Update on Whirlpool refrigerator powering down after a power glitch (really long)

[danny burstein]

It's jealous of the bowtie.

[Don Y]

*Heated* butter compartment!!

[Ed Pawlowski]

Does not have to be heated, just not as cold as the rest of the fridge. Last two were like that. Last *heated* butter compartment was in a Frigidaire we bought in 1966. Had a multiple position dial. It was still a GM company back then.

[John G]

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Thank you for sharing

[Don Y]

I've not encountered a "non-heated" butter compartment that was sufficiently warmer than the rest of the refrigerator to make a difference. Doors are well insulated, now, so virtually any place inside the "refrigerated section" is "cold".

I've taken to removing butter from the refrigerator well in advance of needing it. Especially if baking (as "firm" butter doesn't mix well with other ingredients).

[bush.jayson]

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A bit late, but I had a similar experience two days ago with a brief, like lights flickered off, and came back on. I noticed water puddling at the refrigerator yesterday. I scheduled a home warranty visit for $75, thinking the icemaker wasn't wor king (dripping at ice dispenser). After further investigation, i found the cooling wasn't working, but no doo r indication. Today, I pulled the refigerator out, unplugged it and plugged it back in. The fan and compressor started up and cooling is back on. Now I know why the previous owner had a UPS behind the refrigerator making it stick out an extra 6 inches. I'll put a slimmer UPS, probably wall mount behind it now that I've had thi s experience.

[trader_4]

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his experience.

Another possible solution would be a timer, where the fridge is on almost all the time but off for half an hour once a day.

[Nil]

On 17 Jan 2017, [e-mail] wrote in alt.home.repair:

Almost everything these days is computerized just like your desktop computer or laptop. For all of them you can spend a lot of time trying to troubleshoot a problem... or just reboot the damn thing and chances are that whatever is ailing will magically disappear. In principle I hate to admit that a machine got the better of me, but sometimes ya just gotta move past that on to more important things in life.

My motto: "Reboot now, worry later."

[hcliii2007]

I have a WP 3-door fridge that I purchased in October 2018. I have had the same glitch occur twice now. The fridge is in a weekend cabin and both times a momentary power outage happened while we were away. The only way we knew there was a problem was when we arrived and tried to dispense water and nothing came out.

The first time this happened I wound up turning off the breaker for a few minutes. When I turned it back on, everything ran normally.

So I decided to plug the fridge in through a WeMo Insight plug. This plug lets me turn it on and off from anywhere on earth and it monitors power usage. So I can look at the switch anytime and see that the fridge is using power.

The second time we had a momentary outage the fridge stayed off for 4 days. All the ice melted and dripped on the floor. I hadn't bothered to configure the WeMo switch to email me the power usage reports, or I would have seen that it wasn't working. I could have then turned it off remotely for a few minutes then powered it back on.

I can program the WeMo switch to go on/off based on a schedule. I could set it up to turn off at 3:00 am and then back on at 3:10 am every day, just to make sure the computer doesn't get hung up indefinitely on a momentary glitch. That's probably hard on the electronics and the compressor, so I am hesitant to go there. I also don't like the idea of analyzing the power data on a daily basis to verify the fridge is operating normally. I may go the route of remote temperature monitoring so a sensor will alert me if the temp inside the fridge gets out of tolerance. Looking at Amazon right now.

Another option would be to plug the fridge into a UPS battery backup to make sure it is not affected by momentary outages.

I'd like to complain to WP so that they understand this is a real problem, not just your one-in-a-million occurrence. Have you had any more of these glitches since your original post?

Thanks, Howard

[trader_4]

Given the options, I would do that as a solution. The compressor is only running a small fraction of the time anyway, so you'll only turn it off when it's running a small percentage of time. And it's no worse than all the many other start/stops that it does over it's life. If it comes on once an hour, that would be 24 times a day, you'd only be adding one to that. Plus, most fridges are being frequently opened and closed, making the compressor cycle more. Yours is at a cabin that isn't occupied much of the time, reducing the compressor cycles.

Don't those widget people have an online monitoring function, where it can text you, email you, etc if it doesn't draw power for some period? You should suggest it to them. They could even charge a small fee, many people would likely pay it to be notified.

I also don't like the idea of analyzing the power data on a daily basis to verify the fridge is operating normally. I may go the route of remote temperature monitoring so a sensor will alert me if the temp inside the fridge gets out of tolerance. Looking at Amazon right now.

Yes, that would likely work too.

[danny burstein]

Ain't that easy for two reasons:

a: most consumer grade UPS's provide a "modified square wave" power output. While this is ok for computers, it often causes major issues with motors. Like refrigerator compressors and fans.

b: while the refrigerator power demand when "running" might be 75 to 150 watts (which would require a decent sized UPS to keep operating...) there's a _very_ hefty additional draw when it's in "auto defrost" mode.

I measured mine at about 500 watts. Which means not just a decent sized UPS but a pretty hefty one.

[hcliii2007]

Thanks for the advice. I mistyped when I bought my fridge. It was Oct 2015 not 2018. Maybe WP has addressed this problem and there is a fix or upgrade available???

The WeMo Insight does not alert you in any way if the power draw is outside of limits. Which is odd, given that it will email me every night with a CSV of the power usage by half hour. I have a different brand of WiFi outlet (Etekcity) that does send free alerts, but it does not make the data itself available like the WeMo does. I guess the alert would be more important than the data in my situation. Or I could just stack them up and have the best of both worlds.

I'm not sure how much the fridge computer remembers when the power is off. Things like water dispense calibration might be reset each time, along with vacation mode, etc.

Still, whatever I do is just a band-aid that I as the customer should not have to deal with. I work on industrial controls for automotive assembly plants and we have ways of dealing with crappy power so as to not lose equipment or production. WP needs to step up their game and make their stuff more fault tolerant. We're not in a lab environment with Sola CVTs or other means of cleaning up the power.

[Frankie Trowbridge]

Receptacles and their connections loosen up over time.  An intermittent electrical connection could cause your refrigerator's computer to lock up.

If it was me, I'd check the refrigerator outlet wiring to make sure the electrical connection screws are tight and that the outlet holds the plug blades securely.

It also wouldn't hurt to check the rest of the connections (including the breaker connection) on your refrigerator circuit as well.  If you find any back-stab receptacles, replace them with back-wired receptacles.

And I'd also check my main entrance panel connections (L1, L2 and Neutral) to make certain they are tight as well.  Maybe pull the breaker and make sure the buss isn't corroded or burnt.

[Art Todesco]

I wrote the original post. I finally got WP to buy back my WP box for what I paid. I went out and bought a Samsung. Guess what, the Samsung did the same thing. Then, I came to find out that the original WP was built by Samsung! BTW, as far as loose connections, etc., my friend a few miles away, has a similar Samsung, and it does the same thing. Samsung apparently hasn't really figured out how to design microcontrollers that are fail safe. I have a temperature sensor in my fridge that reports to the cloud what the temp is inside. If it goes outside of my specified limits, it sends me an email. I can then either go home, or call a friend to go do the power down, power up thing. I'm also installing an external device, made for AC system, that detects power outside my set limits and guarantees that when the power returns to its specified range, it will do a delay start up. Ironically, as I typing, my UPS on the computer is beeping. Power just went off. But the good thing is, it's cleanly off and not a glitch!