Problem with Vinotemp - the companys website

[{tpc}]

So about a week or so ago, my vinotemp humidor i got for christmas started acting up. This is the actual humidor model they make, not a wine cooler converted to humidor. What it was doing was not following the setpoint and going too cold. The highest the setpoint reaches is 66, but it kept going to 55-58. I tried resetting it to no avail, it just would not work correctly. So I moved my smokes back into my desktop, and pulled the control unit out to bring to work to repair it. Well at least I wanted to check it out and see if there was any obvious problems with it, before I tried to contact vino about it.

The problems weren't that obvious, so I thought I would try to contact vino. Now I contacted them right after I got it, because the useless hydrogometer they put on it wasn't straight when I got it and I hoped they could help tell me how to fix or remove it. That was christmas though, so I expected no response right away and got none at all. No biggie, it was just looks anyways, it functioned fine. Knowing that, I set off on an emailing campaign this time around because it was a function issue, and I have no idea who reads what email at vino.

Apparantly, at least for now, nobody reads any emails that are sent to any address off their website. I basically sent the same thing to any email they had or any form I could fill in, and not a single response. I guess I shouldn't be surprised because my last email was ignored, but I hoped maybe one person would have read it and even if they couldn't help me, they would have responded to point me in the right direction. Nope. Nada. Nothing.

The end result was $2 later and little bit more time I got it fixed, learned a bit more about switched mode power supplys than I knew before, and its back together and regulating at a nice comfy 66 degrees like it should be. Hopefully it makes it a little longer than 6 months this time around, but I don't think I will be buying any more of their products in the future.

I know I probably should/could have called them over the phone. Had I not been able to repair it myself, that was the next step. My thought was why have a website and offer email links if noone is ever going to respond to them? How much better could their phone support be?

 

[investandprosper]

If a company has a phone line they answer, that's the best way to get a problem resolved (short of stopping by in person). Email support is usually worthless, as it's far easier to ignore or delete an email than it is to ignore or delete (hang up on) a customer on the phone.

A vendor I ordered from only has email support, and it's frustrating. The phone number they have is a recording that says to email them. It takes weeks to get a response. If they had a working phone number, with a real person answering, it would solve a ton of issues right now.

 

[4cbln3]

Sorry you had to go through a frustration like that, but you handled yourself very well TPC. So well, I think that you probably had enough patience left to brush up on all that electronic stuff you said just now and fix it yourself.

If all the other vino-dor users hardly have that problem (as far as threads go) of a setpoint not working, did the company strip down some of the electronics just to fit it in a humi and to get more sales?

 

[{tpc}]

Sorry you had to go through a frustration like that, but you handled yourself very well TPC. So well, I think that you probably had enough patience left to brush up on all that electronic stuff you said just now and fix it yourself.

If all the other vino-dor users hardly have that problem (as far as threads go) of a setpoint not working, did the company strip down some of the electronics just to fit it in a humi and to get more sales?

I don't think they stripped anything down. I think this is just one of their least expensive models. In fact, the board in question has a limited troubleshooting guide on their website, albeit for other thermoelectric vinos they sell for wine....but its the same board. Unfortunately, it only goes so far as checking some voltages and then it just says if thats ok and it stil doesn't work..replace it. lol

 

[Jimmyhaze]

So about a week or so ago, my vinotemp humidor i got for christmas started acting up. This is the actual humidor model they make, not a wine cooler converted to humidor. What it was doing was not following the setpoint and going too cold. The highest the setpoint reaches is 66, but it kept going to 55-58. I tried resetting it to no avail, it just would not work correctly. So I moved my smokes back into my desktop, and pulled the control unit out to bring to work to repair it. Well at least I wanted to check it out and see if there was any obvious problems with it, before I tried to contact vino about it.

The problems weren't that obvious, so I thought I would try to contact vino. Now I contacted them right after I got it, because the useless hydrogometer they put on it wasn't straight when I got it and I hoped they could help tell me how to fix or remove it. That was christmas though, so I expected no response right away and got none at all. No biggie, it was just looks anyways, it functioned fine. Knowing that, I set off on an emailing campaign this time around because it was a function issue, and I have no idea who reads what email at vino.

Apparantly, at least for now, nobody reads any emails that are sent to any address off their website. I basically sent the same thing to any email they had or any form I could fill in, and not a single response. I guess I shouldn't be surprised because my last email was ignored, but I hoped maybe one person would have read it and even if they couldn't help me, they would have responded to point me in the right direction. Nope. Nada. Nothing.

The end result was $2 later and little bit more time I got it fixed, learned a bit more about switched mode power supplys than I knew before, and its back together and regulating at a nice comfy 66 degrees like it should be. Hopefully it makes it a little longer than 6 months this time around, but I don't think I will be buying any more of their products in the future.

I know I probably should/could have called them over the phone. Had I not been able to repair it myself, that was the next step. My thought was why have a website and offer email links if noone is ever going to respond to them? How much better could their phone support be?

I have the same problem now. The temp is set to 65 but it does not go higher than 58/59 degrees. I email vinotemp and told them about the problem. They wanted to sell me a new digital fascia for like 39 dollars. And it wasn't even guaranteed to fix the problem.
May I ask how you fixed it? I am very interested and would love to know.

Thanks,

Jimmy

 

[Chemyst]

There may be nothing wrong with your Vino.

My converted wine cooler Vino resets to 58 degrees whenever
the electricity goes out. Even for a short period of time.

If you have a backup power supply for your computer, you could
try plugging the Vino into it. That might prevent a short
power outage from resetting the Vino control board.

Chemyst

 

[Jimmyhaze]

There may be nothing wrong with your Vino.

My converted wine cooler Vino resets to 58 degrees whenever
the electricity goes out. Even for a short period of time.

If you have a backup power supply for your computer, you could
try plugging the Vino into it. That might prevent a short
power outage from resetting the Vino control board.

Chemyst

There are two sections to the converted vinotemp. One smaller section up top is set to 65 and stays there. The bottom one is also set to 65 but stays around 57-59 depending on the room temperature. Funny you should say the thing about power going out. This only happened after a power outage. I am not sure what you mean by plugging it into a computer backup power supply, do you mean like a battery pack? Also is there a way to reset the bottom section to get back to 65? Thanks.

 

[Shamrocker]

There may be nothing wrong with your Vino.

My converted wine cooler Vino resets to 58 degrees whenever
the electricity goes out. Even for a short period of time.

If you have a backup power supply for your computer, you could
try plugging the Vino into it. That might prevent a short
power outage from resetting the Vino control board.

Chemyst

There are two sections to the converted vinotemp. One smaller section up top is set to 65 and stays there. The bottom one is also set to 65 but stays around 57-59 depending on the room temperature. Funny you should say the thing about power going out. This only happened after a power outage. I am not sure what you mean by plugging it into a computer backup power supply, do you mean like a battery pack? Also is there a way to reset the bottom section to get back to 65? Thanks.

You can buy what's called a UPS, or Uninterrupted Power Supply. It's essentially a power-bar with a battery built in. For computer use, it allows you enough time to be able to save your work before the battery life is exhausted. In this application, it'd prevent the unit from resetting to factory default.

 

[Jimmyhaze]

There may be nothing wrong with your Vino.

My converted wine cooler Vino resets to 58 degrees whenever
the electricity goes out. Even for a short period of time.

If you have a backup power supply for your computer, you could
try plugging the Vino into it. That might prevent a short
power outage from resetting the Vino control board.

Chemyst

There are two sections to the converted vinotemp. One smaller section up top is set to 65 and stays there. The bottom one is also set to 65 but stays around 57-59 depending on the room temperature. Funny you should say the thing about power going out. This only happened after a power outage. I am not sure what you mean by plugging it into a computer backup power supply, do you mean like a battery pack? Also is there a way to reset the bottom section to get back to 65? Thanks.

You can buy what's called a UPS, or Uninterrupted Power Supply. It's essentially a power-bar with a battery built in. For computer use, it allows you enough time to be able to save your work before the battery life is exhausted. In this application, it'd prevent the unit from resetting to factory default.

Thanks for the advice. I will definitely look for a UPS. I wish I could set the temp back to the 65 it is supposed to be at.

 

[g-smoke]

There are two sections to the converted vinotemp. One smaller section up top is set to 65 and stays there. The bottom one is also set to 65 but stays around 57-59 depending on the room temperature. Funny you should say the thing about power going out. This only happened after a power outage. I am not sure what you mean by plugging it into a computer backup power supply, do you mean like a battery pack? Also is there a way to reset the bottom section to get back to 65? Thanks.

Hey Jimmyhaze-- I have the same problem with my dual zone vinotemp. I'm reasonably sure it's not a power outage thing. Otherwise wouldn't the top zone be at 58 or 59 as well?

 

[Jimmyhaze]

There are two sections to the converted vinotemp. One smaller section up top is set to 65 and stays there. The bottom one is also set to 65 but stays around 57-59 depending on the room temperature. Funny you should say the thing about power going out. This only happened after a power outage. I am not sure what you mean by plugging it into a computer backup power supply, do you mean like a battery pack? Also is there a way to reset the bottom section to get back to 65? Thanks.

Hey Jimmyhaze-- I have the same problem with my dual zone vinotemp. I'm reasonably sure it's not a power outage thing. Otherwise wouldn't the top zone be at 58 or 59 as well?

Yeah that is kind of strange. This happened after a power outage and the bottom section is not working properly. But it is quite strange that the top is working fine. Maybe the power outage shorted something out on the bottom section.

How did your vinotemp get messed up? Was it just a random thing? Or was there a power surge/outage?

 

[g-smoke]

I'm not sure how or when it started this exactly. I noticed it during the winter and I had to take a bunch of my smokes out of it because it wouldn't hold humidity.

I suppose I should contact Vinotemp, but if there's anything I can do to kick it back into shape, would love to hear any advice.

 

[{tpc}]

I truly beleive mine was due to a dried out electrolytic cap. Not the input side caps though, the stuff in the rest of the circuitry. I replaced the smps control chip and the optocoupler as well, but only because I had access to them and it cost a whopping $2.

The thing is, if its still cooling, its still working. Now I'm not sure if yours is a thermoelectric unit or not, or if vino makes anything otherwise. Mine was. However, if its the same control board as I have, there should be two led's on the back, one red and one green. The red one will be lit all the time as I beleive this is tied into what powers the front panel display and setpoint controls. It may dimmer or brighter depending on what the peltier is doing because I beleive it also controls one of the fans. The green one will be lit when its applying power to peltier unit (metal heatsink looking contraption that gets cold on one side when it has power). It can and will go completely out as the unit reaches setpoint, which is how it controls the cooling. There will be some hysterisis involved but since my repair, it seems to be very little. Mine has gone as low as 65 on the display when its set to 66, so thats pretty minor, ymmv.

For a dual zone unit though, it may depend on location of the thermocouple or thermister...I think mine is using a thermister, but same principle applys. If it thinks its hotter for some reason it is going to work harder, and cool more. The reason could be any number of things. If there is only one thermister and its closer to the upper half, its going to be more sensitive to changes in temp up there. Cool air falls and heat rises, so in this case, I could see there being a difference in temp in the upper half vs the bottom, assuming one cooling unit with two seperate fans a single thermister near the top. But I have no idea how the larger units work.

My problem could also have arisen from a bad solder joint or an out of spec resistor or diode. There aren't that many parts on my board, and I have inspected them all, as well as reflowed every solder joint...was a slow day at work lol. The only electrolytics I didn't replace were the ones that had a relationship with the smps chip, because they have an effect on its timing, and they didn't look bad (and again I didn't replace the input side ones). Look for puffy electrolytics...they should never be puffy. Though you may not be able to "see" a bad electolytic cap, rest assured they will fail at some point.

I really think my issue was related to the electrolytic attached to the thermistor...it was likely giving a false reading to the smps chip, making it think it had to work harder than it needed to, and cooling the unit past setpoint.

Things to note are this: The unit (well my unit anyways) will not function without the thermister attached and the control board attached or something that simulates them. Also, there is ac power on the board, so if you don't know what you are doing, I would suggest not to mess with it or be very careful...easy to get shocked, its also easy to short something out while probing around and creating more problems than you had....like I said, if it cooling it is working...maybe not correctly but still working none the less, no need to make it worse. If you have the same unit as me with the two leds, the green one lights as it applys power to the peltier to cool the unit, the red stays lit all the time but may be dimmer or brighter depending on the load. Right now its been 3 days (knock on wood) and its holding right at 66F, the red is lit and the green is off. For my troubleshooting I used a small pc fan as a load in place of the peltier, a thermistor out of pc in place of the real one, and a 25k pot in place of the control board...I think it was a precision 10 turn or something...you need a decent amount of control to dial it in.

Hope this didn't add to more confusion, lol.

 

[g-smoke]

Thanks for the explanation. Unfortunately, since I have no experience with electrics, aside from grabbing an electric fence upon the dare of my older brother, it may be a lot better for my wife and children if I seek help from vinotemp or a seasoned professional.

But seriously, thank you for the detailed rundown. I think I'll take to heart the fact that it is still cooling.

 

[Pugman1943]

I experienced the same situation after a power outage, but I could do a reset. When I called them (Vino) they said there was no way to set and forget the temp for 65. Once you interrupt the power, it's going down to 55 and you have to do a manual on it. The UPS should work, but that is a function of time. Check your current draw and see how much backup time that will give you.

 

[{tpc}]

Bumping this thread, well since its my own thread. Its funny, its only lasted a year almost exactly. Now the easy thing to do would be to shotgun the caps, since I believe it solved it the last time, but not sure I even want to bother.

Since it seems vino is just going to want to sell me an expensive replacement part they can't guarantee to fix the issue, does anyone have any experience with replacing the control units on these all together with something that isn't going to fail again, after a years time?

 

[{tpc}]

Noone has any ideas on a similar replacement part?

I do know one thing, I will be avoiding the cheap manufacturing process of vinotemp products in the future!

 

[broblues]

Do these or any other cooler-type units also heat? Do all of them only cool to achieve their temp. So if they get below the threshold they are set to, they do nothing? Just curious

 

[Shamrocker]

Do these or any other cooler-type units also heat? Do all of them only cool to achieve their temp. So if they get below the threshold they are set to, they do nothing? Just curious

They are basically just mini fridges. Some are compressor based, others thermoelectric.
I don't imagine any of us need to heat up our cigars....

 

[{tpc}]

I believe they just shut off the thermoelectric on this one. Our house is kept at 70-72F typically all year round so I don't believe change of season is doing anything. In fact if I unplug the unit for a few hours, then plug it back in the temp would be around 70 and I put the setting at the highest one...which is 66...an hour later I'm back at 59 and it holds there.