Hello everyone, I am new to the board and hope to get to know everyone in the future. I am posting to get help on a 1996 amana side by side refrigerator, part# srde27s3e. About a week ago the hi temp alarm went off, the fridge was at 55 degrees, and water was leaking out of freezer door.
I determined the evaporator coil was frozen, defrosted unit, ran fine for a few days and now the coil is starting to freeze again. tried to put it in defrost mode by pressing the door switch four times in six seconds, nothing. If it is the ADC, thermostat or defrost heater, what would be the best way to access these components.
Remove the lower back wall of the freezer section to access the evaporator. The defrost thermostat is clipped to one of the coils on the top of the evaporator. The defrost heater is a cal-rod style and runs down the left side and under the evaporator. Check both for continuity. Check the defrost thermostat while it’s frosty. It needs to be below 50*F to show continuity. If both check good, replace the main power board located behind the refrigerator in the machine compartment.
For Amana, you need to press the fridg door switch five times within 6 seconds.Usually the compressor will stop and the defrost heater will turn on.
If not, you most probably have a bad adaptive defrost circuit in the control board.
Hhttp://www.appliancepartspros.com/parts-for-amana-srde27s3e-p1190601w-e.htmlere are your parts
I could not find a tech sheet on this unit with info on how to force a defrost cycle. So have to agree with rickgburton on this one.
Check the defrost heater and the defrost thermostat with a meter.
If both are good then replace the control board (item 9 in the Machine Compartment section)
Only other possibility would be a bad connection/wire and that is very rare.
If you do not own a meter, I would suggest you purchase a one. You can get a decent digital multimeter for under $20.00. You do not need fancy though it is nice if the leads are a couple feet long.
If it saves ordering one unnecessary part it has paid for itself and you end up owning a useful tool.
Most places will not let you return electrical parts so if you order it, you own it.
A couple things to watch when measuring ohms and continuity
Always remove power from the machine otherwise you could blow your meter.
Always disconnect at least one side of any device you are checking. This eliminates the possibility of measuring an alternate/parallel circuit path.
When checking for closed contacts and continuity use the lowest scale (Usually 200 ohms). Then try higher scales. This scale is 0 to 200 ohms so if the device you are measuring is 300 ohms this scale would show an open circuit which it is not, you are just measuring outside the scale’s dynamic range.
When you start always short the meter leads together. This will tell you that the meter is working and if there is any 0 offset.
There is a good STICKY at the start of this forum about it’s use.
Thanks guys for all the good info, I think I am starting to understand a little more, One question, when you refer to main power board, ADC control board and control board item #9, are these same boards in the same location? I think I know the location of #9 in the lower left corner, front of condensor coil. I did not see any board in back of unit. Could it be in the refrige section
upper left corner?
