Hmmm.... looks like I have some kind of A/C problem like Papa Smurf. It's my fridge though.... it's getting hot here and the fridge is having a hard time keeping my supplies fresh. Thermometer I shoved inside says 15°C when a fridge is supposed to be 6°C....
Been that way for years to be honest. But this time I decided to tackle it.
The compressor is not running all the time. It comes and goes. So it does not look like a refrigerant leak, more like a dodgy thermostat, good news then, might be fixable.
So I disconnected the thermostat and bypassed it with a jumper wire at its connector. Compressor starts right away, yeah... it's good.
So needs a new thermostat... or maybe not ? Look at the back of it, there is a resistor crimped across two of the 3 terminals the thermostat carries.
That resistor looks overheated and its body and terminations are all cracked, brrr...
Colour bands on it suggest it's supposed to be 47K at 2%. A precision resistor in a freaking fridge ?!
I have no idea what it's for, but it sure doesn't look in good health. When I measure it in situ I get a short, though I don't know it it's actually died shorted, or if that resistor might be wired in // with some contact inside the thermostat, that might be closed.
Old man, who used to teach / train white good service/repair technicians before he retired 20 years ago, says he might still have some compatible thermostat at home, cool (but he lives 150kms away...). If not, he says a new thermostat costs only 20 Euros so not the end of the world ! I mean the fridge is probably almost 30 years old now, so a 20 Euros thermostat after 25+ years, to make it go another 10 years probably... I am not complaining at all !
Yes, I am not exactly the kind of person that fuels the consumerism and planned obsolescence business....
OK so let's attend to that resistor now. Hopefully it's all that's wrong and I don't even need a new thermostat !
Electronics : 47K 2% resistor. Trouble shooting. First order closed-loop temperature control system. Sounds more techy that way eh ?!
)
TE : Fluke 11 DMM.
Supplies : jumper wire.