Fresh food / freezer not cooling

Refrigerator & Freezer Repair
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1

Hi there

as the title suggests, both freezer side and fridge do not work. I Unplugged the fridge from outlet for few hours and re-plugged back in. Lights comes on immediately, freezer / fridge fan inside as well.

Compressor seems not running I searched the forum for similar problems and I narrowed down the issue to the starter relay part no (241527802)

the compressor winding seems OK I tested 5.5, 6.6 , and 12.1 ohms for the three different permutation.

my part is on order now, how to I make sure that my fridge is not stuck in defrost cycle and if so, what part can I check for further debug.

should I just look at the defrost thermostat or is it something more related to the Adaptive control board :confused:

thanks for your help

cheers
AJ

3

If you were is a defrost cycle the fans would be off.

Here is the tech sheet
http://manuals.frigidaire.com/prodinfo_pdf/Anderson/240389618.pdf

Since the condenser/compressor fan was running, the compressor should also be running as they are wired in parallel.

4

thanks for the response Denman

In all cases the condenser fan always came on. I am hoping it was only the starter.

I will keep you posted with the fix :slight_smile:

cheers

5

so I got the part and been fiddling with the fridge. I installed the new part and plugged the fridge in but no sign of life :frowning:

Condenser fan and motor are dead quite now. Lights come on, evap fan comes on as I plug in AC outlet.

I unplugged the new stater from the compressor and removed the starter from the wiring harness completely. The multimeter measures 0 Vrms across the red and blue I checked my outlet to see if it has gone bad but I read 118 Vrms :eek:

At this point i am not sure if my ADC board need to be replaced or was the cause of problem originally, but I doubt that as the cond. fan used to come on previously. :confused:

6

At the beginning, was the compressor warm and vibrating? If so, Is it still warm and vibrating?

7

Very strange.

At this point i am not sure if my ADC board need to be replaced or was the cause of problem originally
I still do not think the ADC was the problem. As I said if the condenser fan gets power the compressor should run as they are wired in series therefore the ADC was providing power to the compressor and it’s fan.

Now you have lost the condenser fan and no longer have voltage to it or the compressor.

Try moving the temperature controls to the coldest settings.

There is a possibility that the compressor has a problem and it blew out the old start device then the new start device let the compressor blow out the ADC. But I would have thought that you would have had some type of indication that this occurred re: a flash, a burning smell etc.

With luck richappy will have some ideas on this.

8

Thanks for the insights richappy and denman

so I decided to take a deep dive into my fridge… being 210 pounds didn’t help much :rolleyes: !

I managed to retrieve the ADC box and I inspected the ADC board. To my surprise the thick trace leading to the relay was broken :mad: don’t ask me how it happened I was just as surprised to see that (see picture attached)

That broken trace happens to be pin 6 on the connector - the Compressor Out!

I checked position of the relay, contact 3 and 2 are short. This confirms that we are in NOT in defrost cycle so the compressor / fan should come on

I tested for continuity and relay coil impedance (5.4 K ohms) which matches the datasheet http://elcodis.com/parts/849222/G2RL-14-E-CF_DC24_p2.html). The relay is 48VDC rated and the datasheet gives out 5,358 Ω. :cool:

a bit of explanation of what the picture and colors are for to help with the diagnosis

In the picture pin 1 is BLACK - HOT, pin 10 is BLUE I was concerned of a short now, I have to solder a wire on the bottom joining the connector pin 6 and K1 pin 2.

The green squares in the picture referring to pin 7, 9 and 11 also indicated short with pin 1. That simply means that power is getting to the applicable control

Pin 7 - fridge door is open, holding the switch confirmed light in OFF position removed the short (Check)
Pin 9 - fresh food ctl: I turned the control all the way to OFF position, this cuts off power and removes short to pin 1 (check)
Pin 11 - Evap fan: this is good sign as evap fan receives power (check)

pin 10 - this was a bit more tricky as it read 8.6 ohms, so i wasn’t sure if this is a real short or not… lookin at the diagram I could see that there is bunch of coil / lamps in the way, to verify I held the fridge lamp switch and multimeter read 342 ohms so I figured this is OK although it is small but I didn’t expect to see Open Loop

The board other wise looks healthy, i just have to jumper connector pin 6 to the relay pin 2 and hope it fixes it.

More on that soon!

-AJ

9

I would check the compressor pins for a short to ground. You could also invest in an amprobe and check the compressor running current.

10

richappy, I checked the compressor terminal to GND and it looks good - no short. The compressor winding impedance also holds true as per my first post, 6 ohms, 5.4, 6.6 and 12 ohms

So I borrowed a soldering iron from work and jumpered pin 6 of the connector, to the relay K1 pin 2. I did the same for the connector pin 4 and the relay pin 3 as the trace was showing delamination sign :slight_smile:

I anxiously put back the ADC board in it’s box and back in the fridge. I wanted to see if the fan comes on first before I plug the starter into the compressor

to my delight, the condenser fan did come on :smiley: … I had a moment of truth! At this point I knew the compressor should receive power as Denman suggested earlier - the fan / compressor are in parallel.

I measured across the red / blue wires that plugs into the start device with and there it stared back at me ~ 118 Vrms :smiley: (check)

I carefully inserted the relay starter with the run capacitor into the compressor…

finger crossed reaching for the AC line to plug into the wall
violaaa i hear a buzzing sound… sure enough it was the compressor :cool:

I didn’t have a chance to take a picture of the fixed ADC, I got excited to hear the compressor kicks in. I will post picture if I get a chance before I secure the housing assembly

Many thanks guys for your tips / insight along the way

cheers

11

Glad you got it fixed.