keezer making funny noises

I built a keezer (still need to get pics and post 'em to the "show us your" thread), and it's working, and I love it.

However, I've noticed that, when the temp controller kicks the chest freezer on, the chest freezer sounds like a sea lion making sweet love to a fax machine. It settles down after a few minutes and sounds like a normal running chest freezer. Given this was a craigslist special, though, I'm wondering if I should be worried about it.

I know there are some folks on here who know a whole lot more about this machinery than I do. Is there anything I can check? Or should I just wait for it to blow and plan to rebuild on a new unit when the time comes?

Thank ya kindly!

-j

I have two questions.
1. What does "a sea lion making sweet love to a fax machine" sound like?
2. How do you know what "a sea lion making sweet love to a fax machine" sounds like??

I'll have to record it and post it. It's kind of whiny and high pitched, with some almost fax machine or analog modem sounding patterns to it. Remember the 300 baud days? Sounds not unlike those old things connecting/talking.

I just walked in on it making the noise (just caught the tail end of it.)

I was able to record a very faint sound recording with my iPhone. I have published it at http://greerranch.com/jeff/Memo.m4a

Thanks!

-j

Do you have a fan on it ?

Mine sounds the exact same way since I bought it new.

Sounds like a fan rubbing? Maybe the compressor motor or a fan is out of alignment and is rubbing against a housing until it gets up to speed enough to flex out (or in this case back into) the correct position? Open up wherever there's a fan or where the compressor is and watch it spin up into speed and see if you can see any rubbing. You have have to adjust it's position.

Thanks! No PC fan installed yet. I will check the compressor area. I thought it sounded like the coolant was having trouble getting through the pipes or something. Fan noise sounds more fixable.

-j

Oh yah I'd say both the sea lion and the fax machine are gettin theirs alright. I've heard them make that kind of sound before, I think it's a combination of the refrigerant starting to liquefy along with various pieces and parts contracting as they cool down/expanding as they warm up.

+1 to porcupine73. My new kenmore does exactly the same thing for a minute or two. Then it settles down to only the slight compressor noise.

Just for fun I googled 'sea lion fax machine' and you know what, this page is #2! But not outranking the powerful Wikipedia sea lion page though of course ...

I have a 2 year old kenmore 20 cf mine is super quite just a small compressor hum.

So maybe more like a grasshopper making sweet love to Vic-20?