Frig It
There was an odd sound, like a spoon thwacking against the floor.
Must be a cat.
A bit later, I noticed a bad smell in the kitchen.
Cat fart? Is Tex sick?
Finally, I realized that the bad smell was strongest around the refrigerator, which wasn’t running properly. I could hear its internal fan, but not the compressor. Condensing coil in back was room temperature; it should have been warm.
Well, damn.
I really can’t afford a new fridge. I called my dad, who reminded me Sister Sue has an extra fridge in her garage. I thought about calling in a repair guy–frankly, my housekeeping is so poor I didn’t want a stranger in the house.
I stomped up and down the hallway, whining to myself, then got on the exercise bike for my morning routine. Ten minutes in, I suddenly remembered that motors often have starting capacitors which stink when they fail. I’ve fixed motors in my air mover and AC compressor fan by replacing the caps, so I was pretty excited.
I got off the bike, pulled the fridge out from the wall, found the cap. It had a molded plastic case (rather than the usual metal can), but I couldn’t see any damage or vent hole. I hooked it up to a 12 V supply, and it held the charge, dammit; it was still being a capacitor. (I also discovered I don’t know where my alligator clips are. I have got to get organized.) However, I found the schematic tucked away next to the compressor, and it said the cap was mounted on a relay. I pulled the relay, and…it rattled. It also smelled, and there was a suspicious melted looking bulge in the shell with a vent hole in it. Hah!
The Sears parts depot is just a few blocks away from my house. I drove down, and the guy there confirmed my relay was bad, and that that particular style of relay blew out often. (It’s what’s known as a PTC relay, which instead of an electromagnet and switch contacts, has a disk that heats up and stops passing current when hot.) They didn’t have any in stock, but referred me an independent depot, First Source (which doesn’t seem to have a web site of their own) , but they had the parts in stock, and it looks like I’ll be going back–they cover a wide range of brands, the counterfolk are knowledgeable and courteous if somewhat hard-bitten, and they sell to the public, see “hardbitten”.)
And, yes, “parts”, plural. The relay was $40 and the cap was $10; I didn’t see any reason not to replace it while I had it out.
So, I put everything back together, plugged it in, and it worked! Yay! I called Dad and gave him the good news, and went off to do other stuff.
Five minutes later, I come back in to the kitchen, and the fridge is dead again. I check the thermometer: moving up towards 50 degrees. I unplug and replug. I verify the light in the fridge comes on; the socket is live. I turn the thermostat off, and unplug, and let it sit for 20 minutes.
Nothing. Dammit, had I miswired? Checked the schematic; no, looked good. Had the compressor motor been damaged, and only had that five minutes of life left? But the fan had worked before, why was it quiet now?
Aargh! I was going to have to call the repair guy after all. With my luck, it would be a repair girl, and she’d be cute, and would try not to let me see her wrinkling her nose at my sink.
No! There had to be something else! I pulled the schematic out, and studied it for a few minutes. I read the specs….Defrosting timer, 21 minutes out of every eight hours.
Hm….the schematic showed, of course, that the timer switch cut off the compressor and the fan when the defrost heater was on. The timer was a simple mechanical thing that just stopped when you pulled the plug, no chip or anything that would reset.
The relay had by chance failed less than five minutes before a defrost cycle. When I plugged the fridge back in after replacing the parts, the timer started up and in a few minutes, shut the whole thing down!
Hah!
I plugged the fridge back in, noted the time, and waited. About 20 minutes later–success!
I let it run until it got cold again, buttoned things up, and rolled the fridge back to the wall.
It’s been running fine for two days now.
I’m pretty darned pleased with myself.