Hotpoint FFU3D K fridge/freezer icing up

[Hondaman]

Hi all , hope you are well in these times.

i wonder if anyone could help please, our 4 years old Hotpoint FFUD3 k frost free is acting up.
We noticed a noise and a cracking noise , after google`ing it appears to be a common issue with the fan, i believe this is the evaporator fan, then 2 months ago the noise stopped.

Now the freezer dept only is icing up on the upper front draw and the roof and upper rear.
i believe the frost free heater system is working as i can see water dripping out the back every so often
i have thawed the freezer out in case the fan was blocked with ice , but no ice there blocking it and the fan spins freely by hand.

I am a electro-mechanical engineer( not a fridge/freezer expert) but will place a meter on the fan to check resistance.
the compressor does go on and off.

the fridge part is fine upper fan working fine.

the fan part is FAN MOTOR NMB 9V 1 35W+8200985 KIT £41.99

But can anyone help or confirm that this is a safe bet that the evap fan is faulty and not circulating the cold air around the freezer dept, causing the icing up issues i would be very appreciative

thank you
Paul

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Update 19th May 2023,

I recently carried out a modification to the polystyrene within the freezer back panel.

Basically i removed the freezer rear panel via the 6 screws, separated the polystyrene and the plastic panel, you will see 3 channels cut away in the polystyrene , but the the left and right channels stop at the plastic outlets and this is where moisture and water droplets catch and pool up when in auto de-ice mode , and then when it re-freezes up this forms into ice and builds up over time and eventually blocking the air flow channel from the evap fan.

The 2 upper left and right channels i extended and cut downwards into the polystyrene to the bottom so any moisture / droplets will fall into the bottom of the freezer rather than freeze up inside the polystyrene.

i hope this helps someone.

[electrofix]

as you realise any electrical component thats not working may be due to that component or no power being supplied to it

i dont work on fridges so cant say the failure rate of the units

you also may not get a reading across the fan motor but you can try as some use a circuit board as a driver

Dave

[Hondaman]

Thanks for the reply Dave,
yeah,I am hoping to get an output from the supply connector that supplies to the fan also, to prove the fan is indeed faulty..

[electrofix]

the fan may only be powered with the door closed. most of the time they hide a reed switch that can operated by the doors magnetic strip. If you can figure where it is a small magnet will bypass it

Dave

[Hondaman]

Thanks , I can confirm the fan is operating , however if I spin at speed I can Hear it catch on what must be Solid ice

I have Now removed the rear Panel that contains the fan and it appears x3 of the air channels are blocked with ice ,, this may have initially been caused by the freezer door left open ,, I am now using a hair drier to remove the Cold Air flow Channel blockages , once removed and the cold air flow is fully restored I hope this will resolve my issue
I will update ,
thanks again

[Hondaman]

An update……

The hair drier was causing a constant water to drip from the internal channels, so i decided to separate the polystyrene evap fan housing from the plastic cover to reveal the internal cold air flow channels, there are 8 cold air flow output channels in total, and to my surprise there was a 2″ thick 5″ across ,piece of solid ice just below the evap fan, blocking all the cold air flow channels, so there was no cold air flow at all.
I have now removed all this ice and put back together.

I have on 2 occasions thawed the freezer dept , but clearly as this was hidden within the evap fan housing i was unable to see it, so the issue persisted.
i do know that the door was left ajar a few months ago, this must allowed moist air in and this ice to build up here and that was that a blockage was created.

I will update if this has cured the issue.

thanks again

[jamezm]

Hi. Did you get this sorted?

How did you manage to remove the evaporator cover completely? I couldn’t figure out how to unplug the cabling at the top-right.

[Hondaman]

hiya,
YES !!! this has indeed solved my problem, no more icing up atall , i am very please,

There are 6 screws holding the back cover to the rear of the freezer dept, remove these and gently slide out the evap fan is indeed connected by 2 wires into a small junction box top right back of freezer, release the flap catch and the cover comes away, then tug and a wriggle a little at the connector for the evap fan, it will pull out, was a little stiff, its hard to see as its tucked right up the top corner ,

once out , you can now separate the housing i think there is about 4 or 6 screws holding it together, once separated you will see the block of ice blocking the flow channels.

hope that helps

[AmazingGoose]

Hey, I found this thread when looking for how to disconnect the fan wires as I wanted to try to do something to stop my FFU3D-K from icing up.

It’s been a problem for years and tends to happen every couple of months. I added a digital temperature sensor with a wired probe, and set it with an alarm of 12 C so that I know when the issue happens and the fridge has warmed up too much (as opposed to just warming up from a cycle which could normally go up to about 8 C)

To illustrate what the fan connector looks like, I took some photos. When you undo the panel’s 6 screws you can pull it out carefully by pulling the bottom section and then the whole panel slowly out (as it is still tethered by the fan wires).

(Oh ok, I can’t post images, linked or uploaded, here due to some sort of 19.5KB group quota)

Here’s a link to all the photos I took: https://imgur.com/gallery/KfFsLOY

I disassembled the panel by taking off all the tape, peeling back the aluminium foil sheet to expose 4 more screws, and with the polystyrene separated from the plastic part you can see the guitar shaped outline sealing the channels. This is the area you can target from the front with a hair dryer without removing the panel at all. Also note that the centre of the air chamber has a hole at the bottom, so you can blow hot air up from the bottom centre (the overhanging thing at the bottom centre has a rectangular hole underneath).

The problem seems to be that the polystyrene is both slightly porous and textured, so ice crystals can form and attach to and penetrate the surface of the polystyrene and then thaw-freeze into a big solid block of ice. You’ll notice that some of the polystyrene appears bumpy. That’s due to water/ice inside each. Some I cut off where it was really damaged and some I just squeezed flat (and water seeped out). After drying it as much as I could with a hair dryer, I attached duct tape as a sort of liner and used the hair dryer to heat the tape glue up and pressed it down firmly to get better adhesion.

Then I used some motorbike visor rain wax and sprayed that onto the tape and rubbed it in. Hopefully this will make a slightly hydrophobic layer to prevent or reduce moisture and ice crystals building up.

I got my FFU3D-K in January 2015, so it’s coming up to 7 years old. Apart from the “frost-free” feature being a total lie, resulting in the air channels becoming totally blocked solid with ice, it’s a pretty decent fridge-freezer, with loads of space in the fridge, and a decent amount of space in the freezer section.

Hopefully my modification will help it carry on for a bit, and I’ll probably start researching for a better designed fridge-freezer with a 70-80cm width and up to 220cm height (to make best use of the alcove space we have for it in the kitchen).

Probably won’t be buying another Hotpoint!

[Hondaman]

[USER=”60113″]AmazingGoose[/USER] great post ,

I carried out another modification , please see my original post for this

[AmazingGoose]

[USER=”57025″]Hondaman[/USER] I still had to take the panel out and defrost with a hair dryer every month or so and did that a couple weeks ago and it’s happened again. The freezer compartment has like a thin dusting of frost in all drawers and the last time I defrosted there was an ice lake on the freezer floor.

There’s just enough air gap in the channels for the fridge to cool so I’m super cooling it to normal temperature (I have a temperature probe on the fridge now) and then will take the panel out and do your mod to extend the middle port channels down.

I can definitely live with removing the ice lake from the floor every now and then rather than messing about with manually defrosting the panel!

[Author]

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