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Originally Posted by Stormin Mormon[_10_]
Termination thermostat closes about 25F (or colder)
and opens about 45F or warmer. Was the freezer cold
when you tested?
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Well, it wasn't as cold as it should be, but manually defrosting the evaporator coils and putting the fridge back into operation with clean evaporator coils will at least tell me whether excessive ice accumulation on the evaporator coils was the problem before.
Quote:
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Do you see snow on the panel that covers the evaporator?
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No, not at all. In this fridge, the evaporator coil is located UNDER the freezer floor. To remove that freezer floor, I have to remove both the freezer compartment door and the fridge fresh food compartment door. I'm concerned that by the time I do all that, the frost would have melted off the evaporator. I'm thinking the best approach would be to let the fridge defrost manually a second time, and then take the freezer floor out, and then plug the fridge back in to see what the evaporator frost pattern does.
Since my last post, I defrosted the fridge manually by unplugging it, propping the fridge and freezer doors open, directing the melt water tube into a large shallow pan on the floor behind the fridge and letting any frost on the evaporator melt.
I collected about a quart of water, which to me means that the evaporator was pretty iced up.
Once I was convinced that the evaporator coils were fully defrosted, I put a plastic cup of water (covered by a jar lid) in the freezer compartment and plugged the fridge back in. This test will determine whether the fridge works properly when the evaporator coils ARE NOT frosted up. If that water still doesn't freeze, then I'll look at the frost pattern on the evaporator to see if it indicates a low refrigerant charge. If the water does freeze, then I'm convinced the problem is excessive frost accumulation on the evaporator coils, and I'm gonna blame the DTS for that cuz the defrost heater shows continuity.
If replacing the defrost termination switch still doesn't solve the problem, and the evaporator is frosted up along it's full length so it's not a weak refrigerant charge, then I'm willing to call in an appliance service tech to figure out what's wrong. I figure that if I go this far and still can't solve the problem, then I'm prepared to pay for a service call. For 99% of appliance problems, going as far as I have will have determined the cause of the problem and the solution. I'm willing to pay for that remaining 1 percent that I can't solve myself.
On this fridge, I have to remove the fridge and freezer compartment doors to remove the freezer compartment floor. The evaporator is under the freezer compartment floor. I have to bend the hard plastic freezer floor to get it out of the freezer compartment. So, I'll let the fridge fully defrost a second time so that the plastic I'm bending won't break. Then I'll remove the freezer floor and plug the fridge back in to see how the frost forms on the evaporator.