Disposable Society

[BigN8]

Start Rant..... I hate that we live in a disposable society now. The days of keeping an appliance for 30-50 years are gone! Remember that old fridge or freezer your grandparents had? Not anymore!
My LG fridge started acting up the other day. The dispenser light was flashing in conjunction with a clicking sound coming from the top of the fridge. After some online research I find out it is a bad control board. Call LG and talk to a lady that I can barely understand. She keeps wanting to send a repair guy out, but all I need is the part. She directs me to a parts distributor. Call the distributor and guess what.....the control board was discontinued. It was $125 when they sold it. The lady basically said that the manufacturer discontinues the control boards about 5 years after the model is released for sale. How sad is that? I have to throw away a perfectly good fridge because they discontinue a $125 part.

I did find on Ebay a place that will repair the circuit board, but I'm looking at 3-4 weeks once I ship it to them, they repair, and ship back. Therefore I still need to buy a fridge in order to repair the old board, then I guess I'll just put the old fridge in the garage.

End Rant.

 

[Mainah]

All too common for control boards to go on appliances. The factories that mass produce those basically do one large run to get the traces on the board, pick and place the components, and run through an oven to melt to solder. Once the run is done they ship them off and a run is usually accounts for extras for repair parts. The common culprits are undersized/ poor quality traces, relays, and capacitors. Quite often the board is located somewhere where there is too much heat and not enough ventilation. If you want a project; buy or borrow an oscilloscope and read up on testing the various components.

Beware that these days the size of direct to board ICs can make replacing one very difficult for a human if that turns out to be the issue.

Good luck.

 

[ripler]

Try repairclinic.com

 

[Bennie]

I remember that old freezer - after about 25 years my parents let it go.
But back then when something broke you could fix it.. now it's got too many cheap electrical parts.

 

[Julian]

I know what you mean! I have a ceiling fan in our bedroom that is making a noise...probably just a bearing....but faster and easier for me to just toss the whole thing out and buy a new one rather than replace the bearing....which is what the manufacturers WANT us to do!

In India (where I go a lot), they'd repair these things EVERY time vs throwing them out! One of my Bangalore staff rolled his car.....they re-skinned it....looks like new. Here it would have been totaled!

 

[2nazt]

I use repair clinic for most almost all of my AC unit repairs from a control board to a squirrel cage. They are great

 

[BigN8]

I try my hardest not to just throw something away, especially with the resource of the interent. I had a fairly new Hoover vacuum that had a motor go bad. I never kept the receipt, so I was kinda screwed from the local store level. I found a Hoover repair shop and had the motor replaced for next to nothing.

 

[Zarrella]

They can't sell you a new unit if they build them to last. Nobody would still be in business if appliances didn't fail.