Engel Fridge help

The voltage should be a sine wave around 20V ac value. It moves the solenoid piston by creating a magnetic pulse through a cylindrical coil to, magnetically drive the piston shaft magnet back and forth. Frequency 50HZ or close to.
From memory the resistance of the so called MOTOR, which it doesn't have, is approx 2.7 Ohms, does vary between models.

thank you so much. Will it be possible to turn on the compressor with a 20v 60hz AC power supply?

Try this link for some information re the engel.

Engel Info

Ken

I agree, in the files that colleague kgarn shares
I can see that the wave is very similar to a square wave, I think the function of the electronic circuit is to generate a square wave instead of a pure sine wave.

About 2-3 years ago I was trying to fix my 40L Engel and someone suggest I try a Jaycar 12-0-12 5A transformer part number MM2014 and drive the pump using the 2 12V giving 24VAC.

It ran the pump but the fridge still did not work so I sold it not working for $150 and invested that money to buy a 60L Brass Monkey. I was so impressed I went back and got a 50L as well which both get used 24-7.

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Hi Nestor,

The Engel's Sawafuji solenoid motor's drive arrangement has changed over the years.
When supplied from a 12vdc source, the supply is always inverted to a square wave of 14-18 volts and a frequency of about 50 Hz. However, when driven from the mains, the early models applied that directly to a winding of the inverter transformer then on to the motor whereas the later models applied the mains to a separate mains transformer and rectifier circuit whose dc output went to the inverter circuit to produce the 14-18vac feed to the motor coil. So in all cases the voltage applied to the motor coil reverses at 50Hz.

So based on that, you probably could apply 12v 50Hz to the motor coil and successfully drive the motor, although I have never actually tried it. It should do no harm to try it but be sure that you apply the nominal 14-18vdc to the motor only and not allow it to feed into the electronics.
And whatever you do, especially if you are not fully trained in electrics, be bloody careful to avoid electric shock.

p.s. I have no knowledge of why Engel made those design decisions but maybe it was because the motor operates as a *resonant frequency device* and it will be most efficient when driven by an electrical source of its design resonant frequency. The Engel fridges were being marketed into countries using primarily 50 or 60 Hz and the later design could accept those frequencies whilst maintaining 50Hz to the motor. Interestingly, Japan is divided into two zones that have mains frequencies of 50Hz and 60Hz respectively although I don't know if that is of significance to Engel's design choices.
And you may be interested in reading more in an earlier Forum Thread 146267. (here).