Schreiber/MFI/take your pick APM6855 Fridge Freezer - fridge not cooling

[jamma-plusser]

My APM6855 Fridge Freezer has been playing up for years with the usual problem common to this model, ie fridge not cooling ('fixed' by powering off defrosting the unit the 48 hours). It has been increasing in frequency and now fails about once every two or three weeks.

It's just failed again and I thought I would remove the inside back of the freezer compartment when the fridge has just started to warm up to see what might be going on.

First, the fan has NOT frozen up, there's no icing on it or it's mechanism and it rotates quite happily (I can hear it when the door is shut and see it spinning down when I open the freezer door - it won't of course spin with the freezer door open as it's not supposed to). As the fan is okay I haven't photographed it.

I've taken a couple of pictures of the inside of the freezer area when the problem has occurred (with the panels removed of course!).

First, here's a close-up of the top of the area:

a picture of the whole of the freezer area:

the polystyrene block be pulled out, or not until the ice has defrosted? It's currently rock solid with ice behind the block (I can tell this as looking under the gap at the bottom I can see the ice at the bottom of the metal 'matrix').

Once ithe polystyrene has been removed, should there be anything to stop me from measuring the resistance of the heating element to at least check if that okay?

I suspect the 'usual', ie a thermistor problem or possibly the main control PCB in the top of the unit.

Thanks

[Mark]

Nothing apart from the usual H&S issues (i.e. unplug it first!).

I think your diagnosis is very likely to be correct.

I recommend buying a separate fridge and freezer next time, failing that avoid the frost-free models.