Refrigerator Control Board WPW10310240

[Michael Long]

Recently I had a coworkers refrigerator that stopped cooling after seven years of service.
This Control Board is located on the backside of the refrigerator. The control board part
number W10213583D replaced by WPW10310240 can be purchased for a repair service on eBay for
$80 but as we have learned in here why replace when you can repair your board yourself.

The Control Board has four 10uf 50v CAPs and I found the two 10uf 50v Capacitors off by themselves
were bad. The two 10uf CAPs side by side tested good. I would recap the entire board.
The refrigerator is now up and running for the last two months. Good Luck with your repairs.

[OldManDan]

I want to thank you for taking the time to post the problems with this board. My neighbor lost his Fridge last Thursday after a power outage. Being an old Car Radio Tech I told him I knew nothing about appliances. He insisted and I told him no. He called a Company to come out and they told him it would be like $400 and they actually recommended he purchase another Fridge. Unit is only 6 years old. So I started googling and found this website and your post. I am glad I did. One of the 10 microfarad's was bad and I went ahead and replaced all the caps on the board just to be safe. Unit fired right up and everyone is happy. Thanks again!

[Michael Long]

Great to hear it.... and High Five on your repairs... I love to hear
" PAY IT FORWARD " posts like this... Keep up the good work...

[davidbennett]

Just want to say THANK YOU for posting this information. We fixed our Whirlpool fridge by replacing one cap on the main board. Didn't test the caps first, just replaced the one closest to the logic board - seemed like the logical choice (LOL!). You just saved us over $1000.

[Undertow]

Another HUGE THANKS for this post, saved me $200 for a replacement board for a Maytag French-door fridge. I replaced the two 10uf 50V capacitors described above (off by themselves, not lined up symmetrically like the other two) and VOILA!

The board I had was marked W1032695b, replacements were W1032695 or wpw1032695 and ran from $170-200. The board looked almost identical to the W1030240 (WPW1030240) that started this thread, but they're not interchangeable. Sorry for all the extra deets, I'm hoping it'll help someone else if it gets scraped.

[sam_sam_sam]

I like it when a plan comes together
Also thanks to your repairs a lot less for the land fill
and you saved a lot of money

Good work to everyone who have had to do these repairs

I have done these types of repairs on refrigerator and air conditioning defrost boards before
either because of dirty cracked soldering joint to connectors or components

Bad capacitors bad power switching power supply regulator IC chips or other problems

Now the only time I can not repair a board is if the board has a lot of burn up traces or the micro processor chip has fried or the components no longer available or the cost of parts almost as much as a new board

Here is short story about a friend of mine who air conditioning unit would not go into defrost ( this had giving problems the season before but most of time it would work)
He says to how much does it cost for a new defrost board for Trane unit they run about $350.00 for one

The problem with this defrost board that about 3/4 of main connectors pins to the board were cracked or solder was missing from the pads and to make matters worst it had bad caps ( high ESR reading ) on the board as well and more cracked joint through out the board

Replaced all the caps ( cost about $5.00 / solder Desoldiering Gun consumables $ 5.00 / time labor about 2.5 Hours = $75.00 ) resoldered all pin connectors with fresh solder and most all of components pads on this board / also the Air conditioner has some other problems besides the defrost board

This rate is a lot higher if I do not know you more like $120.00 to $150.00

After all the repair work the defrost board work good as new for $ 80.00

[m3rdpwr]

Just found this recently.
Wish I had saw this site when my fridge died I would have been up sooner.
I got prices for 115-280 for the board, but out of stock.

Went through and replaced the 4 10uf caps, only $2.
The 270's seemed like they were okay, but I replaced them anyway with some quality ones, had some Panasonic's and Nichicon 220uf on hand from when I was fixing my Neato vacuum. Why not, I had the board out anyway. (270 not common here, just 220 and 330.)
I didn't replace the 47uf or 33uf because they appeared to be out and I didn't have anything close.

Had a Weller solder station and solder wick that was I bought maybe 30 years ago. 35 watts was tough getting some out with those thick traces.
Re-solder just about everything that wasn't surface mount, although one SMT resistor near the bank of 270uf looked like a leg was detached.
I don't do nearly anything compared to what I did back in the 80's.
Funny I found the new proper cap's in the package from when I worked at RS in the 80's.
I would have used them if they weren't so old.
Around here we seem to only have just one place left, You Do It Electronics in Needham, MA.
Cost me more in gas and toll's, but in the end everything worked out.

I couldn't find a brand on any of the old cap's, just the value and 105* temp rating.
Cheap cap's in all these boards.
Edit: Got a magnifying glass, looks like a M with curved legs in a rounded square.
Mallory was the only one that came to mind, but I don't think that's it and I couldn't find the image online. Anyway.

Anyway, sorry for the ramble.
Good to have found this information here too.

[Bobeng]

Replacing the 4 caps 10uf @50 and the [email protected] should fix the issue.
Go for the low ear value caps with the higher temps since this board will be placed back in a cabinet
If time allows there is 4 other caps that could be replaced this will provide piece of mind to you. You will be saving over $200 for a control board and even higher cost for a new refrig

[bluetoothxp]

I just had an power outage. After power came back on, the fridge panel remained blank. Quick search for the board model number and I found this topic. One of the 10uF was reading 2.5uF. Replaced all four with some cheap caps from the kit I had. Fridge is back online. Big thanks.

[jeffery_1965]

Thanks so much for posting this. Our fridge went out today and I found this site. Just finished swapping the caps out, and it fired right back up! Woo Hoo

[Retro-Hipster]

Originally Posted by jeffery_1965

Thanks so much for posting this. Our fridge went out today and I found this site. Just finished swapping the caps out, and it fired right back up! Woo Hoo

Bad Ass Jeffery! And congrats! This site really is quite the staple/hangout of experienced tech. haha

I have gotten help on here more times than I can count and without even needing to post my own question. (search-fu is strong) Eventually I joined to try to give back a bit.. Anyways, Throw away culture < fix-it culture .

[johnny_debt]

I just did this repair last night and got my Maytag refrigerator up and running again. I'm new to this and not that great at soldering but I replaced the 4 10uf 50v and the 47uf capacitor. I didn't have any capacitors on hand so I had to run out to MicroCenter to get them, but soon realized the capacitors I put in from MicroCenter probably aren't very good (they are rated up to 85c).

Anyway, fast forward this morning my refrigerator controls went out again, compressor still functioning. It appeared the controls just rebooted. I'm thinking my soldering work wasn't very good or it was because of crappy capacitors?

Should I redo solder with good caps? If so, what caps should I get?

[R_J]

Post some pictures of your work, that way we can see if you did something wrong or not, The caps should be good quality and rated at 105° but the ones you replaced rated at 85° would not have failed this soon.

[johnny_debt]

Thanks for taking a look at this. This morning the refrigerator was operating correctly. It may have been the heat that caused the control panel (main board) to shut down the other morning as I had gone from room temp to cooling overnight after the repair 'succeeded' the night prior. When I popped the cover open this morning to remove the board, it was indeed quite warm in the main board compartment. They should really adequately cool the board, but I think the reason they can't do this is because of the presence of water (from water line connecting the fridge).

I've attached pictures, I put the caps a little higher off the board as I thought this may enhance their cooling, let me know if this is a mistake.

[redwire]

Um, the one cap 10uF 50V top of the pc board looks like the pads are shorting or a blob is there. It doesn't look so great. You really need a solder sucker/wick to do this kind or work, yanking them out can cause new damage. I'd fix this and see how the board does.

For the time and money, I just order the highest quality parts from Digikey and eat the $8 shipping fee. Hitano caps I'm not sure if they are decent.
Why did you not test or change the other two blue filter caps C14 35V ?

There's very little factory solder on the big connector pins, so do not trash them or pins might fracture and make bad connections.

[Sutterfield]

I bought a used non-working Whirlpool refrigerator for $100 with the hopes that I can repair the fridge. I really don't know much about soldering or circuit board repair, but I would like to learn I and have some time right now IF the board is repairable.

Question 1: I took the control board out of the fridge and it looks like the board got burned at one of the plug in spots (see pics attached). Do you think that indicates the issue is capacitors or something else?

Question 2: Does the burn make the board unrepairable?

Any thoughts or ideas you have about how I can repair this board? Please remember I'm a newbie, so any obvious details are appreciated.

[R_J]

Yes you can repair that, first clean off the carbon (use alcohol or similar) then you can scrape some of the green paint to expose the copper trace and solder a wire between the trace and the pin and see if the board works

[Sutterfield]

Any thoughts about what might have caused the burn? Since I bought the fridge used, I have no knowledge of its history. Would bad capacitors cause this? Power surge? Something else?

[R_J]

Originally Posted by Sutterfield

Any thoughts about what might have caused the burn? Since I bought the fridge used, I have no knowledge of its history. Would bad capacitors cause this? Power surge? Something else?

I have no idea what even connects to that connector, post some pictures or trace what connects to it. No components on the board caused this, it may have had a poor connection and the trace just burnt in that area, or what ever is connected to it has a problem and is drawing too much current, It connects to a relay, what does the relay control? maybe previous owner did something? What is the make and model number of the fridge, locate the service manual to see how it is wired.

My crystal ball only sees into the future

[ron350]

Is that a round scorch mark above the yellow arrow?