Whirlpool Refrigerator LED lights flickering

[bluto]

Originally Posted by ajshoe

learned about 6 years ago - NEVER buy a Maytag / Whirlpool / Roper (or GE) appliance again. I'm sticking to it.

Given that Whirlpool is the General Motors of the appliance world, what else do you buy then? Before this debacle I have always thought their stuff was decent and they have good parts availability. What else is there, Frigidaire/Electrolux? And don't say Samsung or LG, those appliance brands are special in their own way. Especially all of the pile of plastic front load washers that they put out that are absolute garbage.

[redwire]

It's really only mega company Whirlpool making many different models, in North America and the UK.

The only alternative is Korean or chinese brands, Samsung, LG, Daewoo. They lost the anti-dumping lawsuit and tariffs were applied. Not that these asian brands are any better than Whirlpool.
I would never buy LG because service manuals are not out there. Samsung fridge compressor is hilariously complicated to save a few percent on energy and of course the springs breaks and total distruction.

Usually Whirlpool parts are reasonably priced, they are made by another mega company Illinois Tool Company.
It's just terrible to bungle a fridge LED light design and leave customers paying $50 for parts and $$$ for a repair callout.

[ron350]

I listed the wrong part # (WPW10615058).
That was supposed to be #WPW10515058 and I still cant find any replacements cheaper than $99.

[dmiles]

I actually don't have a crisper light in my model. Just a top refrigerator light, and a freezer light. So, 120v comes into the board inside the refrigerator light, then the wires from the other plug on the board take 3.5 volts to the freezer light. So it was a piece of cake to rewire mine, and the wife likes it better than the original light. So I'm good to go.

Also, there may be some confusion about the boards themselves, and the cost. The board in the top refrigerator light (W10515058) has all the components to supply the 3.5 volts, and is available on Amazon for $107. The other board, for the freezer light, and I assume the crisper light if you have one, (W10515057) has almost no components on it except for the LEDs, and is on Amazon for $50.

I'm happy with the outcome of the mod I did, and thanks again everyone for the information!

[jergo1976]

Just wanted to thank everyone who posted in this thread. With all the info I was able to easily solder on a 120 watt and 18 watt resistor in series on R15 and all lights have stopped flickering and it's working like a charm. Saved hundreds on replacement boards. Thanks again!

[bluto]

Did you take any pictures?

[lamanetti]

Hi Folks,

I saw a video in YouTube where the guy shares a partial diagram of these boards at around 40": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdgzfOHSlxk

It has the details of some specific components.

I hope it helps.
Luiz

[lamanetti]

Hi Log_on_Bob, it's been about 9 months since you've implemented the solution you've described and I would like to check if it ran well so far.
I have the same issue and I'm about to follow your steps.
Thanks for your help,
Luiz

Originally Posted by Log_on_Bob

OK, I am done for now though I might experiment later adding the lower Refer light. I choose to just go with a Top Refer and the Freezer light. I am running a test on the Bench with Two Lights in series off the Top Refer. Have about four hours run time so far, so that should be months of opening and closing the doors.

I taped the Door Switch closed. Keep in mind both doors are in series so open one turns on all. If you are not comfortable, unplug the Refer or at your own risk.

1. All four Connectors were snipped off the wires stripped back.
2. Lower two refer light wires attached together with a simple Wire Nut. This completes the circuit ( once the bulbs are in ) Top light through the Freezer and back to the Top.

3. On the Bench ( pic 1 ) I found some Insulated Female Quick Disconnects in my junk drawer. Fry's carries them or Ebay. If you only have the un-insulated then electrical tape or heat shrink tube, I wouldn't leave them open.
As mentioned, I couldn't solder direct the bulbs. Butt connector worked but these will allow you to plug a new bulb down the road easily or, Maybe an actual G9 socket MIGHT fit, I don't know.
So on the bench, the connectors were not as tight as I would like, so simply squeezing one side ( one side is all that fits ) of the connector with pliers did the trick, you want it very firm.

4. Freeze side, I just left the Female connector on the bulb while crimping the wires. These connectors happened to be 14-16 gauge, I had to extra squeeze with a large pair of pliers, pull test on the wire and I could feel it not so secure with just the crimper.

5. NOTE: Unplug or Tape the door switch ---- Top light Refer, now you have to join ( see Bluto's diagram #60 ) the two 120v wires to the other two circuit wires. This makes the Top Light 120v and very bright and the lower & Freezer in Series at half voltage, still bright.

There you go,, oh another tip, I had to use a flashlight while connecting and crimping..:-)

[karthur]

Originally Posted by lamanetti

Hi Log_on_Bob, it's been about 9 months since you've implemented the solution you've described and I would like to check if it ran well so far.
I have the same issue and I'm about to follow your steps.
Thanks for your help,
Luiz

I have the same issue. Did you do the "Log_on_Bob" fix? How is it running today?

Thanks

[rlc]

Originally Posted by lamanetti

Hi Folks,

I saw a video in YouTube where the guy shares a partial diagram of these boards at around 40": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdgzfOHSlxk

It has the details of some specific components.

I hope it helps.
Luiz

Thanks for posting the link to the video.

I don't think the circuit diagram shown in the video is an accurate representation of the LED driver circuit. At the end of the video you can see that 123mA of current flowing out of the "AC Board". This amount of current a reasonable amount of current to drive 1/2 Watt LEDs, but excessive for R15 a 1/8 Watt resistor. The maximum current through R15 should be 30 mA.

[redwire]

His schematic is out to lunch. Sigh. There seems to be a curse on these Whirlpool LED boards because nobody can draw a schematic. The white solder-mask and conformal-coating makes it difficult. No decent photos of the boards. Sigh.

Whirlpool LED AC Unit W10515058 is a 120VAC to about 42VDC LED power supply (not mains isolated) with constant-current regulation. I'll bet it has a voltage-limiter which is why R15 burns up after an LED fails and goes open-circuit.

R15 - 137 ohms 1206 (gets hot and burns up)
R16 - 22.1 ohms 1206
R17 - 91 ohms 1206
R19 - ? ohms 0805
R20 - 2.2k ohms 0805

There is no shunt resistor that would give the ~121mA he measured. The power board has an opto-coupler for current feedback, but not sure what the circuit is.

I can't believe how hard it is to troubleshoot and how expensive the boards are.

[rlc]

Redwire, thanks for the response and information.

You confirmed my suspicions, I did not like the fact that the base of Q3 was shorted to ground.

R19 code is 78A, so looks like 634 Ohms.

I don’t know how much credence to apply to the information in the video that indicated Q2 has the markings “ON P2F”, which a google search identifies as a PNP transistor. Since the PCB board markings for Q2 is “Q” I assume it is a transistor or possibly a MOSFET.

What type of pictures of the boards are you interested in?

I was thinking part of the functionality of the partial circuit identified in the video was to provide a gradual start up or fade in, but then the resistor values did not seem to make sense for a reasonable RC value.

Will do a separate post outlining the behaviour of my LEDs.

[rlc]

My 5 and half year old fridge LED started flashing.

This what I have done / observed,

Removed and visually inspected AC board. The only thing I noticed was that only one digit of R15’s resistor code was visible, as the conformal coating was discoloured

Left the board outside the fridge, for a week, and then reinstalled. It worked properly, no flashing. Tried again, an hour latter and flashing returned.

Following day, decided to see how long the LEDs would flash for, and after about 20 flashes they stayed on. Tried again and after 4 flashes the LEDs stayed on. Tried again and the LED came on without any flashing.

I’m thinking that there is a thermally sensitive component on the board.

All LEDs in the three boards light up and appear to have the same brightness.


I don’t believe just replacing R15 is a reasonable fix, It will fail again unless the component that is causing it to over heat is identified and also replaced.

[redwire]

I'm guessing an LED first fails, which then causes the resistor R15 to burn up. The three boards total 12 LED's in series, so any one bad LED kills the entire string.

LED's fail - flickering, cutting out with low or high temperature, intermittent or just dead. Look for "the black dot of death" or any discolouration in the LED's face, they should be just yellowish tinted epoxy with no dark blotches. You have to eyeball all three boards. In the video the guy mentions the main fridge board is brighter than the other two boards?

I can't see the PCB traces and connections, Q3 etc to see what R15 is doing or even how the power supply works. With an open LED there is no load on the power supply so it must jump up in voltage too high and cook R15. So far bad capacitors have not been the problem.

[Edge-hope]

Originally Posted by Log_on_Bob

Yes, in series. I am going to try to upload the Master Driving LED circuit, we shall see if it can be read. This is only helpful if the plan is to do new lights.

This is what this non-expert gets from this, so with a grain of salt. . All LED's in series.

Module on the right, label = LED AC Input. That is my Top Refer light, J1 is the wide plug, Yellow & White/Tan . This will show 118v AC across PIN 1&5, there is no 2,3 or 4. with the Door Switch Open.

J2 - Red & Yellow/Red in series with Red going though the Crisper Light and it say LED DC TOP but that should be the Freeze Side light so through that and back up to the Refer side as Yellow/Red.

Again, since plugging only the J1 Connector to the board and the LED's on just that upper Refer light will not come on then I would assume all LED's are in series and the rest is done on the circuit board.

I searched for the schematic diagram of the module (W10515058) for a long time, but I haven't found it.
Can you help me? Thank you very much.

[sam_sam_sam]

Please post some pictures of the boards front and back

[Mychance]

Hi all ! I now get a disco night each time I open my WP fridge and I am looking for a simple fix. I have read lots of inputs on the subject but very few conclusive answers. I am quite illiterate in electronics but I know how to solder components. SO, can someone give a DEFINITE answer about if soldering a 137 ohms resistors on R15 would actually solve the problem?

[bluto]

It might work. However the long term solution is to figure out how to fit a 120v led bulb into the space. I used one like this:

https://www.menards.com/main/electri...765-c-7482.htm

The lower fridge light and freezer light are in series so they only get half the voltage and are thus fairly dim. But it does not bother me in the least especially since I didn't have to pay $$$ for OEM parts that are going to fail again in 3.5 years.

[port443]

Confirmed and solved.

My board had burnt-looking R15 with board lacquer damaged on top of it.
Board needs 320+ degrees Celsius of iron temperature to melt the lacquer.

Soldered 150 Ohm 1/2 W huge resistor in place of that bugger: there's a lot of space available around.

Looking at all discussion, it looks like a design mistake: the wattage of resistor was not calculated right.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

They probably thought, hey, it's a fridge, it's going to be on for just seconds at a time and it's always going to be cold, we'll get away with these very undersized parts... They forgot to factor in the very high thermal resistance of SMD parts most likely. Had those resistors been thru-hole they would have likely gotten away with 0.25W ones as their body is larger and rounder which gives better heat dissipation in the surrounding air than a flat SMD.