Greetings,

 I've been refurbishing a 20 year old 'van, and having sorted out the
Zig[1], water pump, leaky windscreen etc. etc.  turned my attention to
the three-way fridge. It worked fine on 240V but blew fuses on the Zig
and the main box on 12V and couldn't get any joy with the gas - no
sparking visible/audible.

Eventually solved the Chinese puzzle of how to get the thing out to
find that the leads intended for the igniter had been paralleled with
the 12V supply wires.  There were no wires connected to the ignition
screw-terminal block.  Hence the Zig fuses blowing as it was trying to
supply the 12V heating coils through thin wire ...

With the fridge out of the van I tried to see if the igniter worked by
connecting it to a small SLA 12V battery having read in the manual
that one can even use a 9V dry battery.  It would spark once and then
no more.  After some reading around on the web and 'van BBSs I decided
to wire-wool the electrode and spray the lead and terminals with WD40.
This made such an improvement that I decided to refit the fridge -
only to have the sparker fail again.  Checking over my work I thought
I'd try running an extra earth wire from the grub screw holding the
electrode in place to the fridge chassis.  This has solved the problem
and the fridge is now working fine on gas, the igniter restarts when
the gas supply is interrupted or the flame is extinguished.
Given that the flue and baffle were absolutely clean without a trace
of any soot I wonder if this fridge has *ever* been run on gas ...
lovely blue flame so all is well.

So, simply (!), if having problems with the starter:

1) clean electrode with wire-wool
2) spray all igniter terminals and electrode wire with WD40
3) add another good earth to the metal-work around the burner

You may save yourself the ~60UKP + labour that seems to be routinely
charged for the Electrolux sealed unit. Hope posting this might help
somebody else.


[1]By removing the simple "regulator" section and making a basic
battery charger from that part of the circuit rather than a converter.

Regards,

MAT

RM 123E RM123E Electrolux igniter