Westinghouse fridge freezer- how bad can it be

[Robski]

Hi! I have this Westinghouse WSE6870SA that stopped cooling after 25 months.
Checked the back and cleaned the vents, took them off and cleaned the coils. All fans spinning, compressor running, but no heat pumping action at all.
It has ZBH1119CY compressor that's rated at 215W but when turned on the power drops from 600W to about 60W in about 15s.
I'm no expert but it doesn't sound good to me at all. Any thoughts?

[octillion]

Are you sure the compressor is properly running?  If it has a bad capacitor or has begun to seize (which could be a mechanical defect, or a problem down the line causing excessive back-pressure), after several seconds a bi-metal thermal cutoff will trip.

[Robski]

I can not see the rotor but it definitely isn't tripping the overload. It doesn't make too much noise but you can hear it running.

[BrokenYugo]

Sounds like the refrigerant leaked out or the compressor failed in some way.

[amyk]

Not exactly electronics related, but anyway...

Does the condenser get warm? Or the discharge line from the compressor? Ultra-low power consumption with no cooling sounds like a near total lack of refrigerant.

This video might be helpful:
https://youtu.be/watch?v=lLauVofEDzY

[Ed.Kloonk]

Sounds like the refrigerant leaked out or the compressor failed in some way.

+1

Check where any sensors plug into the board. Long shot, but if a sensor isn't sending info, the micro might be shutting down the compressor. If you want to quickly check and rule out refrigerant loss, measure the temperature of the frig lines and see if a sharp fall or rise in temp occurs when the motor runs.

It amazes me that fridges work at all given the interesting journey they have from the factory to your house. And that's assuming it's not a 'Friday' fridge.

[Muttley Snickers]

Hi! I have this Westinghouse WSE6870SA that stopped cooling after 25 months.....(snip)
I'm no expert but it doesn't sound good to me at all. Any thoughts?

The standard warranty on that model appears to be 24 months, regardless I would still contact their customer support and see if they can assist. These days ice in an esky lasts longer than a new fridge.      

[james_s]

Westinghouse was once a reputable brand that made high quality electrical goods but now it is just a name slapped on cheap garbage from China.

My guess is either the refrigerant charge has leaked out or the compressor has failed. I've seen them fail such that they still made noise but didn't do any pumping. In one case it was a gasket on the discharge line attachment to the cylinder head and the other time it was a broken reed valve, both of those inside the hermetic dome.

But do make sure the compressor is actually running before you condemn it.

[CaptDon]

If you want to see some incredible customer complaints look at the junk from G_!!!! You can't spell garbaGE without GE. I worked at G_, designed by clueless Indians (Not the North American Native kind) and built in China. We go there, show them how it is supposed to be built, 1 month later nothing but defects, return to China and there is not a single person we trained still working there.
Quality?? From 13 year olds?? You'd have to see it to believe it!!! It is true of all the Chinese made knock-offs of once great name brands!! You know its bad when an East Indian 'code writer' tells you they don't have a clue as to how they got hired or even what they should be doing!! We not only built a locomotive factory in India but even built a town around it for support. You know you're going to get great outcomes when monkeys (the real kind) are stealing tools and parts from the assembly area. They seem to like to help re-wire things also!!

[Robski]

Not exactly electronics related, but anyway...

Does the condenser get warm? Or the discharge line from the compressor? Ultra-low power consumption with no cooling sounds like a near total lack of refrigerant.

This video might be helpful:
https://youtu.be/watch?v=lLauVofEDzY

I have tried following the video. There's no frost on an evaporator while the compressor is running even for an hour.

[amyk]

That does sound like it's almost completely empty of refrigerant. Check for holes in the system...

[xavier60]

Hi! I have this Westinghouse WSE6870SA that stopped cooling after 25 months.
Checked the back and cleaned the vents, took them off and cleaned the coils. All fans spinning, compressor running, but no heat pumping action at all.
It has ZBH1119CY compressor that's rated at 215W but when turned on the power drops from 600W to about 60W in about 15s.
I'm no expert but it doesn't sound good to me at all. Any thoughts?

At that age, you are entitled to a free repair according to Australian Consumer Law.

[james_s]

That does sound like it's almost completely empty of refrigerant. Check for holes in the system...

Most of them now have the evaporator embedded in foam, if there is a good chance it will be a pinhole in some place you can't see.

[CaptDon]

So it has been dead for days now. What was the outcome? Bought a new one? Keeping your food out in the snow? Most likely is a bad compressor. It should draw locked rotor amps for about 2 seconds max as it spins up and then drop to the running amps. You said it takes 15 seconds to ramp down? Not likely. Where did you measure the 60 watts? At the compressor or at the line input?
Did you ever tilt the refrigerator flat on its side recently? You may have slugged the compressor with its own oil or liquid refrigerant in which case it probably broke the reed valve and is now running unloaded drawing very little current. Look up your model on the internet, I bet you will find hundreds of complaints of short life span. I know where there is a GE 'monitor top' unit from the 40's still running!! Only ever had one repair, replaced the power cord since the old one broke like an uncooked noodle!!!

[james_s]

I've seen at least one of those old GE fridges with the compressor on the top still working too. Older refrigerators were very reliable, but they used a lot more power than modern ones do. Insulation improved a lot at some point, I think around the 90s. Then more recently further gains have been made using high tech electronics, unfortunately that adds a lot more potential failure points.

[Robski]

CaptDon to answer your question. I do some home brewing and have designated a little Chinese fridge as a temperature-controlled fermenter and ord upright freezer as the temperature-controlled fridge. Node-red does the magic checking gravity, worth temperature and what's inside the fridges. Now they are my food fridges.

Last night MR Fridge-Repair-Man came, connected gauges, said: "she runs on a vacuum, hard to find leaks this days, easier to buy a new one".

[Zero999]

I can not see the rotor but it definitely isn't tripping the overload. It doesn't make too much noise but you can hear it running.

Refrigeration compressors are hermetically sealed and contain both the motor and compressor, so you won't be able to see the rotor, without removing it and poking an endoscope into the intake.

It does sound to me like the refrigerant has leaked away. Drawing a power surge of several times the running on start up is normal, but if it's using far less power, than expected, it's probably because there's no load on the motor.#

Make a warranty claim, if you can. Even if it's passed the manufacturer/seller's official warranty period, it's entirely possible the consumer protection laws mean you can still get it repaired, at the seller's expense.

[Robski]

...Make a warranty claim, if you can. Even if it's passed the manufacturer/seller's official warranty period, it's entirely possible the consumer protection laws mean you can still get it repaired, at the seller's expense.

The problem is this fridge was "factory second" with only 12 months warranty. I don't know if that makes me as a client entitled to anything. I don't know.
How do I pressure test it? Does it need to be nitrogen at some pressure and look for an audible sign of a leak or use some kind of a die? Or connect it to the vacuum pump? But would that suck the air in and possibly contaminate the system more than anything? I might treat this fridge as something I can learn from about refrigeration.

[amyk]

Nitrogen and soapy water.

What refrigerant does it use?

[PaulAm]

You're pretty much on your own as far as repair goes.  There is very little info available on the net on repairing and recharging a fridge.

Since the system is sealed, you will need to add service ports.  You can get piercing ports that clamp onto the lines and then pierce them.  Note these should be removed after service since they introduce a possible source of leaks into a sealed system.    You can also braze standard service ports in.  You need to pull a vacuum on the system and then charge with nitrogen up to maybe 50psi or so and use a soap solution looking for leaks.

Brazing should be done with silver solder.  Do not use soft solder, it will fail.

If you find the leak, there's a couple ways to fix it.  You can find a heat sensitive epoxy stick that you melt over the leak, that works for small leaks.   Brazing works too, but only on copper lines.  Worst case, you may have to replace a component like a condensor or evaporator.  Note that many components are aluminum and may have a thin copper plate on the end for joining.  You need a light touch when brazing those.  When brazing, you need the system filled with an inert gas like nitrogen or argon to prevent formation of scale inside the line which will screw up the compressor.

Most residential refrigeration units use a capillary tube as the metering device.  Any crud in the system will block that which is a major pain.

Some (or a lot) of the lines may be buried in foam.  You may need to dig that out.  Foam can be replaced with the spray insulating foam available from building stores.  Use the window/door stuff so it doesn't expand and destroy the refrigerator.

If you are in the US and the refrigerator uses R134A, you can use those little cans available for auto A/C recharge.  If you do, make sure that it's only pure R134A and not one of those with stop-leak.  You will need a gauge set.  The refrigerator should list the type and weight of charge, so you'll need some way to weigh what goes in.  Refrigerators do not use a lot of refrigerant and they are pretty picky about having the correct charge.  Overcharging can  burn out your compressor.  Undercharge and it won't work very efficiently.

If it uses another refrigerant, you're probably SOL.  Those are only available in larger cylinders and their sale tends to be regulated to licensed contractors.

Do not vent refrigerant, you can be seriously fined for that (tell that to all the backyard yahoos dumping refrigerant into leaking car A/C units)

Refrigeration is not rocket science, but more like a medieval guild profession with most information closely guarded and not easily available.

If you pursue this, by the time you buy all the tools and supplies you need, you will probably spend 2x the cost of a new refrigerator 

[james_s]

If it uses another refrigerant, you're probably SOL.  Those are only available in larger cylinders and their sale tends to be regulated to licensed contractors.

Do not vent refrigerant, you can be seriously fined for that (tell that to all the backyard yahoos dumping refrigerant into leaking car A/C units)

Refrigeration is not rocket science, but more like a medieval guild profession with most information closely guarded and not easily available.

If you pursue this, by the time you buy all the tools and supplies you need, you will probably spend 2x the cost of a new refrigerator 

Brazing is the correct way to do refrigeration but I have always used Stay Brite #8 silver solder with a propane or mapp gas torch so I don't have to mess with a nitrogen purge and I've never had any leaks. There are several residential heat pumps I installed for friends and family over 15 years ago that are all still working so I wouldn't hesitate to use the stuff again.

While I have an EPA license to buy refrigerant, nobody has ever asked to see it, not even once. I have bought R22 and R410A a number of times, both large cylinders and small bottles without any issues at all from online sellers. R134a is available off the shelf from just about anywhere that sells automotive supplies.

It sounds like the refrigerant has already vented itself so that really shouldn't be an issue. Also in a refrigerator it will be only a few ounces, we're not talking a large supermarket chiller with many pounds of the stuff. The laws are kind of strange, it's perfectly legal to vent R134a used as an aerosol or air horn propellant but if you put it into a refrigeration system it is then a refrigerant and can't be vented. It's a good idea to avoid venting the stuff though if only because it's expensive. No domestic refrigerator made within the last 30 years or so will use anything ozone depleting, the ones I've dealt with are all R134A, though I've heard hydrocarbons are gaining popularity, at least in Europe.

Refrigeration is a combination of several trades as well as chemistry and physics, I think that's part of what makes it so interesting. I hate the protectionism in that industry and do what I can to share what I know. Thankfully the internet has done a lot to make things accessible, both information and supplies, it is far easier for me to get my hands on stuff than it was back when I first started. The whole HVAC industry tends to be extremely hostile toward DIY types, and that hostility is a large part of what drove me to do it. Being against DIY self sufficiency is downright un-American and screw anyone who tries to stand in the way.

If I weighed my hobbies on money spent on tools and supplies vs just buying something off the shelf I wouldn't have any hobbies. Sometimes it's more about the journey than the destination and there is no better feeling than to look at something and think "I did/made/fixed that!"

[PaulAm]

Heat pumps use an expansion valve, not a 3 meter capillary tube like refrigerators, so they are a little more tolerant.  Even with propane/map gas I'd use a shielding gas in the system to prevent oxide formation.  Yeah, I know a lot of contractors don't and [mostly] get away with it.

The OP is in Australia, and they seem to be much more tightly regulated on refrigerant than the US.  It's not clear to me if you can buy R134A off the shelf down there.

[james_s]

Yeah those capillary tubes are a pain, I dealt with those on a couple of occasions, one was a refrigerated display case from a restaurant that had a compressor failure, turned out to be a blown out gasket on the discharge line inside the compressor dome. Somebody else had worked on it before me and the capillary tube was clogged with something, I forget what. Had to replace that, eventually got it working but it was a pain in the butt. Another was a marine refrigeration system in my dad's boat, I helped him with that but we eventually gave up, it was a complicated system that was old and was leaking in places we never did find. I really do not like working on refrigerators, they're cramped, fiddly and not meant to be serviced, but on the other hand the amount of refrigerant is small, and the thing is essentially disposable so there is little reason not to play with it if one feels inclined, it's not worth paying someone to fix it anyway so there is nothing lost if you screw it up. The bigger domestic systems like air conditioners and heat pumps are a lot more interesting, and a lot more forgiving. Automotive is not bad either, the rubber hoses are a pain but at least the systems are meant to be serviced.

[CaptDon]

Seems the fridge repairman must have already put at least one piercing port on it to determine it is pulling vacuum on the low side instead of the typical 100-150 hi side 10-40 lo side. Assuming the leak is on the condenser it may be visible. I could do the whole repair from a single port if need be assuming the leak could be found. I would probably remove the piercing port and install a brazed-in permanent port for future service.
 

[amyk]

It depends what the original refrigerant was. R152A ("air duster") is widely available and not restricted in many countries. Ditto for R600a (isobutane, yes it's flammable) and R290 (propane) but I'd be more careful working with those; that said, the charge amount is usually quite low - tens of grams at most.