Fixing my Fisher and Paykel Fridge Active Smart Fridge/Freezer Model E440T ** DISCLAIMER ** I am not a fridge technician, an electrician or a representative of Fisher and Paykel. I am an average Australian who wants to give back to the internet community who helped solve the problem with my fridge. I have provided this information based on my own experiences and provide no guarantee that it will work for you or fix your problems you use this information completely at your own discretion and your own risk to both person and property. Fixing (or attempting to fix) the fridge yourself this will almost certainly void any warranty you may have. Fault Wire to freezer fan was broken, causing no cooling in fridge and error beeps. Suspected cause Most likely metal fatigue the wire is wedged tightly into the plastic housing and with years of micro-vibration from the fan and sub-zero temperatures, it snapped. May also have been an ice build-up after leaving the door ajar that impacted with the wire and broke it. Symptoms The fridge started beeping every second in the middle of the night, and it was stopped by pressing one of the buttons on the control panel inside the back of the fridge. The green lower compartment light was flashing, even though the beeping had been stopped by pressing one of the buttons The fridge was not cooling properly Upon opening the fridge and closing the door, sometimes it would start beeping again Fridge started cooling less and less until it was only just cool Freezer was working all the time, no problems there. Background investigation I used the internet and searched for various combinations of Fisher Paykel fridge error beep code flash to try and find the error codes hoping that would tell me what it was. To this day, I still have not been able to locate error codes, although various blogs and sites mention that it is a fan fault and that the beeping was the fridge telling me that a current sensor for the fan was reporting a problem.. This was the first clue.
The second bit of information was from fixya.com in which a few people said they had similar problems with fridges around 4 years old same as mine, and many did not know what the problem was. One or two of them said they called a F&P technician and he replaced the fans. I *think* another one, although I can t find it again, said a fan wire was broken. This was enough for me to think I might have a stab at fixing it. The third bit of information that made me go further was some information about the fact that the fridge doesn t have an element itself, instead it uses cold air from the freezer to cool the fridge compartment and that an ice build-up or fan fault would cause the problem. The freezer was working fine, so it stands to reason that the cold air wasn t getting from the freezer down to the fridge. I thought it might have been iced up instead of a fan fault because I could see ice through the grille at the back of the freezer I was late to discover that this was probably normal. Finally, I knew that the door closed sensor was magnetic, and that when you put a magnet on to the door sensor with the door open, you will start to hear the fans running. So I opened the freezer, put a magnet (reasonably strong a regular fridge magnet probably would not do) on the sensor it is a raised rectangle of plastic located on the bottom edge of the freezer compartment where the door meets, as shown below: How I removed the rear freezer panel The first task was to remove the rear freezer panel which (I believed) housed the fan. I wasn t sure because I had not seen any photos hence the reason I am putting them in here. I also had no idea how to remove the rear panel for all I knew, there could have been screws, glue, lugs, tabs, or anything that had to be properly manipulated to get it out. Again, this is the reason I am showing photos and describing it so that I can help anyone else. Of course, I had turned the fridge off, cleaned out the freezer compartment and let the fridge defrost and warm up. I did this because I knew the plastic panel almost certainly had to be flexed, and doing this while cold I think would have snapped or cracked it. Basically, the panel is snapped into place. There are two small plastic lugs on the bottom edge holding it in place but the top and edges snap tightly into a recess in the walls of the compartment. I don t know if this was the right way (but it worked): I placed 3 or 4 teaspoon handles under the edge of the panel to raise the edge of the panel over the lip of the recess. Because the recess is all the way around the top and sides of the rear panel, logically the lip around the sides and top needs to be bent over the recessed edge all the way around all at the one time. Yeah, sounds impossible. Anyway (and this is the funny bit), I raised the lip of the panel over the recess by using 3 teaspoon handles (lever them under the top edge), then grabbed an implement (ok, it was a stainless steel spaghetti server!) that could feed into the grille and pull the panel hard. It came out, as shown in the photo. It only
snaps into place, there are no other retainers at the top (just the lugs at the bottom) so don t worry about ripping anything off. I pulled a bit too hard at the bottom and snapped off a small plastic locating lug (about 5mm long) no big deal, but when you loosed the top edge, pull the whole assembly down from the top and then lift it up slightly so the bottom edge slips upward about 5mm to clear the lugs. Here s a picture hope it s useful: Once it comes free, don t rip it out because there are wires connected as shown below:
There are two wires connected to the panel assembly one is the temperature sensor which is clipped into place and slipped into a hold protruding through to the freezer section, and there is a plug for the fan which has two wires. The plug unclips from the socket there s a little push-tab to release it don t try to forcibly pull it without pushing on the tab. Once the fan socket and temp sensor have been removed, the rear panel assembly can be removed from the freezer and put on a bench. Disassembly of the rear panel The rear panel is in two parts, which slide together using locating tabs on the edge. Once you have a look to see which way they slide, it is a simple job to slide off one half from the other to fully expose the fan. Inspection of the fan Straight away, I saw the problem. The red wire to the fan was broken in half, as shown below. Notice the fan is suspended by a three-point rubber/silicon suspension. Notice also how closely to the plastic securing wedge that the wire is broken. I suspect a better design would have been to pass these wires through rubber rather than a rigid point because the fan will vibrate and flex but the length of the wire before it gets to the fixed rigid point is probably not long enough to absorb all movement. I think the wire fatigued (hey, I ve seen Air Crash Investigations!) through 4 years of vibration and final snapped off. You may also notice than the wires have been wedged in very firmly, putting a lot of force on the wire at that point. Fixing the fan
Well, I suppose you could buy a replacement, but I actually opted to strip a small section and solder the wires back together (it s only 12 volts). I then got a sharp knife and cut about ½ mm from the securing wedge that holds the wires (so it didn t really hold them any more!), put the wires in and then used a blob of silicone sealant to not only insulate my soldered joint but also to hold the wires in place in the cut-out wedge. Unfortunately no photo of that I wasn t too proud of my workmanship. Suffice to say, I ensured that the solder joint was insulated, the wires were secured using a blob of silicone to the housing, there was no stress on the wires, and they were clear of the fan. I then leant the panel diagonally back in the freezer and attached the wires. I turned on the fridge, put a magnet to the door sensor and voila! Then fan was spinning (there s a delay of about 2 seconds before the fan starts). What I did notice is that the fan actually sucks air out of the fridge compartment into the freezer section. I think a fan in the fridge section sucks the air back down from the front of the freezer section (there s a vent at the bottom of the front of the freezer) thus provides a circulation of cold air. Who knows if it will happen again? My fridge is working a treat, I had some fun, I saved a technician s callout fee of min $200 AUD plus parts, and I have the internet to thank for giving me enough knowledge to know that it was a problem that could be easily fixed without buying a new fridge. I hope this document gives at least one person in the world the information they need to help them fix their fridge. tony@accentis.com.au