Fridge Repair

Capacitors Refusing to Start – Telltale Causes to Diagnose During Fridge Repairs

Single-phase compressors of the fridges need a start capacitor, which will assist the motor to start. However, regardless of the brand of fridge, you have got, these capacitors at times fail to deliver. And when that happens, the compressor simply fails to start. And this happens to every brand of fridge, including the like of Maytag, more so when it gets old! It happens due to the normal wear and tears and the brand is obviously not to be blamed for that. And your need of the hours is simply a technician from a company that is into Maytag Fridge repairs if it is considered you own a fridge from that brand.

What Causes Failure? 

If you are to introspect the cause behind these failures, it is primality overheating that causes these failures. However, there are other reasons as well. Ideally, start capacitors are not supposed to dissipate heat, the heat that is normally associated with the continuous operation of a fridge. They are designed to stay in the circuit momentarily,  till the time the fridge motor takes to start.

However, if the start capacitor stays in the circuit for longer than that, it will get overheated and will eventually fail. When that happens, you have to summon technicians who are into fridge repairs in Ultimo, or elsewhere depending upon your location, as there is no other way you can bypass the issue. And remember, this is too a major problem to ignore.

The techies, when summoned, will inspect the start relay as well, while troubleshooting, instead of just sticking to the start capacitor and the circuit.  This is because the contact points of the relay could very well be damaged also, causing it to remain closed when the motor is starting and thus keeping the start capacitor in the circuit for a prolonged period, causing it to trip.

Other Causes for the Failure 

Start capacitors also fail because of a short cycling fridge motor. The start capacitor may not have enough time for cooling down after every time the motor starts. This can very well lead to the overheating of the capacitor, causing it to trip and fail. The experts who are into fridge repairs in St Marys and anywhere else would recommend that the start capacitor be kept within the limit of 20 starts per hour at the most to keep in optimally healthy and top working condition.

A start capacitor will generally fail to open, when defective and its condition are gauged by the experts with the help of an ohmmeter or with the help of a capacitor tester. Under normal circumstances, seasoned experts are able to gauge the health and condition of the start capacitor by visual inspection. A defective start capacitor will have its membrane at the top blown out, though there may be exceptions to this rule. In that case, the experts would use a test meter to gauge the health of the start capacitor.

What are the ways out?

Replacement of the start capacitor is the only way out! However, while replacing the defective capacitor, the techies keep two extremely essential specifications in consideration – the Microfarad (MFD) rating and the rated operating voltage of the start capacitor. But that’s a different story!!