dead fridge

mnbvcxz

11 Year old Miele fridge has stopped, light flashes on and off and compressor never comes on...

I was tempted to get one of these hard starters
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07JHMNHHF/

which I figured would bypass the thermostat and capacitor letting me see if the compressor still worked.

But then I realised it said 115v on it. I don't know if that matters for this sort of thing? Obviously my electricity is more 230v.

I tested the existing relay starter with a multimeter and got roughly 17ohms but it fluctuated wildly from 10-100 ohms, I don't know if thats a sign of getting a bad connection to a cheap multimeter or if it actually means something about the relay.


If its the compressor I guess get a new fridge but it would be nice to know.

Any ideas? Thanks

Ectophile

Don't connect a 115V starter to 230V mains. It's liable to go bang.

mnbvcxz

Ok scratch that idea then. Naughty of them to sell it really, I know it says 115v but I nearly bought it before suddenly thinking, hang on. Should mark it as USA fridges only.

Ok so its been suggested it might be the control board that has failed in the fridge. In this case I should presumably be able to start it by bypassing the thermostat. If the compressor and starter/relay are fine then this should demonstrate it?

So on my relay/starter bit I have a terminals for live, neutral and earth plus two extra terminals on either side.

The mains cable obviously goes to the live, neutral and earth.

The capacitor cable has a neutral and a live wire, neutral goes to the neutral terminal and the live goes to a separate pin on the side.

The thermostat cable, which presumably I wish to bypass, goes to live and neutral and then has a third black wire which goes to a separate pin on the side. This black wire presumably starts the compressor.

Does that make sense?

Now somehow I can presumably move the wires to trick the compressor to starting without the thermostat. But how?

Do you think just moving the mains live wire to where the thermostats black cable connects would do it?

I'm a little wary of accidentally short circuiting or frying something.

Thanks