My Samsung RS21 Has A Bad Earth (I Think). Any Help Please???

[Mark The Cabby]

Evening,

I woke this morning to find my fridge in darkness and my mains sockets MCB in the tripped position.

I traced it to the fridge-freezer and tested the plug and every time i reset the MCB and plugged it back in the MCB tripped instantly.

I had a look along the mains lead and noticed a few hard scuff marks along the outer casing so i cut the lead back to about one foot from the rear as to do away with any possiable bad sections (guessing maybe a short in the bad section was causing the MCB to trip out).

And i pluged it in and crossed my fingers, But no luck - It just tripped out instantly again.

So now with insurance company with extended guarentee playing silly sods and my food slowly melting away i was wondering if there is anything i can do to get the fridge working or if there is a way of finding a good local repair man or lady who can help me out before christmas.

Many, many thanks in advance...

Mark...

[nike123]

Try other socket outlet on other MCB!
If trips, then your fridge or cable or plug is bad. If not, than first power circuit or socket or MCB is bad!

[LRAC]

Try other socket outlet on other MCB!
If trips, then your fridge or cable or plug is bad. If not, than first power circuit or socket or MCB is bad!

Here in the UK nike123 the ring main that the fridge is running on will most likely be the downstairs ring main. For the above diagnosis he would need to plug the fridge in to the upstairs ring main.

I would suggest plugging another appliance in to the socket just too see if it is the socket.

Mark the cabby under no circumstanes plug this in to the cooker socket which is 32 amps.

[Mark The Cabby]

Try other socket outlet on other MCB!
If trips, then your fridge or cable or plug is bad. If not, than first power circuit or socket or MCB is bad!

Thanks for your reply,

I have tried other sockets via an extension lead and still trips the mcb. And as my initial thread i cut back as far as i dared to clear and mains lead fault and fitted new plug and still instant mbc tripping.

[Mark The Cabby]

Here in the UK nike123 the ring main that the fridge is running on will most likely be the downstairs ring main. For the above diagnosis he would need to plug the fridge in to the upstairs ring main.

I would suggest plugging another appliance in to the socket just too see if it is the socket.

Mark the cabby under no circumstanes plug this in to the cooker socket which is 32 amps.

And you thought i was gonna carry the bloody thing upstairs...

And thanks for the heads-up over the cooker socket. and i have tried other item in the same sockets and all other items work...

Thanks for all your replys...

[Lucas]

Whats the age of the fridge?
Is it a frost-free model?

Could be something as serious as compressor to earth

Or as simple as a faulty stat

Needs checking by engineer or electrician.

[Mark The Cabby]

Whats the age of the fridge?
Is it a frost-free model?

Could be something as serious as compressor to earth

Or as simple as a faulty stat

Needs checking by engineer or electrician.

4 years old,

It is a frost free model

And it's just plain wierd how it just blew the mcb as from 03:00 this morning and continues to do so on any socket.

I sound desperate i know but i have breakdown insurance but they just said we would not get visit until tuesday and i think my wife will kill me by then...

[Lucas]

Just done a google and it is one of those 'American' ones. Could be any number of things. My bets is these have a condensor fan motor or two and it is one of them....without seeing it thats a pure guess. If you have insurance or extended warranty it is up to them to get it sorted surely?

[Lucas]

Tuesday is taking the p--s. Its funny how quick they take your money!

[Mark The Cabby]

Just done a google and it is one of those 'American' ones. Could be any number of things. My bets is these have a condensor fan motor or two and it is one of them....without seeing it thats a pure guess. If you have insurance or extended warranty it is up to them to get it sorted surely?

They said they will but no visit untill tuesday and all food spolt by then and if they then say need a certain part then wait even longer, ouch much streeesss from my wifey

[Lucas]

Are there any condensor fan motors on the unit. It will be a small fan motor behind what looks like a small version of a car radiator? Should be visible either on top or bottom of unit?

[Mark The Cabby]

Are there any condensor fan motors on the unit. It will be a small fan motor behind what looks like a small version of a car radiator? Should be visible either on top or bottom of unit?

At the bottom on the back behind ally panel there is a 3 bladed fan, it's fitted sideways...

[Lucas]

At the bottom on the back behind ally panel there is a 3 bladed fan, it's fitted sideways...

Thats what I would check first. Only if your confident. Make sure refrigeration unit is unplugged from socket. If you trace cable coming from fan you may be lucky and be able to simply unplug fan. If not it would require disconnecting from internal supply. Once disconnected and making sure all cables are safe, plug fridge back in and see if still trips.

If your not confident then call in an local engineer

[Lucas]

Just found this info.....might be of interest to you......This concerns the internal fan.....Might be relevant to you either now or in future.


We have this appliance and a few weeks ago it kept tripping out the main fuse board, it now works but the fridge side has completely iced over at the bottom but is warm at the top, the temperature ranges from 3 upto 10 then back down to 3. also the fan is making a noise, sounds like the fan is hitting something.
any ideas on how we can fix this and what parts we may need to buy
Regards
--------------


RS21 has a design fault. Mine had a replacement fan assembly board under warranty. I believe Samsung have now extended the 2 year warranty to 5 years because of this problem. Contact them. Before the warranty extension I removed the panel and deiced the fan. It then works perfectly. The problem is caused by the aperture being to small for water to pass though for auto de frost,hence the icing up.

[paul_h]

It's got nothing to do with the insulation icing up or indoor fan. Or the condenser fan (as that only runs when the ambient temp is high, not straight away)


A defrost heater is shorted if it happens atraight away. They get powered up for self diagnostics when you plug it in. Even the compressor doesn't start for a few seconds until all the diagnostics like heater checks are carried out.

edit:
Take the evap covers off, defrost the the evap coils, check the heaters to earth with a multimeter or megger. If you find a faulty one, disconnect it, but leave some sort of heater connected, and the fridge will work for a few days OK.
You can't disconnect all heaters, as then there's no circuit through the defrost path, and the fridge wil stop working completely after it tries to defrost.
If you don't have a multimeter, a cheap one is only $15. Or you could look for burn marks, or unplug them one at a time, repowering the fridge up after each one to find out if the MCB still trips.

edit2:
If that's too involved for you, at least a local tech may be willing to look at it if you can them what exactly needs to be done. They may not want to get involved if they know nothing about samsung fridges, but if you can tell them that that's all they need to do, you might get the local tech out.

[Mark The Cabby]

Thanks to paul h and all that are posting replys,

some good free advice is coming out of this thread.

excellent forum...

[tonto33]

replace thermo fuse as it causes this problem.. cheap bout 10 quid

[Mark The Cabby]

replace thermo fuse as it causes this problem.. cheap bout 10 quid

Is this something i caqn do myself?

And if it is were do i get the fuse and any pointers on how to ???

Thanks...

[tonto33]

very easy to fit email us if need one or advice.. airkool@hotmail.co.uk

[Lucas]

Keep us posted with what was wrong.

[paul_h]

Is this something i caqn do myself?

And if it is were do i get the fuse and any pointers on how to ???

Thanks...

A blown thermal fuse will not cause the fridge to trip the breaker.
That is not what is wrong with your fridge.

[tonto33]

paul h we have found just lately quite a few of RS21 that were tripping the rcd was down to thermo fuse fault and once replaced sorted problem they is even info on the gpsn website explaining this fault

[paul_h]

OK, fair enough, but I've seen heaps of these fridges trip a breaker because the heater shorts out.
The thermal fuse is supposed to be a circuit, so I can't see what a thermal fuse could possibly do to cause a short, but fair enough if you say it's a known fault.

But anyway, I wouldn't be buying a thermal fuse without at least testing the heaters, as that's a known fault too.

edit: To replace the thermal fuse, you've got to take the evap cover off, and the plug for the thermal fuse is above the plug for the heaters. So you may as well check them with a multimeter first for shorts if planning on replacing a thermal fuse.

[Asa]

Sounds like the defrost heater in the fridge is down to earth. Have changed a few of these in the past and resolved the same symptons. The evaporator comes as a whole assembly then the strip the heater off and swap over. Part number is samsung da9600013h.

good luck

[thecubasekid]

signed up just to say thanks to paul_h and others for fantastic advice, my RS21 developed the same fault on friday night, 1 month out of warranty, samsung were no help, left my details with on the number they refered me to at 8am this morning (samsung advised partner was not open untill monday) and still no reponse.

followed paul_h's advice removed the evap covers and set about disconnecting the three defrost heater connections one at a time to prove. i found the problem to be the first connector (Thermal fuse) and now have my power restored and part on order!

i was worried about investigating this at first but found an excellent guide on 'UK Whitegoods' (not sure if you are allowed to post full links on here so fill in www at the front of this!) ukwhitegoods.co.uk/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=209

thanks again!!!

[paul_h]

Something like what tonto said may be right with the thermal fuse causing a problem, but if you disconnect the thermal fuse, you are disconnecting all the heaters, so you haven't tested whether the heaters are faulty.
If it's tripping out due to heater fault, as soon as you fit a new thermal fuse, it will trip again if the heater is faulty.
Also if you attempt to run the fridge without the thermal fuse (or no heater plugged in), the system will cut out after a day or two because no path through the defrost circuit causes the fridge to play up.

Like Asa said, it's normally the fridge coil heater that is faulty from my experience, though it could be the drain heater too.

Normally you can keep these things ticking over with the thermal fuse plugged in and the drain heater plugged in, just unplugging the coil heater if the coil heater is faulty. Or keeping the thermal fuse plugged in, the coil heater plugged in, and just the drain heater disconnected if the drain heater is faulty.