I'm wondering if a faulty thermostat is what is causing my fridge freezer to misbehave? The fridge gets down to 12C, and the freezer to -20C or so, then the compressor does nothing for hours and it comes back up to ambient-ish.
The fridge-freezer is a Hotpoint RFA52
The thermostat is a Danfoss 077B3281 B62 -20.0 -34.0,
I have taken the thermostat out to test continuity (results as follows), but not being sure of which pin is doing what, I've tested each pin against each other, at ambient and then with an ice block held against the temperature sensing tube.
Does this look like a faulty thermostat?
continuity test results: (/ohm, high = out of range)
resistance at ambient, to ground
setting pin3 pin4 pin6
off high high high
1 high high high
2 high high high
3 high high high
4 high high high
5 high high high
–
resistance at ambient, to pin 3
setting pin4 pin6
off 0.5 high
1 0.5 0.5
2 0.5 0.5
3 0.5 0.5
4 0.5 0.5
5 0.5 0.5
–
resistance at ambient, to pin 4
setting pin6
off high
1 0.5
2 0.5
3 0.5
4 0.5
5 0.5
All results were the same when the temperature sensing tube was held against an ice block as well!
Best Answer
One sign that a freezer is not keeping a constant temperature is bad freezer burn (ice crystals forming around your food, dehydration, damage).
You could use an indoor/outdoor thermometer that records high/low in order to debug this. Each day, record the high/low then reset the thermometer.
If you are seeing a big range in temperature, or, your freezer is getting warm enough to start melting, then I would replace the thermostat.