Possible to Bypass Front Control Panel on Kenmore Treo 795.75543401 (Made by LG as LRFD21855ST) Fridge?

[whitedavidp]

Hello. Our home came with one of these expensive and complicated fridges made new in 10/2005. It has been something of a PIA from the start but I have struggled to keep it going and live with it. Back in 2012, we had a problem best described in this thread by me. You can see similar in this thread. In 2012, I "solved" the problem by finally isolating a loss of conductivity in one of the 4, super-tiny wires that run through the left door from the front panel to the left upper hinge and bypassing that wire completely using another wire run on the outside of the door.

Ultimately in 2013-4, we were able to procure/afford an entire, new, left door which contained the same stupidly tiny set of wires encased within the foam insulation blown into the door rendering the wiring harness un-replaceable. This has worked just fine (however, there have been many other problems with this unit of various natures) until now (12/2024) when the same sort of symptoms (the fridge changing the temp settings all by itself and making chiming noises with each change) has recurred. Thus far, the wire(s) having continuity problems have not been identified as the issue is intermittent. And for the time being, it seems that I can avoid the problem by turning off power to the unit, powering it back on thereby causing the default temp settings to be enabled, and then quickly run to the front panel and engage the "lock" in those settings (which are actually what we want). I am not sure how long this hack will hold up.

So I am wondering if, since all we ever want are the default settings and we NEVER use the water dispenser (the water supply was disconnected long ago), if there is a way to simply bypass using/powering the front control panel all together? We really do not need/use it in any way since the default power-on settings are just fine by us. All it has ever been is a pain! We wouldn't care in the least if that panel were dead, never illuminated, and never making a sound! Can the fridge work - using default settings - without the panel's connector even connected? If not, is there a way I could "jumper" some of the pins on the connector in the upper left hinge to make the unit "think" that the panel is actually there and just not doing anything?

I have found the attached wiring diagram in the unit's service manual. But while the wires are shown connecting the front panel to the main control board, their purposes are not made clear (at least to me). Of the 4 wires, I assume that one is a ground wire and one is a power wire. If that is true, then it would seem that the other two are used to carry signals from the touch buttons to the brain box in some manner which allow the use to change the various settings. But, as of now, I am not at all sure which is which. And truthfully, this is all greek to me

Thanks for your help/suggestions/pointers.