Catalina 350 International Association

There was a rumor that AB had developed a replacement board correcting the CU 100 and CU 200 failures. It would be a mistake to replace with the original failed design. You can bypass the complete board and be sure to add a new 15 amp fuse to the refrigerator boat's power wire. By bypassing it you l...

Unfortunately that printed circuit board is poorly designed structurally the power copper strip plus and minus will overheat and burn through.

Check TECH TIP # 1 on my web site for more info. http://www.kollmann-marine.com/tip1.aspx

There are two concerns I would have about rotating a currently installed horizontal evaporator to a vertical position. First there is a bonded joint a short distance from evaporator where its aluminum tube is connected too the long copper tube that is easily fractured creating a, non repairable, ref...

Gary, You have a low voltage spike do to a week spot in boat's wiring to refrigerator module. If you were seeing a trouble code of 3 or more flashes flashes every 4 seconds it would be caused by an amperage problem. Your AB is either a CU100 or Cu200 which has an inherent problem of printed circuit ...

You would not rely on a voltage test to check your computer's boot up circuit The one LED flash code is telling you that during refrigerator boot up test there is a low voltage spike occurring in boats wiring to refrigeration. Weak circuit breaker, wiring old, panel switch contacts pitted, wire term...

Polyester oil now used with 134a refrigerant absorbs moisture quickly and unlike previously used wax free Mineral oil refuses to release or boil off moisture to a gas that can be removed. There are technicians that will say dehydrating moisture from Ester oil can not be done. I have found that keepi...

I assumed your evaporator was a thin aluminum plate and not a stainless steel plate. If plate is a Adler Barbour stainless Power Plate it will be much slower in frosting over. But with either plate moisture freezing and thawing in refrigerant flow control capillary tube will keep evaporator temperat...

OK, compressor is now running. Twenty minutes after compressor start up there will be a very thin layer of frost covering 80% of evaporator's surface this will confirm quantity of of refrigerant is close to where it should be. Because the layer of frost is so thin it can be detected by dragging fing...

Bill, Repairing or replacing a circuit board that is not designed to handle compressor starting loads of momentary amps of less than 15 amps. is a mistake. I suggest you remove 15 amp fuse. Then place a by pass 10 gauge jumper from wire from main power terminal on front of stainless box. The other e...

Bill, I am still around after 84 years. After 20,000 spam messages last year I stopped anyone from registering on my forum but it is still readable by anyone. The CU100 and 200 Adler Barbour printed circuit board was not engineered strong enough for the marine environment. There are three failures o...

Boat Refrigeration Technical Tips Technical feed back is rarely available from small Job Shop companies even on repairable equipment like boat refrigeration. Most of us understand terms like Service Bulletins, Typical Repair Information and Equipment Recalls but where are these preventive services f...

If you are having trouble with your boat’s refrigeration unit, do not call a mechanic. In most cases you can repair it yourself. The most common boat 12 or 24 volt refrigerator compressors are made by Danfoss. These compressors are used by Adler Barbour, Frigoboat, Grunert, Waeco, EZ Kold, Technauti...

William, Your feedback is good information and before I am to quick is recommending a solution I need some more information. The size inside of box or boxes dimensions or cubic feet. About how much tubing is there from the refrigerator plate to the compressor? I mean length of tubing not distance be...

Ken,The problems you are experiencing with refrigeration are not unusual they even occur on million dollar boats. Most times refrigeration problems are easily solved by correcting the heat flow through a system. The question is who is responsible when your new boats refrigeration unit does not perfo...

Knotmeter, I have a couple questions: What are the measurments (size) of your evaporator? What speed is your compressor running at? From the picture the speed resistor number is on top of thermostat. Can you describe the areas where frost is present on evaporator and tubing? Are you indicating the f...

Dave, I read your post on refrigerator problems the weekend of the forth. After reading my mail and this forum it seems that one common solution is not going to solve the refrigeration problems on the Catalina 350 series boats. I have no information about the box sizes, compressor model and most imp...

Bad Advice vacuum system I am surprised that a manufacturer’s technical rep would advise a boat owner to evacuate one of these small systems, as a fix for poor performance, unless you gave him more information than posted here. This advice is a cheap shot at troubleshooting to get off the hook and...

Understanding your boat’s refrigerator. Comparing a boat’s ice box conversion unit’s performance to a home refrigerator of even older boat refrigeration systems is a mistake. A home refrigerator is designed around the cabinet size with each component selected to collect and dispose of a given ...