Any fridge doctors give a diagnosis?

[Danscraftbeer]

My temp controlled fridge I think has faulted. The light works. Its not my temp controller.
Its not turning on now I'm trying to chill a 40lt batch.
The small freezer at the top is very warm inside. Unnaturally warm when its should normally be freezing when I chill.
Cant pull the fridge out to look in the back but is their maybe a reset switch or anything or is it doomed?



Just a paranoid thought I think but I had a blender die on me yesterday too. Just recently had Solar installed on my roof but as far as I know the power supplier guy hasn't switched it onto my house yet but I think I'm barking up the wrong tree there.

 

[pnorkle]

Light works, but not cold. I'm guessing compressor has carked it. Or it could be the thermostat. Or it's had a coolant leak.

Can you hear it running when it's turned on?

Same thing happened to me recently - bought a new (cheap) chest freezer from TGG. Works like a charm.. so far..

 

[Danscraftbeer]

Yeah that's what I fear. Any one remind me can a temp controller shorten the life of a compressor seeing that it kicks on and off so frequently?
I had settings set at lowest tollerances etc.
It was no small cheap fridge here and not easy to replace since the size was perfect to fit both a 50lt and a 23lt kegmenter.

 

[pnorkle]

Try bypassing the thermostat? (since you're not using it anyway.) Might get you back up & running again for no $$.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

Huh! Its just kicked in. :huh: After hours sitting dead.
Why would the freezer be hot? It was like a Sauna when I went to get a half drink bottle of (should be) frozen water out.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

I may have lost my coolant gas then. It may explain the warm freezer. Instead of pumping cold gas its pumping warm air from the pump motor warmth?

This is weird. The freezer seems to be cooling with it running now. It was about 40c now its dropped to 15c. Sumpin funny goin on here... :huh:

 

[TSMill]

I had a similar issue.....was caused by a loose connection in my stc controller, I guess the compressor could not pull enough juice. Bypass the controller and see what happens.

 

[pnorkle]

Hmm yeah, loose plug or dodgy connection somewhere.

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

Could potentially just have been coincidence you checked it during the defrost cycle where it actually heats itself to melt off ice on the evaporator? My fridge has one on an 8 hour timer. Heard the sound of dripping water the other day and thought oh no what's happened but it was just the ice melting into the collection reservoir at the back.

 

[Danscraftbeer]

Yeah. I have bypassed the temp controller for now. The fridge does claim to be frost free in the original fixed labels. It has been very humid here lately I know that can cause frost. Although no frost to be seen in the freezer at all even when it does freeze. Fingers crossed its just some automatic function that's just coincided with the weather.
Collection tray underneath is dry apart from a few tablespoons of fresh dribbled water. All could be good! fingers crossed. It rattled me I've never seen this happen before but I may have jumped the gun.

Thanks for all responses. B)

 

[Moad]

Could be the relay that fires up the compressor, if you couldn't hear it running. If you could hear it running but not getting cold you may have an issue with coolant.

I am not a fridgey so take this with a grain of barley

 

[Danscraftbeer]

Actually I think DJ called it. I'm feeling relieved now and also instead of feeling burned on a $250 used fridge I'm actually impressed that it has this function haha.

Could potentially just have been coincidence you checked it during the defrost cycle where it actually heats itself to melt off ice on the evaporator? My fridge has one on an 8 hour timer. Heard the sound of dripping water the other day and thought oh no what's happened but it was just the ice melting into the collection reservoir at the back.

Its all behaving normally now. Now I know! its a character of the fridge I couldn't have known without the manual.
It must have been the humid weather that triggered it into (the above) cycle. :chug:

 

[pnorkle]

I'd be tempted to find the model number of the fridge & look up the manual on the interwebz, just to be sure.

 

[Coldspace]

Hey mate, I'm a fridgie/sparky but mainly work in commercial
Anyway
Your fridge possibly went into thermo overload protection ,
I've seen this on hot days when people try and cold crash 40 odd litres of liquid down and the fridge can't handle the load and the compressor gets too hot and goes into thermal overload to protect the motor windings from burn out and the compressor valves from seizing up.
What happens is you switch it on the controller from ferment temp, to chill temp, and the compressor is running hard, the condenser gets very hot , but due to the nature of the big load of 40 litres the fridge has trouble cooling down , therefore no return cool gas back to the compressor from the evaporator is occurring , this causes the compressor to get very hot and then thermal overload goes in.

The compressors require cooling refrigerant to flow back to assist with cooling.

What happens now is you will have a constant cycling effect, compressor wayyy to hot, into thermal overload, it cools down slightly, kicks in then goes into overload again,

Can keep happening over the course of a hot day, till ambient temps cool off abit and the system gets a chance to get going due to the condenser getting rid of heat more effectively and therefore abetter chance of refrig cool vapour getting back to the compressor plus the added less head pressure on the compressor discharge side.

This May or may not be your problem, but going on the information you provided earlier in this thread sounds to me what's going on. Especially if your rear condensing area is confined space, your fridge will have a lot of issues getting rid of heat and the rear compressor stays very hot back there as well.

If this is what's happening, you will need to ,
1: try and get some more airflow at rear of fridge if possible, you may need a small fan.
2: don't go into cold crash during hot day with a big load ie 30-50 ltrs especially on older fridges as their compressors are usually tired and the systems are getting ineffiencient at pulling big loads,
3: cold crash at night , just before bed, so the fridge works through the night and pulls the main part of load down to temp or close to it by morning, that way, there is minimal load on condenser and compressor from cooler ambients, plus the evaporator in your fridge will be flooding through more with liquid refrigerant letting more cooled vapours back to compressor to keep the thermal overload happy.
4: set your controller with at least .5 degree differential and 10 min time delay to protect compressor from short cycling.

Cheers