[Aggie67]

Damn thee, GE Profile Arctica!!! (Update - DIY repair!!!)

I know we're not supposed to bash. It could be any fridge, but this one is the problem today.

No cold air. No icing. Fans work. Lights work. No power to the compressor. Hello new control board?

And 4 feet from me is the bar fridge, Fridgidaire, 1985 model, never had a problem.

 

[Aggie67]

Ordered the control board yesterday at 4:30pm, it arrived 15 minutes ago. Nice 21 hour turn-around time. I popped the old one out, popped new one in. Fridge is now working. Nice layer of frost already on the coil.

I checked the old board. There's a burn mark on the back side under the relay.

If anyone ever reads this and does this themselves, do yourself a favor and order the plastic stand-off pins that the board mounts to. I snapped 2 out of 4 putting the new board on.

Also, the replacement board's pin blocks were in different locations, but everything fit.

I have to admit, I was hasty to condemn GE. The part was readily available, it was an easy fix. If it were under warranty I would have called GE, but since it wasn't, I DIY'd it. If you can operate a screw driver and needle nose pliers, this is doable. $140 in parts and Fedex versus a new fridge.

And although I did see a rumor that this board might be part of a recall, I couldn't get GE to fess up to anything.

 

[hychesee]

Hey Aggie, you said it had a burned area near the relay then alluded to a short circuit to the frame because of a broken stand-off or did this only happen while replacing the board? The question is did the burned area have damage and maybe carbon deposits on the back of the board or was the burned area only discolored from heat on the front side of the board?

A burned spot near a relay would mean a bad or loose (cold) solder joint on any current carrying connections. RCA lost millions+ of dollars because they went with a cheaper inferior solder and left off some board supports causing the board to bow and stress the connections.

Just curious is all.

 

[micromind]

I've been known to replace components (usually relays) on boards with more durable ones. Most of the time for a relay, it'll need to be installed somewhere not on the board.

I really don't know why manufacturers use components they know are marginal.

Rob

P.S. I also have just trashed the original board and built my own. Sometimes it's worth it, sometimes not.

 

[hychesee]

micromind, great minds think alike (that doesn't sound right) I have been in the electronic and automation field over for 30 years. Like you I have beefed up and improved existing circuits. But don't blame the engineers, they do protest, but cheapen the circuits at the companies request (bean counters).

I started repairing TV's and appliances in the 70's, electron tubes and the "works in the draw" were still in fashion, I have seen manufacturers go from designing products that could easily last 20-40 years to only 7 years at best ... why? because they were loosing money on the appliance replacement business. Why seven years? experts and analysts proved that was the time necessary to build brand loyalty and keep a repeat customer.

One of the first places I saw this was in TV sets, once a market where manufacturers were proud to put their name on was reduced to "where else can we cut costs" over sea production and $100 a month labor undercut us. TV and stereos had huge power suppliies and conductive grease on big heatsinks, later it was just marginal transformers and no grease. I would add the 1 penny worth of missing grease to a repaired set and it would not fail again.

Now I digress: After the nuclear bombing of Japan the US felt bad and helped them rebuild their industrial centers which we just blew up. We (USA) helped pay for and install the state of the art technology to get their country back up and running, putting in steel mill automation systems that US Steel could only dream of. Then being an innovative and intelligent people the Japanese ran with it and never looked back.

Did I forget to mention that before all this happened the USA fat cats and CEO's also got rich and complacent, never once thinking to put some of the money back into the company they got it from.

ok i shut up now

 

[Aggie67]

Picture in your mind the back of the board, where the relay module's pins set in the board. One of the pins (and all of the solder) was burned away, leaving a dark crater. After some tracing of the circuits, I figured out the burned pin was on the output side of the relay. I tried taking a picture of it, but I can't get my crappy camera to take a close up.

Also, I snapped the two stand-off pins while I was trying to set the new board.

20 years ago I used to wire up building and refrigeration control panel cabinets, and package/receive damaged/repaired boards in and out of the shop. The way this board arrived (wrapped in pink bubble wrap inside an OEM box) really brought back some memories.

 

[hychesee]

Yep, sounds like a pretty common failure of the under-designed kind. Isn't the "GE Profile Antarctica" one of those $3500 ice boxes that can not only freeze your steak but thaw it out and grill it for you?

 

[cj133]

I know we're not supposed to bash. It could be any fridge, but this one is the problem today.

No cold air. No icing. Fans work. Lights work. No power to the compressor. Hello new control board?

And 4 feet from me is the bar fridge, Fridgidaire, 1985 model, never had a problem.

if you want a ultra reliable refrigerator you need to go for a 1927-1937 GE Monitor top. 1985? That's modern junk. :laughing: