The motor of this 2004 Urbina Wine Cooler is suddenly much louder than it used to be. One of the fans is loud, the other running smooth and quiet. I've removed all the dust from it, but its still making noise. Any suggestions? This happen to anyone?

I (foolishly or foolheartedly) undertook the project of repairing a (Peltier)
wine cooler. It looked so simple. One power supply and one thermoelectric
device. I spent all those college years becoming an electrical engineer.
Too bad I overlooked the wisdom thing.

With the back off, I noted lots of obstruction of air flow. Dust and gook
had plugged up the hot side of the heat exchanger. Upon inspection, the
power supply circuit board suffered dark discoloration around the heat sinks
of the power control devices. The muffin fans were fine. The fuse was blown.

So I googled the wine cooler make and model and read about a lot of anguish
and a couple lucky results. I tracked down the references to other blogs and
forums using the circuit board manufacturer (Foshan Hanyi). The wisest
suggestion was to examine my budget and see if I couldn't find the capital
for a whole new cooler. I'm not yet wise, so I moved on to option 2: Find
exact replacement parts. The 'manufacturer' has long since disappeared and
no second source could be found. Option 3: buy replacement parts to include:
all the electrolytic caps and all the power control devices. Did that. Then
looked for other failed parts. One 2.0 ohm resistor (replaced both) and one
fuse (replaced). Better...I got 5 to 6 Vdc out to the Peltier, but things are
not getting cold.

So far, I'm in for about $50. I can't find the probes for my O-scope. Its
tough to track down a switching supply without a scope. I went back to google.
and visited many wine cooler support pages, those still in business, that is.
Finally, I got lucky. I went to Haier support page (haier.encompasss.com) and
they showed pictures of their replacement power supplies. After all the time
I spent with the soldering iron, I recognized the picture: (almost) an exact
replacement. Only a few detail differences in the thermal control area.
P/N RF-5210-20. $41 delivered. High five.

The only other possible failure item was the Peltier device itself. Yup, it
too, had failed (measured 3 ohms but refused to get hot/cold). I got on NEWEGG
and found said devices very reasonable if I didn't mind waiting several weeks.
They come from China (THZY), so I'm pretty sure they are OEM. I ordered two
12706's. When I opened the heat exchanger, I saw a 12705 part number and the
device was 50mm x 50mm (x 5mm thick). The ones I had (12706) were 40mm x 40mm
(x 3.8mm thick). Whoops! It might have helped if I had cracked open the heat
exchanger before ordering. I went to Amazon (better spec data) and found that
the part number did not determine the physical size. My lesson here is to shop
by voltage, wattage AND size.

Well, as you have already guessed, I put the smaller device in as a replacement.
Lots of grease and screwed it down real tight. It's the thickness of the device
thats critical. If you think about it, the wattage of the device only determines
how long it will take to chill one bottle or however many you put in the cabinet
at a time.

Final tidbit of wisdom: Only put the thermal grease on one side of the device.
Then insure you have the cold side facing in and the hot side facing out. Then
go put the thermal grease on both sides. I mistakenly thought there was some
convention for which side is which, like 'part number marks the hot side' or
'part number marks the cold side'. Not so. I know, I know, it's a 50-50 shot
and when I got it wrong, I could have just exchanged the wires. But there's
just something wrong about a red negative lead and a black positive lead.

My wine is now cool. Life is good again. If it runs continously for the rest
of its (or my) life, its still less than a light bulb.