Hello,

This is going to be a bit long but please bear with me. We've had this unit for 4 to 5 years. While it was still under warranty the compressor had to be replaced. 3 months ago the fridge quit cooling and I troubleshot the problem to the defrost thermostat using a digital VOM. Everything worked fine again until 3 days ago when the coils started freezing again and the fridge quit cooling. This time I used the temperature controls in the fridge to check the diagnostic codes. Everything checked out fine. I then used the controls to force a "short" defrost and it defrosted the coils enough to start cooling the fridge again. (There is still a lot of frost on the rear of the freezer though) I am unsure where to look next. I'm thinking that if I can manually check the inputs and and manually trigger the defrost cycle (from the controls) then it may be the control board??? My reasoning behind this is that the inputs are getting to the control board and the board isn't working correctly to auto trigger the defrost cycle. On the service sheet giving the instructions for the diagnostic codes it says to only force a short defrost and that the long defrost is only used in the factory. I think if I force a long defrost it will clear the back of the freezer of the ice and I can use the fridge until I figure out what is going on. Is it ok to force a long defrost cycle to do this? Have you ever run into this problem? What would you check or do next? BTW, I am an aircraft mechanic by trade and am comfortable with mechanics and electricity.

Thank you for your time,
Bob aka Rescue31 :confused: :confused: :confused:

Just a quick update. Since I have forced a defrost, the fridge has been working fine except that there is still some frost on the back panel of the freezer. I'm really stymied as to why if froze up though. Hopefully I won't have the problem again. I guess for now I will go with the, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." approach.

Yes. I will be surprised if it doesn't happen again. I hate intermittent faults. I almost wish it was a hard fault so I could say, here's the problem and fix it. Thanks for your help. I'll be back if the problem returns.