Hi all
As I sit here while all my food slowly defrosts I wonder if it's possible to diagnose the fault with my upright freezer?
Basically the compressor starts up but then cuts out three seconds later. This cycle repeats every 3 minutes. It's the same with or without the 'fast freeze' button pressed.
Any help appreciated.
Thanks
Same thing happened to our Beko freezer, it eneded up a good defrost sorted it, i can only think that the temp sensor had too much ice around it causing the control cct to say " I'm cold switch off compressor" when the rest of the freezer was defrosting away.
Mine is a Beko freezer, it's now defrosted sufficiently for the thermostat to clear of all the accumulated ice but the fault persists unfortunately. In a moment of madness I took out a dixons warranty but they can't come and look at it until 16th October! LOL
They'll probably just replace the freezer! not many white goods are repaired these days costs being much lower than 10 - 15 years ago. My god I'm getting old, i sound like my dad !!!!!!!!
We were lucky as we just cooked the food and put it back in the freezer once it came back on line. Food is usually covered on house insurance in event of freezer failure, but the exess might exeed whats in there, unless you had a few choice cuts, couple of scotch salmon, and a side of fillet steak ;-), oh does Beluga Caviar freeze !!!!!
Claim on home insurance policy?
Actually a broken down freezer is a good time to asess the crap we buy. I'm not shedding a tear at the loss of chicken nuggets, potato waffles and oven chips, mind you my children are looking a bit despondent...
Not worth the excess I imagine. Incidentally in the itsy bitsy print of my dixons mastercare (sic) policy I notice they exclude food spoilage. Whereas I'm sure it was included with a domestic & general policy we used to have.
Just make them eat the entire freezerfull in one lot; they'll never want another chicken nugget again.
Owain
I had the same problem on a Beko frost-free, too much ice on the heat exchanger/temp sensor confused it, it hung around for days at 0C slowly defrosting. A hairdryer directed into the fan vent at the rear of the freezer compartment for a good five minutes cleared enough ice to 'reboot' it.
Andy.
I had a freezer which was doing this. I plugged it in through a power meter out of curiosity, and it was drawing 3.5kW for the few seconds it was running, although it was running. Cause would have been a shorted winding on the motor, causing the thermal trip to cut out, until it cooled down again. Another option in the absence of the power meter would be the thermal trip has gone over-sensitive, but I think that's an unlikely failure mode.
The thermal trip is there because under some circumstances the compressor won't be able to start -- this will happen if it switches on too quickly after it switched off and there's still high pressure on the output side. The motor won't be able to produce enough initial starting torque in this case, so the trip disables it for a few mintues to allow the pressure difference to decay away.
Was the freezer moved just before it failed? Moving it without allowing the refrigerent to settle afterwards can result in the compressor being wrecked when started up.
are power meters available fairly cheaply?, I wouldn't mind one to go around the house and try to economise. I couldnt go near the Hi-Fi though. Has to be kept on and nice and warm at all times, dont need the rads on very high in that room :-) be interested to see how much the amps are pulling in stanby though (well not really stanby just turned down)
Nowadays, yes:
cheers, got to be worth it for the curiosity factor :-)
Yes, I thought so. I made myself one ~25 years ago, and I've bought a couple of different ones more recently now they're cheap, to see how they compare. If you're not in a hurry, just keep an eye out for a year or so -- I got that Maplin one for £12 on special offer.
for that price I can wait :-)
Lidl did one for about £10 and B and Q are doing one for about £25 at the moment
Nick
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