Background: The mini-fridge is a coca-cola collectors item. It holds about 10 soda cans and dispenses the drinks old school vending machine style. Its really cool and totally worth fixing (but not worth spending 50+ dollars on a new power adapater. The fridge uses a peltier/thermo-electric cooler as its cooling element.
Problem: The fridge originally ran off of an external power adapter/supply. This PS was rated :12v | 5 Amps. The power supply bricked before I came in posession of it so Im not sure exactly how.
My (almost) Solution: I first tried to diagnose the faulty supply. When plugged in, an even tempo clicking sound was coming from one of the components. It seemed to be a transformer (i think). It looked like a transformer but had 8 pins ( 3 one side, 5 other side). I tried replacing it with similar salvaged components that had the same size/pins. This didnt work after 4 different swaps so I decided to forget the original PS and use an old PC power supply since I know one rail is 12 volts. I created a connection using the fridges power chord (not the PSU, just the chord. Im not that much a newbie:) to the +/- of the PC PSU's 12v rail. This seemed to work as the fridge powered on and it felt like it started to get cool.....(read on)
New Problem: I checked the current flowing into the fridge from the PSU and when I first turned it on it started at 3 AMPs but then fell to around 2.65. The fridge is not getting anywhere near as cool as it should (its actually not getting "cool" at all). The only thing I can assume is that the peltier needs higher current (5A) to run properly/....
MY QUESTION(s):
Am I right about the current being in-sufficient to drive the peltier or could it be something else & what else?
Whether Im right about this or not, what would be a simple, RELIABLE/SAFE way to increase the current to 5A?
This question is not too awfully important but I am really curious to know what the component is I was referring to (looks like a transformer, has 3 pins on ones side, 5 on the other) and what purpose it serves.
Thank you in advance for any help with figuring this out.
Problem: The fridge originally ran off of an external power adapter/supply. This PS was rated :12v | 5 Amps. The power supply bricked before I came in posession of it so Im not sure exactly how.
My (almost) Solution: I first tried to diagnose the faulty supply. When plugged in, an even tempo clicking sound was coming from one of the components. It seemed to be a transformer (i think). It looked like a transformer but had 8 pins ( 3 one side, 5 other side). I tried replacing it with similar salvaged components that had the same size/pins. This didnt work after 4 different swaps so I decided to forget the original PS and use an old PC power supply since I know one rail is 12 volts. I created a connection using the fridges power chord (not the PSU, just the chord. Im not that much a newbie:) to the +/- of the PC PSU's 12v rail. This seemed to work as the fridge powered on and it felt like it started to get cool.....(read on)
New Problem: I checked the current flowing into the fridge from the PSU and when I first turned it on it started at 3 AMPs but then fell to around 2.65. The fridge is not getting anywhere near as cool as it should (its actually not getting "cool" at all). The only thing I can assume is that the peltier needs higher current (5A) to run properly/....
MY QUESTION(s):
Am I right about the current being in-sufficient to drive the peltier or could it be something else & what else?
Whether Im right about this or not, what would be a simple, RELIABLE/SAFE way to increase the current to 5A?
This question is not too awfully important but I am really curious to know what the component is I was referring to (looks like a transformer, has 3 pins on ones side, 5 on the other) and what purpose it serves.
Thank you in advance for any help with figuring this out.
