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Freezer fridge defrosts when operated in a cold room
james_s:
--- Quote from: MLXXXp on October 20, 2021, 11:08:41 pm ---My fridge is a freezer on top type. Maybe modern bottom freezer fridges have fancy electronic control. However, it looks to me that standard, average priced, top freezer models have either mechanical or electronic control for the fridge but if they have a separate control for the freezer, it's just a knob that mechanically varies size of the channel for air flow from the freezer section to the fridge section.
--- End quote ---
That's the way the vast majority of domestic refrigerators have worked for decades. In the fridge there is either one or two controls, one is an electromechanical thermostat that controls the compressor based on the temperature in the fridge. The other knob, if present, moves a shutter mechanism to adjust the amount of air that flows down from the freezer into the fridge to adjust the balance between them. Some even fancier fridges have a slider on one or more of the produce drawers that work similarly, controlling a shutter that allows cold air from a duct to feed directly into the drawer.
Peabody:
For future reference. I have a Whirlpool freezer-on-top refrigerator vintage 1979 (barely broken in), and the thermostat crapped out on me recently. Nobody local stocks the replacement, so it had to be ordered, and I needed to keep things cold over a weekend. So I disconnected the two wires from the thermostat, and connected them together. That turned on the fridge, but it would be always on. So I plugged the main power plug into one of those 24-hour timers that let you turn things on and off at various times in 15 minute increments. It wasn't as good as a working thermostat, but worked well enough to save my food for three days.
Anyway, it seems there are a number of ways of rigging things up to work in a garage that would be a lot better than installing an always-on garage kit. I still prefer an Arduino-controlled PWM appliance bulb in the lower compartment, with duty cycle determined by the ambient temperature. I'm planning on downsizing into a condo soon, and if the new place already has a refrigerator I may convert this old Whirlpool into a garage refrigerator, and see if I can get a circuit working.
james_s:
I suggested my friend do the same thing last year when the thermostat in his chest freezer failed. It ran like that on a timer for about a month before he replaced the freezer. It was pretty beat up and tired looking so he had been planning on replacing it anyway.
Last year the PTC starter on my mom's refrigerator compressor failed so I rigged up a pushbutton for the start winding and plugged it into a power strip. I showed her how to turn on the power strip then immediately press the button to start the compressor and then shut off the power strip once it stops. That worked for several days to keep the food from spoiling until a replacement part arrived.
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