Does a refrigerator have any circut protection devices??

[fastfredracing]

Life sure keeps one on his toes, My air compressor at the shop exploded on Thanksgiving morning, and I come home tonight, and the fridge is out. My lady said she heard a " snap" sound come from behind it , and then opened the door, and the light was off. She thought the light bulb just blew out, but I have verified that it is not working, and there is power at the wall outlet.
I dont recall ever seeing any type of fuse, or circut breaker on a fridge, but cant hurt to ask.
Thanks

[sammyg2]

Maybe the light turns on when you close the door and turns off when you open it. How would you know?

There is often a reset button on the compressor itself but not for the whole fridge on the ones I've messed with.
is there power in the light socket? (using a multi-tester, not your finner )

[Joeaksa]

Just in case try a different outlet.

[charlesbahn]

New refridgerators sometimes suck. We have a top of the line Whirlpool that was just over a year old, and out of warrenty when the same thing happened. Power surge and it died.

So figured I could fix it. Found a replacement controller board on line that was surprisingly cheap, bought it, installed it and plugged it in. Voila ! The light on the door now came on....but something was still wrong, the compressor wasn't starting.

Hmmmm..... turns out the compressor has a built in starter motor that also got fried. Sooo, buy a new compressor on line- how hard can it be to replace it?

Turns out very difficult. You have to cut the copper lines to the old compressor and put in the new compressor and braze the old copper lines to it. I suppose if you already know how to braze a pipe it might be easier, but the damn compressor is filled with oil which unfortunately keeps trying to catch on fire.

So after about 10 tries to braze the pipes with the wife standing at the ready with a fire extinguisher, only to find I had a persistant coolant leak after each try- somehow I got lucky and the system held the coolant charge. It wasn't pretty- there was brazing metal humped up over all the pipes and burn marks on the floor.

I'm pleased to report that three years later it's still working.

The short answer to your question is No. So I now have it plugged into a surge protector.

Hope that helps

[rick-l]

Does it buzz and then go click? After about 3 minutes buzz again and go click? How old is it?

The newer refrigerators switch in the starting windings with a thermistor. When the thermistor disc cracks into several pieces it does not conduct the phase delayed winding to establish the rotating field to induce a current in the rotor so it just sits there and draws lots of current until the thermal protector on the motor switches off.

Don't let it do this too long.