This fridge it says smeg on it it's got two fridge doors and two freezer doors
and the fridge I disassembled it now but it's got an internal cold plate
there's the drain for it there's a little fan motor there and the freezer I disassembled
but there's two separate coils there each one that's got its own coil with a defrost element
and a fan motor on each side now this fridge has got two capillaries and it's got a solenoid valve
between the two capillaries which is controlled by the electronic pc board
and this fridge has developed an internal leak. we did a pressure test on it
and the gas is leaking somewhere on the internal cold plate now you can't get to the
internal cold plate to replace it but i can put an external cold plate on but now this cold plate
is linked to the two capillaries that run the freezer so if we're going to
put a cold plate in there the system the way it is will not work anymore
if you want to have a look behind it. I've just cut it open here a bit and I've got to
the two capillaries there's one and the second one goes in here and this is the solenoid valve
which I've disconnected now but the solenoid works the two capillaries now what I'm planning to do is
to put a cold plate in here and I'll bring the pipes out here and link it so we'll first freeze
the one coil then the second coil and then a cold plate the operating system I'm gonna do
just reach the timer I'm putting a defrost timer in and a double door thermostat and this double
door thermostat I'm going to mount onto the cold plate and this will switch the compressor on and
off and this is a defrost timer which will put both coils on defrost at the same time
and both of them will freeze at the same time and I'm going to run a single capillary so we
won't use that solenoid anymore now this thing has got a fan down there it's got a fan in the fridge
and two fans for the two freezers so there's four fans so what I've done is the four fans
I've connected them up onto the thermostat with the compressor so when the compressor runs
all four fans turns when the compressor cycles on the thermostat all four fans in the compressor
stops and when it goes on defrost it cuts the power to the thermostat so all four fans and the
compressor stops while it's on defrost but I've left the pc board in there because the pc board
controls the low voltage for the light bulbs let me just turn it
and just switch it on
so the display still works because I'm running
the display to the pc board and all the buttons if you push them it plays music and it does things
so that still works but it won't control the temperature and it's got all these led lights
that work off a low voltage from the pc board and the fan motor is 220 works through the thermostat
and the defrost timer so I haven't put the cold plate in yet the cold plate will come
another day and I'll show when i install it and I'm busy converting this smeg
to a different type of operating system this is the cold plate I'm going to use
it comes with two tubes copper to aluminum
and those are the two holes that i made for the pipes. I've mounted the cold plate the two pipes
go through the two holes I've made I've made a little bracket here and a thermostat on the roof
i made a little hole through and I've mounted the thermostat bulb and this is the cold plate
the way I've mounted it in the fridge section there's going to be a cover that goes over
this so we won't see it normally I'll try and get the cold plate as high as possible
purely because same as hot air rises cold air goes down so you don't get much cold air on top
but because there's a fan motor here it will circulate to air so I just mounted it where it
looked the best this is behind the fridge that is where the two tubes come out from the cold plate
I've cut a little slit into the metal and the one tube from the cold plate goes straight
down connect to the compressor I've wrapped the new capillary around a suction
and a new capability goes onto the existing capillary into the one coil of the freezer
from the freezer there's a bridge back to the second coil which is behind there
and then this aluminum tube here i did aluminum to aluminum weld
onto a joint piece that joins to copper which the joint is behind there which goes back up to
the cold plate so before i close this all up I'm just gonna do some leak tests and then I'll fill
this up and put the existing metal back there the suction that came out the bottom I've just chopped
that off the two capillaries are off and I've put a new pencil dryer on there so so far so good this
is the back of the fridge that's where the suction runs in I've just filled it in with poly foam and
put some aluminum foil tape on it this is the back bit where i did all the joints
filled it in with poly foam and sealed it there with foil tape and the new suction comes out there
and I've linked it up to the compressor with a new capillary this is the drain pipe from the fridge
side I haven't put it into this tray yet so this is what the back of the fridge will look like now
this is the top of the fridge where the pc board is this is the thermostat that I've
put in and I made a little hole there where the bulb goes through onto the cold plate
and this is the defrost timer now this thing has got this cover that covers it now once
I'm happy with the thermostat adjustment and everything else I'll just mount everything
inside this cover and close this cover up so from the outside you won't notice any of these
this is the smeg fridge once I've completed it I've put some thermometers in here this one
minus 17 -14 and the fridge is on 4.4 the display works but it's not linked to anything and inside
the freezer I've put all the covers together there's a little ice maker and some shelves
this one I've put some of the trays in I must still figure out where the rest of the trays fit
and the fridge 4.3 I had it down to 2 degrees just now and I turned on the thermostat and it cycled
but I've put the cover back so the cold plate is completely hidden you
don't see the cold plate behind there and everything on it works the defrost works
so all I'm going to do is just set the thermostat maybe run it for another five minutes or so
set the thermostat to cycle at about three degrees there,
it's gone up to five now from opening the door and then we close the thermostat up in the top
and from the front inside or the top you won't know that I've modified this whole system