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Re: Samsung SR-S2028CVW
Oh really?? I just did a quick search on the web:
http://www.4mysamsung.co.uk/cgi-bin/search.pl?parts_search=s&model=DA96-00013b&part=
It looks like an Evaporator assembly to me BUT obviously you know better 😉
Re: Samsung SR-S2028CVW
Just to say that an engineer came yesterday with the new evaporator part. As “vent333” and others recommended, I’d removed the old defrost heater and the new one fitted easily. The Samsung is working nicely and I can now try and lose some of the weight I’ve put on eating too many take-aways over the last few weeks 😉
“vent333”, have you now found the part you need? The evaporator packaging has the following code: DA96-00013B. Is this any help? The cost for the evaporator was just £37.95 and the call-out charge was a similar amount (and that included VAT!) Hmmm, I think I may have been under-charged!!
Re: Samsung SR-S2028CVW
It looks like you may need to buy the whole evaporator unit as – according to the engineer I’ve been in touch with – the heater can’t be bought separately or, indeed, separated. I completely trust this to be the case! I’m waiting to hear back from the engineer once he’s got the necessary part. It does mean the fridge will need re-gasing as well 🙁
The job should cost about £180-£200. I was very tempted to ditch the appliance but hope this will get another year or two (or more!) out of the machine. I’ll let this forum know how the repair goes – may be another week or so though …
Re: Samsung SR-S2028CVW
“vent333”, Glad I was of some help 🙂
I guess it could be the defrost sensor – this seems the more likely than a heater problem which, I’m sure, would mean there’s more chance of a build-up of ice. Could it possibly be something to do with the freezer side though as I guess this has a similar setup to the fridge side (I never explored the freezer!). If the fridge defrost sensor has gone completely faulty then it may show up on the front display when you do a “system check” (i.e. simultaneously holding the two top buttons in for ten seconds or so and seeing if any “bars” appear once the display goes blank). A “bar” near the bottom of the right hand digit (i.e. fridge) may indicate that it’s faulty defrost heater although if it’s just not working very well there may well not be any “bars”.I did have a loooong discussion with the nice people at Samsung and mentioned issues such as “design faults”. They were all very sympathetic but, apart from that, weren’t any real help. The only thing they suggested was to write to their customer care people – which I ahven’t done…yet. The address is:
Samsung Electronics (U.K.) Ltd.,
Customer Care Centre,
PO Box 17243,
Edinburgh,
EH11 4YB“helo_75”, I understand what you’re saying although from my perspective, spending £600-£800 makes an appliance “expensive” and a “luxury” and, as such, I and others expect it to last a bit longer. You, know, like fridges and freezers used to! Of course, in hind-sight, when I do get round to buying a new fridge/freezer (and I still would want to buy an American style as they are lovely to look at and use – even the Samsung when working!) I may well see if my understanding bank manager would help me try and save the environment by buying an Amana which will last just a little bit longer (any idea how long anyone?!).
Re: Samsung SR-S2028CVW
Yep, I’ve had exactly the same problem with my lovely Samsung 😉
Being a tinkering-type and by no means an expert (probably not a great combination I know!) I did end up taking off the back-panel in the fridge (this involves undoing about ten screws, pulling at various bits of plastic and unclipping a few cable connectors). One thing to be careful of is that the back panel may be iced-up so I guess you should turn off the appliance and let it defrost (this might take over a day or two!) otherwise you may damage some of the polystyrene/foam backing on the panel, etc.)
Once the back panel has been removed you’ll see a nice silver metal grill (I think this is known as the ‘evaporator’) with some wires going to various bits and bobs. On the back panel itself you’ll see a fan which helps move the cooled air around the fridge. This air travels through a short ‘tunnel’ which may very well be blocked with ice (hence, the first major problem – i.e. the fridge stops getting a nice flow of cold air!) You can usually tell if the ‘tunnel’ is blocked as you can’t feel any air coming out of the little holes dotted along the top back of the fridge (to try this you need hold down the fridge door switch and wait about ten seconds for the fan to kick in – you should be able to hear the fan!).
The wires near the evaporator connect to four main objects. From reading various stuff on the web I think these are as follows:
1. The defrost sensor (attached to the top left of the evaporator)
2. The defrost heater (which runs parallel to the evaporator grill and is also encased in a nice silver aluminium? casing).
3. A drain heater which is positioned underneath a metal ‘drain’ at the bottom of the fridge
4. A thermal cut-off fuse position on the lower right area.Now this is what I think should happen:
Once the fridge (and/or freezer) has reached the desired temperature, the appliance will at some point go into ‘defrost mode’ when the compressor (the magic bit that makes things cold!) switches off and the heaters (2 & 3 above) both warm up to clear any build up of ice that has occured. The drain heater Helps turn any ice into water that ‘drains’ to the external underneath of the fridge (where it’s nice and warm) and evaporates away. Once the heaters have been on for a while, the whole area warms up to the point where the defrost sensor (1) says “OK, it’s warm enough now – let’s get back to cooling again”. This cycle should carry on ad infinitum although, as many are aware, this ain’t the case with these wonderful Samsungs!!
So what goes wrong?
Firstly, as far as I understand it, a simple problem may be that an ice blockage has happened in the ‘tunnel’ which isn’t being cleared completely during the defrost mode and hence, the fridge stops working efficiently and never reaches its ideal temperature and the defrost mode never gets initiated and so the ice builds up even more. This – I understand – can be cured by clearing the blockage by either turning the fridge off for a couple of days or removing the back panel and maybe using a hair dryer to speed things up.
A second problem may be that the defrost sensor (1) isn’t working properly – ie. it’s totally faulty or not very well calibrated. In this case, the defrost cycle again isn’t working correctly and may never ever finish in which case the fridge starts working more like a heater than a cooler! Also, if you turn the appliance off and then on again, the system usually starts back in cooling mode and the temperatures displayed on the freezer door should be accurate (i.e. usually a lot warmer than it should be).
Thirdly – and I think this is the problem in my case – the defrost heater is at fault. again, this would mean that the defrost isn’t working and the fridge just gets more iced-up and blocked.
Of course, it may be a combination of totally or slightly faulty parts and, indeed, something else that I’m not currently aware of! If you do get an engineer in then I would happily have the defrost sensor changed as they should be cheap-ish.
Now, I’ve checked the resistance of my defrost heater (to do this you have to separate the connector between the two heaters – otherwise you’re be measuring the resistance of BOTH heaters!) and, in my case, it’s open-circuit (i.e. the heater wire must be broken) and it also doesn’t get warm when it’s in defrost mode (you can tell it’s in defrost mode as the temperatures displayed on the door of the freezer DON’T change no matter what the REAL temperatures are – hence many people having the same symptons). Unfortunately, the defrost heater seems to be an integral part of the evaporator grill so I’m expecting to need a new evaporator as well (I think these cost about £60 or so on top of labour, etc.).
I’ve requested an engineer as I’ve no idea how to fit a new evaporator and will let this forum know the outcome!!
