Patent ID: 8915094

Claim:
A refrigerator comprising a compressor that supplies chilled air into a refrigerator compartment and a freezer compartment, the refrigerator comprising: one of a variable resistor or a negative temperature coefficient thermistor that prevents an excessive current from being supplied when an input power is supplied to the refrigerator; a bypass switch connected to one of the variable resistor or the negative temperature coefficient thermistor to bypass the input power; a voltage measuring device that measures a voltage of rectified and smoothed input power; an inverter that re-converts the rectified and smoothed input power into AC power and applies the converted AC power to the compressor; and a controller that controls the input power input through one of the variable resistor or the negative temperature coefficient thermistor to bypass to the bypass switch when the voltage measured by the voltage measuring device is greater than a reference voltage, and creates a switching signal for controlling the inverter and applies the switching signal to the inverter, when the voltage measured by the voltage measuring device is greater than the reference voltage, to recover an inrush current preventing function of one of the variable resistor or the negative temperature coefficient thermistor, and to drive the compressor, wherein when a re-driving command from the controller to the compressor is input after the compressor is driven for a predetermined time period and is stopped, the controller controls the compressor to re-drive immediately, so that the refrigerator immediately re-operates, wherein a resistance of one of the variable resistor or the negative temperature coefficient thermistor decreases due to heat generated when an electric power is applied, and increases as the heat decreases when the electric power is not applied or current of the applied electric power decreases, wherein when the input power is bypassed, the current flowing through one of the variable resistor or the negative temperature coefficient thermistor decreases or does not flow so that the resistance of one of the variable resistor or the negative temperature coefficient thermistor increases and the inrush current preventing function of one of the variable resistor or the negative temperature coefficient thermistor recovers, and wherein the reference voltage is set as a predetermined operational voltage for driving the compressor motor.