I just bought an old non-working GE fridge from craigslist. I bought a 3 in 1 for 1/12 - 1/5 hp compressors slapped it in there and voila a cold fridge. Unfortunately I wired something wrong and it only runs with the temperature setting set to off. Moving the dial to normal or to 1-4 blows the breaker. Also the fridge always runs, no matter how cold it gets. I ket it go for an hour or so and it went to 24 degrees.
The way I set it up is with three wires of the relay going to compressor (run, start, common). Then I had the two power wires which I have going to the wall chord. I had 2 more wires left that ran into the top of the fridge which i assumed would be for the light and the temp control. I just wired them into the wall chord as I did with the relay power wires. Something tells me this was not correct. How do I get this thing to shut off when it reaches an appropriate temp?
First of all, I would not use a 3 n 1 hard start device even in this old refrigerator, they can cause a house fire if the compressor is drawing high current. I would use a universal start device AP4503418.
The refrigerator wires that originsally whent to the compressor from above must be wired to thje input line pins of the start device. These also should go to the condensing fan motor if you have one.
I was able to get the 3 in 1 installed and running correctly. Why is the universal start better? Will the wiring be similar?
I have read a previous post of yours and apparently the capacitor is the bad (dangerous) thing to have. I will see what I can do with the URO81. My compressor does not have accessible terminals or pins just some wires coming out of the casing. I assume this should not present any problems with the URO?
Pry off the compressor side cover. There are three pins, upper, common, lower right start. lower left, run. This is the standard configuration for the older compressors. You have a nearly 1/4 hp compressor. The start device should be the URO41.
It is a 1/6 hp compressor, so I think I should need the URO81. It didn’t seem like I could get the cover off to the prongs. It looks like a little rectangular box welded to the case of the compressor.
Just put in the URO81 and post results. Also, this must be a small refrigerator to have a 1/5 hp compressor.