Rising earth leakage current over time?

[japlytic]

In our 5-year old Samsung "French door" style refrigerator, it kept tripping the earth leakage safety switch on the particular circuit.
Earlier on, the safety switch on the circuit where the refrigerator was on was tripping randomly; after a second time, I disconnected suspect appliances such as a laser printer, and at one time, the safety switch would not hold when reset, so I disconnected everything in my workshop (mains filters and power strips) and the safety switch would hold.
Later on, the particular safety switch would not hold; so I disconnected everything on the particular circuit on the safety switch in question (it was a good thing that I mapped out the circuit breaker/safety switch wiring at our place - a great timesaver!), but this safety switch would still not hold; when the refrigerator was disconnected, the safety switch now holds.
I once suspected a fault with the safety switch in question; when I moved the refrigerator to a circuit protected by a different safety switch (which did not randomly trip), the safety switch not in question tripped, which rules out that the safety switch on the circuit where the refrigerator was.

When a local technician did tests on the refrigerator, it was revealed that the defrosting (frost free) heating elements were electrically leaky - I suspect that earth leakage current in the refrigerator was rising over time due to this fault - and this was a quite perplexing fault.

Other items with heating elements could also develop rising earth leakage current over time as well.

[kaboom]

Re: Rising earth leakage current over time?

When a local technician did tests on the refrigerator, it was revealed that the defrosting (frost free) heating elements were electrically leaky - I suspect that earth leakage current in the refrigerator was rising over time due to this fault - and this was a quite perplexing fault

Very common with frost free fridges- worse for you because you've got 240V line-GND. The slightest flaw in that heater's insulation will trip the GFCI/RCD.

Sometimes, the terminals are poorly shielded and fill with condensate, but today's cheep heaters like to leak to the steel(?) jacket.

The door wires can also rub and leak. They don't always dead-short though. There were some which were recalled, years ago, because the door wires would rub and eventually pull 10-20A, not enough to trip the breaker, but plenty to set that 18AWG line cord on fire, especially with a nasty receptacle's poor connections. Obviously, these were not GFCI circuits.

You had a real service tech; too many times you just get the "all fridges leak" handed down. No. All fridges do not leak, and it is not normal. Too many times, the "solution" suggested is to "put it on a non-GFCI circuit."



Still, 5 years out of a samsung "appliance" is pretty good. FWIW, they've no business in the appliance biz, though their horribly effective top-load washers are marginally better than the LGs- metal corner gussets instead of plastic. All washers will go off balance at some point; the samsungs "do the dance," the LGs self-destruct.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8iPJnbwNjw

If a "software fix" is all they depend on to prevent this, the least they owe customers is a metal-gusset-retrofit.