleaned off all of the old heatsink compound with alcohol, and did a quicky sanding/lapping job on the heat sink surfaces to get better heat transfer.

Reassembled it all. The trick with heatsink compound is less is better, you want a really thin layer on it. Should just barely cover the surface. If I put too much, I just wipe some off until I have a very thin layer.

But after putting it together, the fans didn't turn any more. Bummed :(

Disassembled again, but not sure what happened. Still not working with fans and peltier plugged in.

Time for some research, and I found this thread on fixing this type of wine cooler. It talks about a different module, but some company made the board, so I figured it probably works mostly the same.

Based on the thread, I plugged in my cooler with the fans connected, but the peltier disconnected. Then, after the fans started, I plugged in the peltier, and it started to cool and the fans kept running. Same thing they talk about in the thread, so I figured I had a similar problem.

Lots of people in the thread change all the caps, but then someone around page 7 said they only found one bad 47uF 25Volt cap. I looked, and found a couple 47uf, 35V caps. As long as they fit, you can go higher voltage, just don't go lower.

So I changed the two 47uf caps on the board, tried again, and after a few seconds the fans started to turn, and the peltier was getting cold.

:)

You do have the plug in the yellow wires (thermostat) to make it work, but with both fans, thermostat and peltier plugged it, itt seemed to work fine.

Time to reassemble again. This time, I tested the setup in stages as I put it back together.

I had checked, and the cold side of the peltier is the side with writing.

Starting with the big heatsink, put heatsink compound on peltier and heatsink, then install with cold side up, away from big heatsink (writing up with my peltier)

Run the wires under the gasket.

Put some more compound on, and add the block and styrofoam. At this point, I screwed the four corner screws of the 3 hole pieces.