Good Morning Appliance Ninja and Denman,

Attached are a couple quick picts I took on my phone last night, the door had been closed about 30 minutes (after I took the back cover off the freezer compartment - whence I had the freezer door open for a bit). After reading Denman's note, I probably didn't wait long enough.

That fan in the freezer seems to run most of the time. It runs fast, probably normal speed I guess.

I'll check out that link and re-read your postings asap. These pictures may or may not tell the story I guess, depending on when in the defrost cycle these pictures were taken. I've checked it a few times, and never see the coils snow white at all... just a very thin coating / "dusting".

Let's see if I can share these picts:





Sorry those are so gigantic! I'll try to resize in any future postings. But maybe they'll give a little useful detail as to what we're looking at.

Thanks for any / all help guys!

Cheers,

--Pete

A picture of the entire coil may be helpful to us.

[COLOR="Blue"]Hi Guys!

I truly appreciate the help.

A few updates & thoughts for the discussion:

Let me answer some of Denman's questions first:
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[COLOR="Blue"]I believe the compressor is running way more than it should. Only once in the past week have I even heard the compressor cycle down (shut off - and only briefly. I didn't time it though.). But the vast majority of the time, it's running, as is the compressor fan, and I have yet to see the evaporator coil fan shut off. [/COLOR]


[COLOR="Blue"]As above, it's probably running 99% (or more) of the time. The only time I've really heard it shut down is when I crank the thermostat to the OFF position.
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[COLOR="Blue"]That was my first initial fear. What I can't explain is how things went from working to not working well at all in a very short time. Supposing it IS a Freon problem - is it WORTH repairing (vs. new fridge)? So I spend, what? $200? $300 - to have someone come and charge it. For how long? But then what? Maybe the compressor shells out. BUT... that said... if it's just a $50 part or something, I'm game to replace it. The $ is tight right now... I just wish there was a way for a consumer to test this. Even a momentary test / bypass or something I could do to prove this one way or another. [/COLOR]



[COLOR="Blue"]I don't think this (defrost problem) is the problem I'm having. Per the pictures already posted, and new ones I'm about to post... no coil clogging frost is ever present. In fact, any frost at all is very "minimal" - no artic snow/frost action here. As above, evap coil fan spinning fast & furious - all the time as far as I know. Here are a couple fresh picts.

This first one shows a overall of the evaporator coils:



This next one shows the overall compartment & fan - as you can see, fan is on & spinning fast & furious.



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[COLOR="Blue"]This was a useful site. I'm still working my way through some of the tests. One thing they mentioned was testing the thermistor. See the new picts I'm posting here. See what's circled / annotated here:[/COLOR]






[COLOR="Blue"]I waited at least an hour (though compressor is essentially always running).

As of tonight:

Average Fridge temp (measured over an hour via thermocouple on DVM with AVG function on) was: 51.8°F

Average Freezer temp (ditto) was: 25.4°F

Just an aside, the measurements are made with a brand new (less than a month old and freshly calibrated) Fluke DVM, with a J/K thermocouple lead. The temps I'm measuring seem to agree with what I'm "feeling" with my hand just seems way less than really cold freezer or fridge. Milk is spoiling quickly, etc.

Again, I can't thank you enough for your help and patience while I work through this.

--Pete
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[COLOR="Blue"]And this is what made me think it's probably wasn't a Freon prob. There was a very light coating of frost - pretty evenly - on the coils. The $1,000 question: It's stayed the same, so if there were a leak, wouldn't it have leaked out by now?

Thanks for the info on the icemaker vis-a-vis its thermostat! That explains why it quit working. That was actually our first visible sign that we had a problem. The temp issue became more apparent a day or two later. I was curious if the icemaker was somehow "smart enough" to quit due to compartment temp. Apparently it is.

Denman highlights the other side of the coin with his most recent post -- I was curious if there shouldn't be MORE frost going on, or if maybe it was stuck in a defrost mode. But... thanks to you folks here... if I understand this correctly, the compressor doesn't run during defrost.

:( <Heavy sigh!> :(

Guess with a 10+ year old fridge, I probably should be looking for a new fridge now... :eek: Not the news I was hoping for, but I don't shoot the messengers! ;)

Again, thanks to ApplianceNinja & Denman for your help guys. Maybe Craigslist for a good used unit?! (I'll bring thermocouple with me! :D )

Cheers,

--Pete
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