re: My garage freezer keeps freezing up

If it's iced over it's never ever ever a compressor failure or system leak. Those present themselves as ice on only the inlet of the evaporator and no frost on coils.

If your coils are frosted over your sealed system is fine. Your problem is electrical.
Thermal fuse/bimetal/ defrost thermostat(gas a lot of names)
Timer or Adaptive defrost board
Heater.


It can only be one of those.

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If it's iced over it's never ever ever a compressor failure or system leak. Those present themselves as ice on only the inlet of the evaporator and no frost on coils.

If your coils are frosted over your sealed system is fine. Your problem is electrical.
Thermal fuse/bimetal/ defrost thermostat(gas a lot of names)
Timer or Adaptive defrost board
Heater.

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Thanks man. IM going to pull it out tomorrow after my charter and see if I can find the timer and see if I can make it manually defrost. I dont have the digital controls. Just a good old fashion knob to turn.

Thanks so much. I will let you guys know if I find anything.

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Turn the knob on the timer slowly until it clicks. That's when it's in defrost.

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I guess if the heater comes on and works, that will mean the timer is bad?

Napoleon, here are a few pictures of my set up. I did not see anything behind there that looked like a timer or had any kind of knob to turn. LOL. Could the timer be on the inside?

Also a better one of the inside.

That black fan inside is not running right now but is not frozen up or anything. I can turn it with my finger. Yesterday when I checked it for ice, it was turning and sounded fine. I assume something is turning the inside fan off and ON?

The copper wire at the bottom of the coil inside is warm to the touch. I assume that is directly connected to the compressor?

That black box to the left of the compressor is just a cover for the AC connections. It pulled out easily and I can see where the wires just terminate in there.

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Probably in the box that holds the thermostat adjustment in the top of the fridge.

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See that panel I removed at the bottom? I swung it around to the left side and it has foil on the back of it. It has the manual knob to adjust the temp. You can see the small wire connecting it.. Nothing else in there

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I did not see anything behind there that looked like a timer or had any kind of knob to turn. LOL. Could the timer be on the inside?

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Your model doesn't have an old school defrost timer. The automatic defrost system is controlled by an electronic main control board rather than a traditional mechanical defrost timer. The freezer's main board regularly triggers a defrost cycle to melt frost buildup off the evaporator coils.

I would test the defrost heating element first. It's beneath the coil in this pic you posted and looks like this.



Unplug the freezer and disconnect the heater's wire leads.Using a multimeter set to resistance (ohms), test the circuit across the heater. A healthy heater typically reads between 35 and 12,000 ohms depending on the exact design.If the reading is open (infinity) or heavily outside these ranges, the heater is burned out and requires replacement.

If heater tests good test the thermostat

Test the Defrost Thermostat (Bimetal)The defrost thermostat monitors the temperature of the evaporator coils. It must be frozen (below roughly 32° F) to close its contacts and allow power to go to the heater. With the coils cold, test the bimetal thermostat for continuity using a multimeter. If it does not show continuity when cold, it is faulty and needs to be replaced.

If both the thermostat and the defrost heater test good, The main control board is likely failing to send the signal to start the defrost cycle.

(no message)

Hmm not iced over.
Fan turns off for defrost
Looks like relay was changed before but that's not the issue.

With that near perfect frost pattern compressor is fine. Did you fully defrost then turn back on and take this picture?

If no timer your unit had to have a control board. What's the model number?

Weadjust is right. Though I would assume bumetal bad before heater.

On frigidare freezers of that design the timer is in the rear. Not having a timer back there means you have a control board.

The fan can also cause icing issues if it's bad.
The picture shows normal operation. Was there a lot more ice before you started working on it?
Is the drain clear?

Hard to exactly tell. But the three things weadjust and I pointed out are the most likely things to fail. Defrost control/ timer, bimetal, heater.
Test the two items in the freezer. If they have continuity replace the Defrost control.

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The fan can also cause icing issues if it's bad.
The picture shows normal operation. Was there a lot more ice before you started working on it?
Is the drain clear?

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Drain is clean and the unit was running when I took all the pictures. I did not defrost it.

About 5 days ago, it started beeping and when I took the inside panel off, it was solid froze over. I took everything out of it, took it out in the driveway, removed the inside cover, left the door open and just left it there over night. In the morning, it had totally defrosted and was dry. I just tipped it a little to get the water out of the pan in the very bottom and plugged it back in. Its been running about 4 days now and the frost still looks exactly like the picture I posted. that copper wire deal at the bottom of my coil was nice and hot to the touch when the fan was off. Is that the heater?