Freezer Problem

[bldbnkr]

I have an under the counter Follett Plasma freezer, 5 years old.  Traditionally it runs at -34 degrees C, and cycles to defrost 4x per day going up to -30 and back again.  The problem began when the OR tendon freezer (a similar model) had a issue last month and our maintenance department decided to "look" at my freezer to see if they could figure out what was wrong with the OR freezer (?why).  I ended up emergently storing the OR tendons, meanwhile my own freezer defrost Cycles became shorter...they went from -34 to -33 4 x per day.  I put in a work order to figure out why suddenly these cycles stopped being 4 degrees warmer and I learn that when maintenance "looked" at my freezer, they noticed ice built up behind the cabinet (and did nothing about it).  So they powered it down and did the defrost and PM on it.  When they plugged it back it, it continues with the 1 degree defrost cycles.  I asked them again to fix it, and they moved the temperature probe in the back of the drawer.  Still no solution.  I called Follett myself and got a tech rep who told me that it was a "good" thing that my cycle temps were smaller....and that some units cycle -18 degrees while defrosting.  I pressed him "what if the thing is not effectively defrosting with such a small warming temp" and he said "if it does not defrost properly then it will build up ice and cause an alarm and then you will know it is not working properly".  What kind of answer is that?  Anyway...has anyone had a similar problem?  I am wondering if I should attempt to reset the defrost cycles on the little temperature panel.  I just have that gut feeling that this unit is not operating properly and I really do not want to store plasma in it while it is acting this way.  Thank you!

[pbaker]

When ice builds up in our freezer, the defrost temp tends to peak much higher, sometimes out of range.  If we let that go on too long, the freezer dies completely.  After we do a manual defrost, the defrost temp stays much lower.  So I think your maintenance guys are right that it only needs a small defrost range.