Re: Refrigerator monitor ideas?

["Robert L Bass" <no-sales-spam@bassburglaralarms>]

Robert,

A temperature monitor in the freezer itself will warn of problems from multiple causes.  Additionally, consider placing a couple of
slow-release algaecide tablets in the pan.  Algae is a common cause of clogged drains under fridges, freezers and A/C air handlers.
Our service drops a couple of tablets in the pan under each air handler several times a year and that seems to keep the pipes clear.

--

Regards,
Robert L Bass

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Bass Home Electronics
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4883 Fallcrest Circle
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http://www.bassburglaralarms.com
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"Robert Green" <ROBERT_GREEN1963@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:yZadnSuqcufcxl7YnZ2dnUVZ_qWvnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxx
> We've got a 30 year old White-Westinghouse refrigerator/freezer in the
> basement that's cosmetically shot, but still humming away, delivering
> subzero temperatures in the icebox without major incident for years.
>
> Several times in the past 10 years or so, the drain tube from the pan under
> the freezer coils (it's an upright with a top freezer) has clogged, leading
> the coils to become caked in ice.  When this happens, the first clue is that
> the freezer temperatures begin to rise.  Other than placing a sight glass in
> the freezer floor pan, what are some simple options to detect a coil
> freeze-up condition.  I had previously had this on a yearly inspection
> schedule but the addition of a number of shedding dogs to the house in
> recent months has made that too infrequent a cycle.
>
> What I would really like to do is design something simple that can catch the
> formation of serious ice long before the coil became caked.  Simple
> temperature sensing is inadequate because the self-defrosting feature causes
> a sharp upward swing every night.
>
> The conditions that occur during a "freeze-up" (in addition to an overall
> increase of average freezer temperature each day it's building up) are that
> very little water reaches the evaporation pan at the bottom of the fridge.
> But checking that pan is about as inconvenient as unscrewing the drain tube
> connector that runs from the center top of the refrigerator to the backwall
> where it meets a drain tube that empties into the floor pan for evaporation.
>
> One thought that had occurred was to modify the drain tube to include an
> aspirin sensor between two spring loaded contacts at the top portion of the
> tube.  But I am not sure that would work because the typical mode of failure
> is an ice dam that occurs at the drain hole.  I would suspect that before
> that happens, the entire drain tube in filled with water, but I can't say
> for sure.
>
> Probably the most convenient solution would be to stick a $12 CMOS board cam
> in a baggie with some white LEDs to use as a video inspection port for the
> evaporator tray on the floor.  I'd only have to power it up during
> inspection times, so it wouldn't require a device that consumed power 24/7.
> Any monitoring of the temperature changes will likely involve a lot more
> power consumption than a video inspection "port" would.  On the other hand,
> the video evaporator inspection method probably won't tell me the coils have
> frozen until it's too late.
>
> What I really want to know is when 5 on the freezer control no longer means
> an average of X temperature in the freezer compartment.
>
> --
> Bobby G.
>
>
>