Fixing broken Haier HRF-336SS fridge

Recently my five-year-old Haier HRF-336SS refrigerator suddenly broke down. It stopped cooling, there was a clicking noise coming from the back and the light inside the fridge was flickering. I disconnected the fridge from power, plugged it back and now it was also making a beeping sound every 5 seconds, and a red "alarm" notification appeared on the LCD panel.

The clicking noise was coming from behind of this panel, so I removed it:

There were two PCB boards behind the panel:

The clicking noise was coming specifically from a blue relay on the white PCB. I didn't immediately see any signs of a burned component or other malfunction, so I thought that perhaps the blue clicking relay was broken. I called Haier support and they scheduled a technician to come and check the fridge. The technician finally came over two days later, and after checking the fridge, he informed that they don't sell this model of the fridge anymore, and they don't have spare parts required to fix it. The recommendation from the technician was to buy a new fridge.

I wasn't happy with this, as the lifespan of a typical fridge should be at least 14 years, and it should be possible to repair what looked like some issue with electronics. Hence, I decided to try to fix it myself.

I removed the white PCB to check for any signs of broken electronics. Upon close inspection, I noticed one bulged capacitor:

No other issue with the white PCB was visible and the green PCB also looked perfectly fine. Hence, I simply replaced the bulged capacitor with a new one. Here's the same PCB after this quick fix:

I connected everything back together and turned on the fridge. Surprisingly, it worked perfectly fine. A simple replacement of a single broken capacitor was all that what was required to fix the fridge. There's one less fridge in the landfills, hopefully for another few years.

Perhaps don't listen to the tech support when they tell you to replace broken electronics. Try to fix it first.

Update: 1 month later the fridge still works fine.

ID: Perbaikan kulkas Haier HRF-336SS.

Banana spiders & trail running in Indonesia

Banana spiders just love to spin their webs above dirt paths just to catch tall trail runners and land on their heads. This one caught me today in it's web. Just one of the perks of trail running in Indonesia.

I couldn't resist teasing it a bit:

Deforestation at Gunung Pancar

The Gunung Pancar (Taman Wisata Alam Gunung Pancar) is my favorite trail running location. It is close to Jakarta, with lots of great trails covered with trees - running in the shade of pine trees in tropical Indonesia feels great. This afternoon I ran on my old trail around Gunung Pancar and discovered significant deforestation at the area. Also, when I got there, two trees surrounded by the new plantation were set on fire:

Meanwhile, beside setting trees on fire, this guy was busy chopping down nearby trees - you can see his face clearly on zoom:

He didn't like that I put out the fire, so I fled before he showed up near me with his machete:

This area is owned by Forestry Department (Departemen Kehutanan) and this activity is illegal, but nobody seems to bother. The trees visible on Google Earth are no longer there and it looks like pine trees at Gunung Pancar will soon be gone, replaced with illegal plantations. Meanwhile, people responsible for guarding this area do not appear to be doing much beside collecting the money for entrance to the park.

But, not everything is lost. Few kilometers from the place with burning trees, I found Eco Edu Forest that appears to be sponsored by PT Astra International with 130 trees planted:

This Eco Edu Forest is located here. They also installed warning sign informing about potential 10 years jail time for chopping down trees:

Big thank you Astra International! Here you can read more about their CSR project. As you can see on my photos, this project is real and really important. I really appreciate this eco contribution from Astra International.

Garuda vs Lion Air

One of the reasons I don't fly with Lion Air:

Wonderful Indonesia

The 2012 Wonderful Indonesia promotion video "Feeling is Believing " is indeed really wonderful:

I also like this video:

I also found this little gem on YouTube:

Overall, great job Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy! Looking forward to 2013 videos, keep up the good work.

Tree ferns of Java (Cyathea)

Photos of Cyathea tree ferns I took on a trail run around Gunung Pancar (West Java, Indonesia):

Tree ferns do not form new woody tissue in their trunk as they grow. Rather, the trunk is supported by a fibrous mass of roots that expands as the tree fern grows.

More info about Cyathea on this site.