Planned obsolescence of Midea chest freezers or is it me?

Our first Midea Chest Freezer failed after a little over year. Our current one is Arctic King (which I didn't realize at the time is also made by Midea) is failing after just under two years old. Also, the warranty conveniently expires after a year.

With the current freezer the compressor is running but it is really struggling to cool. It's been empty for about three hours and is just barely able to reach 40° F. The Youtube go to is to replace the relay switch. I checked it and it's fine.  I have a hard start kit on order but I doubt that will help since the compressor is working. The condenser coils are integrated into the walls and if there's a evaporator fan I can't get to it without destroying the freezer housing. If anyone has any troubleshooting tips I would appreciate it.

Possible reasons why I might be at fault for chest freezer failing prematurely:

1) We're off grid running on an inverter(pure sine wave). The only piece of electronics that's had issues so far was a ceiling fan.
2) I'm using external thermostat to run the freezer as a fridge. It's Jonson controls thermostat with a rotary dial to control the temperature. Maybe it was causing the compressor to cycle to often? I'm using an Inkbird thermostat for a freezer/fridge conversion in our guest cottage that allows me set a time delay for cycling the compressor.
3) The freezer/fridge is mounted on heavy duty drawer slides that allows me to pull it out from under the counter to open. It remains level so that should fine right?

So, with that it mind, I would also appreciate suggestions for my next chest freezer purchase.

The first thing I would check is the startup load of the compressor and whether it's within the range of what the inverter can comfortably provide. It's not unusual for these motors to present an instantaneous load several times higher than their running amperage, and this is where off-grid systems can struggle to deliver. At least your inverter is pure sine...stepped waveforms are a poor match for inductive loads.

Phil Stevens wrote:The first thing I would check is the startup load of the compressor and whether it's within the range of what the inverter can comfortably provide. It's not unusual for these motors to present an instantaneous load several times higher than their running amperage, and this is where off-grid systems can struggle to deliver. At least your inverter is pure sine...stepped waveforms are a poor match for inductive loads.

I can't find the specs for the startup load. Is there a way to measure it?  The rated current is 1.45 amps. The 5 second surge power of my inverter is 8500 watts with a continuous output of 4400 VA.

Phil Stevens wrote:The first thing I would check is the startup load of the compressor and whether it's within the range of what the inverter can comfortably provide. It's not unusual for these motors to present an instantaneous load several times higher than their running amperage, and this is where off-grid systems can struggle to deliver. At least your inverter is pure sine...stepped waveforms are a poor match for inductive loads.

This article on fridges and inverter sizing suggest the surge power is about 1000 times the operating amps or ~1800 watts.
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Aaron, that's a lousy deal. I'm sad to hear of these early failures.

Planned obsolesence is a thing we all deal with -- welcome to our brave new world.

That said, I would respectfully point out that you have introduced two variables that the engineers could not have reasonably anticipated -- an off-grid power system and a freezer-to-fridge hack. Some systems may be able to handle this, and some simply can't. You had bad luck on this.

Regardless, I get your frustration. It's a giant, expensive hassle. My 2c.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Aaron, that's a lousy deal. I'm sad to hear of these early failures.

Planned obsolesence is a thing we all deal with -- welcome to our brave new world.

That said, I would respectfully point out that you have introduced two variables that the engineers could not have reasonably anticipated -- an off-grid power system and a freezer-to-fridge hack. Some systems may be able to handle this, and some simply can't. You had bad luck on this.

Regardless, I get your frustration. It's a giant, expensive hassle. My 2c.

Fortunately, these chest freezers are fairly inexpensive (<$200) and the first one was given to us. It's just a waste though. I'll hold off on getting another one until tomorrow just in case someone has a suggestion for a new one. If not I'll buy a different brand and hopefully not report back here in 18 months.

Why not just get an efficient fridge.
I have a Hisense  very efficient fridge which uses about 20% of the energy a 'normal ' fridge uses.

Aaron Yarbrough wrote:This article on fridges and inverter sizing suggest the surge power is about 1000 times the operating amps or ~1800 watts.
.

Aaron,
I am hearing your pain.  We have been fully off grid since 1986 and have just upgraded our system so we have 4Kw panels and 2Kw inverter. running into 2000Ah tubular lead batteries.
Our fridge freezer is a vestfrost which has two danfos compressors, so the one compressor is not trying to do two jobs and we have a 702 litre westinghouse chest freezer sitting on the back verandah (porch).

The vestfrost is perhaps 15 years old and apart from a bit of an issue with the control panel in the early days has been running really well.  It is also hydrocarbon refrigerant not fluorocarbon.  I agree with John C.  get the right product for the job.  The other thing to consider is doing a eutectic conversion and split the compressor off from the fridge unit.  This system is ideal for under bench fridges and freezers.  For any off grid, soft start is always the better option to a hard start.

Good luck with it all.

John C Daley wrote:Why not just get an efficient fridge.
I have a Hisense  very efficient fridge which uses about 20% of the energy a 'normal ' fridge uses.

I've haven't done a head to head comparison but I thought converted chest freezers/fridge were significantly more efficient than upright fridges largely because the cold air doesn't fall out when you open them. Anecdotally, for us the converted fridge energy usage is negligible and we have a small to moderate sized setup. It would interesting to see a side by side comparison.

Paul Fookes wrote:the other thing to consider is doing a eutectic conversion and split the compressor off from the fridge unit.  This system is ideal for under bench fridges and freezers.  For any off grid, soft start is always the better option to a hard start.

I looked for ways to soft start a fridge compressor a while back but didn't find much. I'll look into the eutectic conversion but it sounds like it will involve a level brazing and dealing with refrigerants that I'm uncomfortable with. In the mean time I bought another chest freezer and paid $30 extra for a three year warranty. I've also been thinking it may be my generator which is a little undersized that is shortening the life of my fridge. I think I'll try turning the fridge off while the generator is running. I typically only run the generator for 2-3 hours to give the batteries a little top up if it's been overcast for a few days and the fridge shouldn't heat up too much in that time span.    

If possible don't convert a freezer to a fridge just get one that is fridge, I think the conversion aftermarket addon might be causing some issues. Even with planned obsolescence a fridge or TV should last more than 2yrs.

I wonder if they sell those

S Bengi wrote:If possible don't convert a freezer to a fridge just get one that is fridge, I think the conversion aftermarket addon might be causing some issues. Even with planned obsolescence a fridge or TV should last more than 2yrs.

I wonder if they sell those

They're not as common. Here is one on Amazon

Hi Aaron,
I'm assuming from my extremely limited research and from your comments about an inverter, that these are AC appliances? Perhaps a DC appliance, while more expensive, would work better for your situation?

Secondly, you mention them being less than $200 for the freezers? Was that cost new or used? If you bought them for new for less than $200, I might suggest that "you get what you pay for"? If it was a used price, then ignore this whole bit.

Matt McSpadden wrote:Hi Aaron,
I'm assuming from my extremely limited research and from your comments about an inverter, that these are AC appliances? Perhaps a DC appliance, while more expensive, would work better for your situation?

Yes, they're AC appliances. When first designing our cabin I looked into DC fridges and considered running a DC circuit but instead opted to get a more expensive inverter instead. In retrospect, I really think its my generator that's been causing the problem. When the fridge/freezer compressor kicks on the generator will rev up suddenly and sometimes cause the lights to flicker. There is probably a way to get the generator to just charge the battery bank and not try to run the household power but I haven't figured it out yet.  

Matt McSpadden wrote:Secondly, you mention them being less than $200 for the freezers? Was that cost new or used? If you bought them for new for less than $200, I might suggest that "you get what you pay for"? If it was a used price, then ignore this whole bit.

$200-250 is a pretty common price for 7.0 cubic feet chest freezers. The construction is fairly simple and it seems like the more expensive models just include features I don't want like automatic defrost or Bluetooth connectivity.

$200-250 is a pretty common price for 7.0 cubic feet chest freezers. The construction is fairly simple and it seems like the more expensive models just include features I don't want like automatic defrost or Bluetooth connectivity.  

You are right, I had not bought one in a while, and did not realize they are that cheap right now.

14 months and it looks like my replacement chest freezer is failing.

Since the last one I got a bigger generator that doesn't surge whenever the freezer kicks on. The one in our guest cottage is still working fine and it is over four years old now. They both have the same type of external thermostat. Could it be some sort of electrical issue like a faulty neutral?

Anyway, we have guests coming in this evening and I'm away at a board game convention next week so I probably won't mess around too much with troubleshooting and just run over and buy a new one.