Hi I'm Josh from eSpares.
And in this video I'll be helping you to diagnose a fault in a frost-free freezer
or fridge freezer. Now generally speaking most faults
in fridges and freezers are very simple to diagnose
and actually just involve replacing the faulty parts such as the door seal
or the lamp. However because of how they work
frost-free appliances tend to be a little bit more
complicated. Now they do actually develop
frost but you can see it because it's concealed behind the cover
in the back. To give you a better idea of what's going on I'm going to
remove
the shelves and the icebox as well as the back cover
so we can see the components inside. Here in the back
we have an evaporator, now this
is essentially a radiator which is cooled by
liquefied gas being pumped through it from a compressor.
This fan up at the top draws
air into the appliance and then blows air
across the evaporator because the evaporator is cool it to cools
the air temperature. And that air is then distributed
around the cavity by the fan freezing anything
that's in there. Now on this particular model
some of the air is also ducted into
the fridge compartment and the flow of that cool air is controlled by a
motorized
flap. And it goes in through this
duct up at the top here then travels down through the fridge
and returns through this duct at the bottom.
Now when you opened the freezer door
the cool air inside falls out and it's replaced by the warm
moist air from the room. The moisture from the air
settles on the cool evaporator where it cools
so much that it turns to frost. Overtime a build up of that frost is
going to affect the
air flow. So for that reason there is an element
fitted underneath the evaporator which turns on round about
every 16 hours of the motor running. And for a little while
heats all the frost up so that it can melt and drain away through the hole
in the bottom and out to the back. Now the most common faults that occurs in a
frost-free appliance
is the build-up of ice on the evaporator. If ice
builds up then obviously it's going to affect the air flow and that means that
the temperature
is never going to get low enough. Now courses of that could be
a faulty heater, a faulty sensor or fuse
or a fault with the control board or timer.
Now to test the heater youl need to trace its connections
to the plug. In this particular model the wire goes
from the heater up the side of the
evaporator and behind the fan to a plug
in the ceiling of the freezer. You need to disconnect the heater
from the plug and test its resistance with a multimeter.
And you're looking for a reading of somewhere between two hundred
and three hundred ohms. So obviously any reading outside if that would indicate the
presence of a fault
and you need to replace the heater. You may also developed a fault
in the sensor or the fuse which is located near to the heater.
Now a working sensor or fuse should get a reading a short circuit (for the fuse) or
less than a couple of ohms and again any reading was different to that would
indicate
the present of a fault. There may also be sensors
around to the evaporator and for that you should be getting a reading of
anywhere between 2000 and 40,000
ohms any reading outside of that which show that there is a fault
there and once you've checked all of those areas
than the most likely sources the fault is the control board
or timer and you need to get those replaced.
Now in some manufacturers
fridges and freezers they are aware of a build up of ice
that occurs both above or below the evaporator
where it's not actually heated. Now if you contact you manufacture they may be
able to
advise you of a modification that can be done
in order to prevent this issue from occurring Now if you need help
in diagnosing other problems in your appliances check out our other
eSpares videos. And spares for fridge freezers along with other appliances
are available on the eSpares website. Thanks for watching.