Frigidaire Gallery FGHT2055VF-1 top freezer temp questions

[RTA]

Hello,

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to make sure you have the full background info. My question is regarding refrigerator and top freezer temperatures and I’m hoping to find some help here.

The refrigerator is just shy of 2 and years old.  There was an issue with the evaporator fan motor and I had a tech come out to diagnose while waiting for the extended warranty company to come out.  While the evaporator fan was confirmed to be intermittent, the tech also noticed that the evaporator coils were completely frosted over when the compressor first started but then after a few minutes the evaporator coils started losing frost at the bottom third of the coils.  He stated this was not normal and they should stay frosted during the entire cycle. He recommended the evap fan to be replaced and a re-charge to be carried out. I took note and started monitoring the internal temps of the fresh food and freezer compartments.

When the warranty company tech came out to diagnose, I explained what the first tech had found and I showed him the monitored temperature results (wide range). The warranty tech believed the issue to be a control issue rather than a systems issue, so he replaced the main control pcb (due to out range temp values) In addition to replacing the intermittent evaporator motor.

Since the repairs, the new evap fan is working well now but I still continued to monitor the temperatures as they still seem out of spec even though the main pcb was replaced.

I am using a large dial thermometer in each compartment for a rough idea of where the temps are at.

At factory recommended settings (mid-point control) the monitored temps are:

Fresh food area with 70-80% load has been around 28 F to 40 F between off/on compressor cycles.

Freezer temp has been -5 F to 8-10 F between cycles. Not using the freezer compartment for food yet so I loaded it with 12 small plastic water bottles. The water bottles remain frozen.

During defrost, the fresh food area is about 42 F which I believe is in spec.  The freezer compartment gets down to about 25 F before the compressor comes back on. It does take a couple of cycles before the freezer compartment gets back to below 0 F.

As per A16329801 service data sheet, fresh food area should be 33 F to 39 F and freezer compartment should be -6 F to 2 F.

So the fresh food and freezer compartments seem to be out of spec at factory settings.  I am more concerned about the freezer compartment warming up to 8-10 F before the next compressor cycle.

Your thoughts on the evap coils losing frost and the monitored temps are greatly appreciated.  Does the fridge require further servicing or are the temps more realistic when put under load?  At this point, I have not tried to adjust freezer temp to a higher setting.

Thanks for your input!