Modchipping a Fridge | Hacker News Reader

Modchipping a Fridge

kennedn.com

39 pointskennedn22 comments

I modded my fridge... I went armed with an Arduino... And when I got to the fridge main control board I found it was already an Arduino! Or at least it was an atmel 168p running the Arduino bootloader with the distinctive 1 second startup delay.

It is a US style fridge freezer, but made in Turkey for the EU market. 1 compressor, 2 fans, 1 defrost heater, 1 door edge heater, 2 door switches, 1 light, 4 temperature sensors, an LCD screen, 2 status LED's, buzzer and a button.

Alas - I couldn't be bothered to reimplement all the fridge functionality or disassemble the assembly code, and I realised the mod I wanted (disable the door edge heater) could be achieved by simply unplugging the wire.

Meta discussion: The article is brilliant (my fridge hassles me too!) but makes two small word usage “errors” by using the phrase “dawn it’s Freon cap”

The first “error” (I’m mostly a descriptivist) is incredibly common: using “it’s” when “its” is “correct”. The second “error” is much less common: using “dawn” when “don” is “correct”.

Is this just a case of autocorrect being “helpful”? :D

don its freon cap

sorry just had to write out the correct version after parsing your comment

maybe it's a voice dictation thing?

Most of these built-in fridges have some (non-obvious) method to remove them from the wall fairly easily. Typically, built in fridges are mounted using a couple screws (check the manual) to the underside of the top cabinetry, and are simply slid into their slot.

This may be useful information in case you decide you feel like cleaning the condenser fan, which may help the fridge work better and more efficiently.

If OP was interested in their fridge working more efficiently, they probably wouldn't have become so invested in being able to leave the door open for so long without being warned about it.

Is this one of those chatgpt comments?

I have the unfortunate "habit" of writing in the style of chatgpt, even before chatgpt existed. So no, not a chatgpt comment.

The article is about stopping the fridge beeping when you leave the door open.

Your comment is about removing a fridge from the wall.

Maybe you should reread the article? The introductory motivational paragraph talks about the difficulty of getting to the main board which is in the back of the fridge.

It's not the style so much as commenting on a random unimportant part of the article instead of the substance of the article. I had to reread to figure out why you were addressing the ability to move the fridge since it didn't even click as being mentioned in the article on the first read.

I installed the fridge freezer myself a few years back, its inside an integrated unit and fairly complicated to remove. I would need to gut the fridge freezer of items, detach and remove the front unit doors from the fridge, detach the fridge from the side panels and the wall, remove the skirting to get under to remove the wall plug and then physically and delicately lift the fridge freezer to be able to slide it out. This is all without the guarantee that there is even a convenient way to gain access the main board.

We need technology to be either so stupid it's easy to adapt, or so smart it adapts to us.

But not smart enough to betray us.

Alternately, attack the problem from the perspective of ownership.

My refrigerator is capital equipment, I--possibly with the help of other purchasers--should be able to make it "smarter" or "dumber" as I please.

DMCA says no. Only large corporations are allowed to do what they please with their and your stuff.

Although, a lot of them aren't allowed to, either. The difference is they're more daring to break laws they don't like, and less likely to suffer consequences, possibly because the government sees the amount of collateral damage it would create.

I’ve lost count of the similar mods I have done on various household items over the years. Often timer related like this one… but I would have used an attiny85 or similar MCU instead of the 555 because of the lower parts count and less analog parts to drift out of spec or dry out. I’ve found that just with a drawerfull of attiny chips I don’t have to keep a cabinet full of other stuff, and so far I’ve only noticed improvements in reliability despite the fact that I’m throwing 100,000+ times the complexity at the problem to be solved. For many jobs it’s 6-8 pins and you’re done, and a dead-bug SOIC in shrink wrap is tiny.

Interesting not seen a fridge that beeps like that before.

Thought the article might have been going to be about removing the thermostat and adding your own temp controller. I did that and switched to using an electronic temp controller, for use during fermentation.

cool hack and all, but id question what requirement there is to intentionally leave your fridge open for more than a minute and waste copious amounts of energy to get back to original temp.

Some people like to solve problems that don't exist and then try to convince the rest of us that the problem did exist so we can pat them on the back. Generally the only time the fridge would need to be open longer than a minute is if you're cleaning it or adding new groceries and rearranging things, but in those situations it's trivial to press the alarm off button.

Right? I was raised that way. My girlfriend clearly wasn't. I always close the door in between grabbing/fetching more stuff to put inside. It takes a couple of seconds I guess, but keeping it open for a long time is just really wasteful.

Groceries and cleaning come to mind. To be honest it is a very minor inconvenience but I have been looking for an excuse to get my hands dirty with reverse engineering a circuit. The problem was just annoying enough to act as a motivator.

Love the lengths some people will go to to solve a (für other people at least) minor annoyance.

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those

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