I see it happen after a power “event” during storms — a generator kicking on, lightning, power sags or brownouts, or outages — that the refrigerator will trip the breaker. I’ll get there and the non-serviceable fuse on the control board is blown. I’ll replace it and the fuse will blow, and trip the breaker again.
LG Refrigerator Control Board
After a power event
What's actually shorted
What I’ve figured out with these is that the bridge rectifiers are shorted, causing a direct short on the L1 and N power input to the control. It’s the same as plugging this in Bam — do not pass go, do not collect $200, go directly to short. The breaker does its job, kills the circuit, and that’s that. Breakers don’t give second chances.
Why a whole new board is a headache
It’s a pretty cut-and-dry diagnostic that the control is bad and needs to be replaced. There’s only about 2,000 different LG refrigerator control boards, and contrary to popular belief they don’t really go bad that often. They do — but in my opinion they have a pretty low failure rate.
With the number of boards they sell and the number they stock, they can take time to receive. Downtime = no fun. LG parts lookups are notorious for errors because of serial breaks, so they don’t always get the right control the first time. I’ve had this happen a lot with the Korean brands. You can only look up by model number, and the board is specific to the serial number. It’s very half-assed and causes a lot of problems, but that’s the way it is and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Example replacement board MSRP $623.53 (photo attached) — that doesn’t include the service call, labor, shipping, or tax.
The fix: replace the bridge rectifier
I can replace the bridge rectifier — and have, many many many times — to get the refrigerator running again within 15 minutes instead of 15 days. That’s a big deal.
Not only that, I can do the repair for about the cost of the replacement control board — not the board plus the service call and labor and shipping and tax — so it saves you a lot of money. It’s a good fix, a quick fix, and a reliable fix with new components. It’s a win-win for all, so I love it.
Call The Appliance Technician
If your LG fridge tripped the breaker after a storm, generator kick-on, brownout, or outage, don’t assume you’re stuck waiting weeks for a board. Call and we’ll see if a bridge rectifier repair gets you running the same day.