Wine Cooler Repair

In this video I repair our broken Haier 8-bottle wine cooler by replacing a single capacitor. The unit was no longer cooling, with the front LED panel blinking and making a chirping noise.
By replacing the 47uf 25v capacitor at the C8 location, the machine is back up and running again! Special thanks to the All About Circuits forum that provided some background on this repair: forum.allabout...
As this is a common control board across many different manufacturers, this fix should apply to many different wine coolers that use FX-101/FX-102 and similar boards, including those from Frigidaire, Emerson, Vinotemp, EdgeStar, Wine Enthusiast, and many more.
47uf 25v capacitor: www.mouser.com...
Soldering Iron: Hakko FX888: www.amazon.com...

[@maragolden7650]

Thanks Joe! This worked for my Heier HVTEC12DASS. My screen didn’t light up at all and I had the chirping noise. Only one fan was working (it’s a 12 bottle fridge with upper and lower compartments). Replaced the C8 capacitor and it’s all patched up and working like a charm. Thanks for your video!

[@joferg12]

Thanks! This worked for my Vissanni wine cooler from Home Depot. The appliance repair shop quoted $321 to repair this. The $1 capacitor at C8 fixed it.

[@AlexVoinotGuitar]

Hi Joe, another message to thank you for your video. I've just had to replace the C8 cap in ours (Koolatron 6 bottle wine fridge). The symptoms were that the fridge had been having a tougher time keeping the temperature constant over the last couple of months or so, and then 2 weeks ago it started making that beeping sound like you're showcasing at the beginning of the video. 15 minutes, 20 cents and a little of soldering action later, and the fridge is all good once again. I couldn't source 47 microFarad 25V capacitors locally, so I had to put a 100V one instead, which is a little overkill.

[@ginakkim]

Thank you for another successful repair! The C8 was the culprit again (in a wine enthusiast dual temp fridge) 👍👍

[@worldwide1376]

Just ran across your video, very useful info. I have a Wine Enthusiast that is exhibiting the same behavior. I just replaced the C8 capacitor and that did the trick. No signs of bulging or leakage. When I measured it, the value was way off. Thank you for your post.

[@ronwiggins9081]

Thank you Joe! I have an 18-bottle Wine Enthusiast fridge and it wasn't cooling, the lights were flickering, etc. I did exactly what you instructed and the fridge is working like new. Good Job...

[@TimShuler-h5m]

My Newair wine cooler stopped completely when we lost power. I ordered 5 capacitors from Joe's link above (see "more" )and replace C8 today and we are up and running again! ! 26 cents plus shipping instead of $300-400 for a new one! Thanks Joe!

[@richardsanders2762]

OMG! What can't the internet teach us. I have the exact wine cooler with the exact problem. Changing C8 resolved the issue. Thanks a lot.

[@lcsanders2]

Just replaced my C8 capacitor and once I plugged in the power, the board lit up, fans started working, and it started cooling. Thanks, Joe! I would've hated to throw this nice wine cooler away.

[@yourduck]

C8 strikes again. Thanks for the video.

[@haroldschock273]

Thank you Joe! We have 18 bottle Koolatron that made weird noises. All I had in the house was 100uf 25v caps. Installed them both in the C8 locations. Wine cooler is working again. Awesome instructional video. 🍷

[@chipinopo1]

Very useful and practical video, I followed your tips changed C8 and it worked! even with a multimeter gave me 44uF instead of 47uF, but truly the origen of the problem. you saved another guys day! thank you!

[@ganojason]

Outstanding. Ours is the 16 bottle, dual temperature model. Same issue. Same capacitor, upper board. Great video. Thank you.

[@oddvertex]

Same here - even upper board 👍

[@ping260]

Thanks for the video! My cooler has two of those boards. The top one was bad. I replaced C8 on that board and that fixed the problem. That saved me hours of debugging time and there is no guarantee that I could fix it at the end. The capacitor is rated at 47uF 25v. I measured the bad one, it had less than 5uF. I then pulled the same cap from the good board and the cap reads 25uF so I replaced it too. The capacitor appears to be a filtering capacitor at the output of a switching mode converter circuit. There is a lot of ripple current going through that cap and that put a lot of stress on it.

[@timothyberry5394]

Had the exact situation. Order my compositor, fixed. Thank you for the great tip.

[@aaronchitty2609]

Thank you for this video sir. This was very helpful to me.

[@jairofuentes2145]

thanks for sharing this...Do you have some technical info about this board. like schematics?...Thanks again

[@fredjr26]

What do you think the issue would be for a cooler with the same setup, the panel is working but it’s not cooling ?

[@iGp0wn3d]

My old one is running and all fans are running but it doesn’t cool, do you think the peltier is broken?

[@florotorralba1586]

Awesome tuturial😊

[@BentzProductions]

I have the same board with the same problem . Replaced the c8 but it didn’t helped 😣. Do you have any idea which capacitor should I try to replace next? Thanks 🙏

[@uniplexed]

Nice video. I have the same model and found that the circuit board was making some (not loud) noise when it was cooling. Fan is consistently running. Is it normal?

[@carlaevans5033]

How do you set the temperature?

[@umb_liccardo]

HI, have you got a daatasheet and the technical data of PCB50418E1?

[@JustCallMemustang]

Hello I have been trying to figure out how to get past the 54 degree minimum on these it all points to the microprocessor but I’m wondering what will happen if I take it out is there a way to safely get past that 54 minimum the manual says the microprocessor is the keeping that temp from going under 54

[@gurnblanston7392]

Hello - This was very helpful as my looks identical and experienced the same problems after a power outage! I'd like to attempt the repair, but know next to nothing about soldering... can you comment on the soldering iron, solder and the "rope" you used to remove the existing solder? Thanks!

[@jwmartin83]

The soldering iron is a Hakko FX888 (linked in the video description), though you might get by with a less expensive one from your local hardware store or Walmart in a pinch. The cheaper ones don't heat up as well so they're not as useful for more stubborn electronics. I bought the Hakko a few years ago and I've easily repaired TVs, computers and other electronics that would have otherwise ended up in the landfill. I only use it once or twice a year but I'll end up having it forever... its well worth getting a good one. I forgot which solder I used, it was either rosin-core or lead free. Either one will do. To remove the old solder I used a soldering wick. Basically its braided copper, that when heated up, will sort of soak in the old solder from a board to allow the old component to be removed. There are these "solder sucker" things out there as well, but I never found them useful. I didn't use it here but you might want to pick up a small container of flux, too. Good luck!

[@danielknows3146]

Awesome video! Just a quick question, my panel light don’t turn on would it be the c8 capacitor that I need to change?

[@davidhughes4448]

There are numerous capacitors and other semi-conductors on that board. What lead you immediately to (suspect) C8? Thank you.

[@jwmartin83]

I read on the AllCircuits forum that most people replaced the C8 capacitor with success. The thread link is in the video description.

[@stratmister009]

@@jwmartin83 it would be even better if the solution included an explanation of what function that cap performs in principle. The basic idea of these coolers is the same, but there are varieties of make and models and another guys cooler with slightly different circuitry might have a C12 that performs that function. So unless everyone on the planet has the exact model that you displayed here, the c8 cap fix isn't gonna help.

[@oddvertex]

Mine was branded ‘Wine Enthusiast’ and the C8 did the trick. I only swapped it on one of the two boards and fired it up and it started working 😊 taped a spare 47uF to the inside with some sharpie notes of what I did. Board looked identical to the one in this video.

[@maeljohor7774]

Wine Chiller I'm just a fan-bottom work. A top not dizzy .. Is this broken or indeed at the time to work?

[@sergiogroh7720]

gracias !!!! me salvaste

[@Omar-bv3gu]

Mine just blinks red in the back doesn’t chirp does hum a little and the numbers and buttons in front work but the numbers aren’t displaying properly

[@4rdzlla]

Any idea what would be wrong if I set temp to say 70. But it still seems to cool. (Humidor version). Room temp is 67-68. But the unit gets to 63. It should switch the cooling off but recirculate fan only. Not sure where to begin.

[@4rdzlla]

Just got it today. I'd rather fix it then return and have to order and wait and wait

[@eriiclang]

Where could I buy the C8 part? Thanks

[@jwmartin83]

See the video's description

[@ed_zeppelin]

What is the difference between a fx-101b & fx-102 board.

[@forxan]

110V or 220V

[@susaneasley9024]

CA capacitors? Where do u get one

[@jwmartin83]

C8 is the location of the capacitor on the board. Each capacitor has an ID printed next to it on the board. There's a link in the video description to where you can buy one.

[@jerryjackson3093]

ᵖʳᵒᵐᵒˢᵐ 🍀