These letters are labels rather than faults. Stepped through its readings, the control names each sensor before showing its temperature: F the freezer, r the refrigerator, FE and rE the two coils, IL a line the model leaves unused.
- What the control is watching
- Nothing new. The letters are simply how the display identifies which of the cabinet's several sensors the number beside them belongs to.
- What makes it register
- Nothing trips them. They appear when somebody steps the control through its readings, a deliberate act rather than a symptom.
- Can you keep using it
- Yes. A letter by itself is no reason to stop using the cabinet; what matters is the temperature printed next to it, or the absence of one.
Anybody who meets these letters has usually arrived by accident, or by watching somebody work. They belong to the mode the control is stepped into to read temperatures one sensor at a time, and each letter labels the reading that follows.
Which labels a cabinet offers is settled by what is inside it. A combination unit names all four, both compartments and both coils; a single-purpose cabinet names only its own pair. On some older 600 Series the manufacturer’s table also carries IL, an inactive line the control provides and that model does not use.
None of it is a diagnosis. It becomes one only when the number that should follow a letter is missing.
What we usually find
-
An owner reporting a letter code after finding the panel in an unfamiliar state
A key combination pressed by accident, often while wiping the panel down. Nothing was altered and nothing was stored, and the display comes back to itself.
Quoted after the diagnosis
-
A display offering only F and FE, with the owner sure two sensors have gone missing
An all-freezer cabinet. Which labels appear is decided by the model: a freezer-only unit has no refrigerator to name, and refrigerator-only models show their own pair.
Quoted after the diagnosis
-
EE where one of these letters should have a number beside it
The one case here that is a fault. The label is still doing its work: it names the sensor the control can no longer read, which tells a technician where to begin.
Defrost heater, thermostat or sensor $280–$640
Which of these it is gets settled at the visit, before a part is ordered — Sub-Zero Repair Pro Los Angeles, (310) 844-1973.
- Written by
- Yuki Tanabe
- Role
- Refrigeration technician — controls and sensors
- In the trade
- 18 years in the trade
