Fixing a Freezer

[That Bloke]

We have a Hotpoit FZA80P upright freezer, about £400 to replace and around 5 years old.

Rather than keeping the contents at -18C which it always did until recently. The internal tempreture is now nearer -28C or -30C.

The tempreture control screw fits into a variable resistor on a circuit board and adjusting it makes no differance to the freezer internal tempreture. The circuit board has the door switch wired to it that switches on and off the ice free fan and it is working. It also has the fast freeze conrol mounted on it that is working. There are a number of other wires from the circuit board disapearing into the guts of the machine.

The circuit board can be replaced for circa £70. The circuit board only has electrical connections, no pipes coming to it. Therefore an easy to change.

Has anyone been brave enough to do this sort of repair and what are the thoughts on success with just changing the circuit board.

Inspection of the back of the machine does not reveal anything helpful to me!!

Opinions welcome as always.

Eddie

[Dave Liquorice]

Sounds as if the compressor is running all the time for some reason. Have you checked that it's not iced up where it shouldn't be? "Frost free" jobbies have a habit of doing this. Have a google for more information.

[Alan]

Maybe the PCB has iced up operating at minus 30 C and no longer regulates the temperature. A de-frost would be in order before further fault finding.

[Bob Minchin]

A few things could be wrong.

1) Whatever switches the compressor on and off might be faulty. Do you believe it is the same method as used by the door switch? I am assuming that the compressor runs continuously in order to achieve -30C Is this the case? If it does switch on and off then ignore the above. 2)Is the temperature sensor working? ie is there a measurable change in voltage as the temperature changes? if not there is a risk that just changing the control board won't fix the problem and the supplier might not take it back.

Good Luck

Bob