Flathead meets mini fridge

[TridenT]

Flathead attacks.
Mini fridge is hit! It's super effective!
Mini fridge uses freon leak!
You lose!

I was trying to use my flathead screw driver to take the built up ice (So much you couldn't get anything in there to cool down) and I had just learned that the freon actually goes through the metal plate in those mini fridges. (I didn't know that, I thought it just cooled it through contact within the plastic, not by freon going through it. Makes sense.) But I hadn't really thought that my flathead would have gone through the ice and then through one of the grooves that the freon flowed through...

Bam, it did. Critical hit. I was doing this outside since I had already taken a small butane torch (it's for soldering) to the ice. (Fire hazard for indoors, apparently!) That didn't work well either since it was really windy out and there was so much ice. (That's when I decided to take the flathead to it) I knew that the torch could heat up the freon and make it a huge problem, but there was so much ice that I wasn't worried. (I never heated the plate directly, always with some ice in the way; if it was heated enough, the ice would vanish, and I'd stop.) Needless to say, the fridge is going to the dump. It wasn't my fridge. It was the office's. Some people found it amusing, some found it disturbing. Some thought, "How the fuck did you not figure that would happen?" Of course, it never occurred to me until it happened and I was like, "Oh, didn't think about that one."

The alternative solution that some were recommending? Leave it in the office and unplugged to thaw over the weekend. There were some major logistics problems to that one though. Such as, how are we going to stop all the water from going everywhere? No one figured that out. That's what's going to happen this weekend regardless now. It'll be thrown away on Monday. Needless to say, I bet there will be some quite damp floors.

 

[_Rick_]

You put it over sink for the de-icing.
Or you leave it out over a work-day. Should be enough to de-ice.

Another protip: fill it with warm water to de-ice.

NEXT TIME AROUND!

 

[eldorado99]

If you told this to me in real life then my response to you would get me banned on here, so good work.

 

[DesiPower]

poor ozone layer..

 

[Red Squirrel]

I was watching a TV show and a guy did something like that. They were saying that if you got that stuff in the eye you could go blind for life.

It's serious business!

To defrost a mini fridge I just put stuff in another fridge and unplug it.

 

[waffleironhead]

Heat gun or hairdryer

 

[TridenT]

You put it over sink for the de-icing.
Or you leave it out over a work-day. Should be enough to de-ice.

Another protip: fill it with warm water to de-ice.

NEXT TIME AROUND!

It was quite a bit of ice. It might take more than overnight. Still, there was no sink that we could put it over and the water would still be an issue.

I was trying to get around that, but whatev.

 

[tortillasoup]

If it makes you feel any better, I did the same thing to a mini fridge I owned. Had to buy a replacement and I made sure it was a frost free unit.

 

[TridenT]

If it makes you feel any better, I did the same thing to a mini fridge I owned. Had to buy a replacement and I made sure it was a frost free unit.

Yeah, I'm thinking of buying a replacement off Craigslist for the office. I'm going to get a frost free one if I can manage it.

 

[NutBucket]

No such thing as a frost free mini-fridge...generally speaking.

 

[Murloc]

this is so convoluted.
Leaving it on the toilet or in a plastic basin over the weekend would have been too difficult?

 

[Lonyo]

Normally for some ice I use a wooden or plastic, a bit like a flat bladed paint stripping tool.

Or put in a bowl of hot water and let that heat up the insides to speed up the melting of the ice.

Using a screwdriver sounds like the most idiotic thing to do in the world, because you can both damage it, and it's also not an effective tool for the job since they have no surface area.

 

[destrekor]

You could take it outside... could you not leave it outside? Even for a little while?

Even if you couldn't melt all the ice, some time exposed to regular temperature could make the ice start falling off the sides, or make it easier to break up.

Must be like me - smart, but can have some real dumbass moments where the brain has seemingly ceased to process logic.

 

[Schfifty Five]

Always something going on with Trident. I swear you break shit or get shit stolen just so you can create a thread on here.

 

[Red Squirrel]

No such thing as a frost free mini-fridge...generally speaking.

The issue is most mini fridges have a freezer, and it's very badly insulated from the rest of the fridge. Ours at work has like 3 inches of ice in it and it's because of the freezre. The little door is just a plastic flap that swivels up and down, there's no actual seal.

Every now and then on night shift if there's not much in it I'll unplug it and let the ice melt. There's a plastic tray at the bottom so the water just collects in there. Not sure if this tray came with the fridge or someone put it there for that purpose, but it works well.

I had a mini fridge in my room when I lived with my parents and it never frosted. Though at one point it just died. I should have tried harder to fix it, it was probably just a capacitor in the power supply. Basically the compressor and lights and all electrical would go on/off at about 1/2 of a second. Could have even been some kind of relay that kept going on and off.