How to eliminate auto defrost - Amana ARS266ZBS Side by Side Refrigerator

Sounds like your freezer is frozen up, Mine does this so I have to manually defrost it about once a year. When it goes through the defrost cycle, it is not eliminating the water so it backs up and refreezes. Eventually, it blocks the entire defrost system. You need to defrost it and get that ice out of there.

You have a short to ground in your rear defrost circuits unhook your rear defrost on both sides and see if the ground is eliminated at the fuse. If so it's the grid itself, if not the hot wiring is shorted going to the glass.

try plugging into a different plug and see what happens

Oncce the fridge was shut off and left for a while the cooling had come back . If frost is seen it is a good indication as the compressor is working with sufficient gas within.
If after about 6 hours you observe cooling it is possible that the defrost timer is faulty.
Earlier make sure that the thermostat was set to normal mode for freezer and fridge.
However if Ice forms then observe the fridge for about 24 hours for cooling to continue and the fridge to cut off . If not the auto defrost timer, or the thermostat must be checked.
If defrost timer works but frost keeps forming check while the compressor shuts if the heaters are working, check continuity of the heaters.
replace the defrost timer, heater or thermostat one you have confirmed to eliminate one by one.

Hi,
There are a few reasons why the refrigerator part will not cool...here are a couple of tips that will help you to figure out why the refrigerantor is not cooling...

Refrigerator not Cooling or Fridge not Cooling
http://www.fixya.com/support/r3662945-refrigerator_not_cooling_or_fridge_not

How to Defrost Refrigerator Defrost Timer Problem
http://www.fixya.com/support/r3771673-defrost_refrigerator_defrost_timer

heatman101

Not very familiar with fisher however I have worked on a few for my friends. Usually the only other two things in a system would be your defrost termination and defrost timer. The more likely and cheaper of the two would be the termination which would be located on the top of the evaporator coils. You can usally visually inspect these and if they are bad they look (popped out). Lastly and most unlikely would be the defrost control. Usually if the control is bad the unit will be completely dead. Let me know if you need more help past the termination.

No you cannot turn off the auto-defrost as the unit would stop working at all after a short time, and there's no provision to do so anyway. And I don't understand why you would thing the feature would have anything to do with fFreezer Burn. Freezer Burn imay be somewhat affected by the temperature, but mostly how well the food is sealed, keeping air out of the package. If freezing packaged meats from your supermarket for instance, the air in the package will burn them in, yes as little as two weeks. If that is the problem, you must repackage those items, eliminating as much air contact with the food in the package as possible to avoid the problem. I myself use both plastic wrap and aluminum foil to repackage anything I want to keep a while.

Defrost heater bad, defrost thermostat bad or Defrost timer. Defrost heater and Thermostat can be continuity checked. Defrost thermostat can only be checked if at freezer temperature. Both should show continuity if good. If those two test good the process of elimination means it's the defrost timer. Always unplug refrig when performing these checks

If the refrigerator is not icing up it could be the defrost thermostat making the defrost cycle initiate every time the defrost timer makes defrost available. I do not recommend by-passing the defrost cycle, have the switch checked and replaced if needed.

The only way to eliminate the thermostat is to remove and test the 2 connections while changing the settings. Or place a similar thermostat in its place to see the results. Thermostats can stick on or off.