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My American Style Fridge Freezer keeps tripping the RCD, the timing is so regular (almost exactly 15 mins after switch on) that Im sure this must be part of some defrost/cooling cycle. Had a good read online, and everyone points the finger at the defrost heaters. Have tried disconnecting these in turn (fridge part and freezer part) and it still trips out.
All that leaves is the compressor, or some other fault on one of the PCBs. The fridge is switching on, and starts cooling, which makes me think compressor is probably OK. So could it be an issue on the circuitry on a PCB that switches on the defrost heaters?
When this first happened, we left the fridge off and defrosted it completely and emptied it of everything. From room temperature it took a few hours to cool down, and was perhaps 6-10 hours before it tripped again the first time, but once it was cold, and started tripping, its every 15 minutes.
Anyone have any insights? Its only a few years old, so would rather repair it than buy a new one, but dont want to just buy random parts hoping that it will fix the problem.
So after a lot of diagnosis, I have found out more information.
Everything measures fine when the fridge is off and dry, defrost heaters have appropriate resistance, and there is no short to earth. However after the fridge has been on 8-12 hours, and has had a chance to freeze/defrost a few times it starts tripping, when measuring the resistance to earth directly after it trips, its less than 200 ohms, seems to me that moisture/ice is getting into the defrost heater somewhere and thats whats causing the short to earth and mains to trip.
Just going to order a new defrost heater now. If anyone else gets the same issue, hope this information helps.
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