Fridge appears to have died :(

wesslvm · 06-02-2013, 02:22 PM

We recently picked up our brand new 2014 FR Sunseeker 3050 Class C motor home.

The MH has a Dometic 1350 4 door reefer. Over the first week the unit worked fine. Ran it on propane on the drive from the dealer to the campground and ran it on AC for the next week.

We closed up the camper for the week (no AC power, reefer on LP) and today I went to the camper and found the reefer flashing high temp of 60 degrees. I plugged in the AC power and cycled off and on the reefer. No cooling at all! The lights are on when the doors are opened and my control panel responds as expected.

What little food was in the reefer has been disposed of. I'm not sure, but I think I smell a feint odor, not sure how to describe it.

I removed the outside cover, didn't see anything amiss.

I've left a message with our RV dealer's service department, expecting a call in the morning.

The RV dealer is 1.5 hours away. I'm hoping this is something that can be rectified without a trip to the dealer.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Wes

BarryD0706 · 06-02-2013, 03:07 PM

You left your RV for a week with no AC power with the battery-disconnect still connected?

There are many things in an RV that draw battery power, including the fridge, even when it's using propane. I imagine the battery got too low to power the fridge in that time.

So when you put it back on AC power, how long did you wait for it to get cool? It can take 4 hours before it cools down much, except that you should notice the freezer getting cold before then.

**bikendan** · 06-02-2013, 03:31 PM

a common mistake new owner make, is expecting the fridge to cool quickly, especially on 110vAC.

it can take hours for an absorption RV fridge/freezer to get cold. and it takes longer on shore power than it does on propane. remember, RV fridges are NOT like your one at home. there's no compressor motor to cool it down quickly.

and if you left the trailer without shore power, the house battery will be dead easily and unable to run the fridge on propane. and the battery may not recharge fully anymore from being run down so far.

sounds to me like there's nothing wrong with the fridge.
did you check the house battery?

wesslvm · 06-02-2013, 04:15 PM

Barry,

Thanks for the reply, and I think you are probably correct. I knew that I was going to be off AC power for three days, which turned into six days.

My old travel trailer did not use much for DC loads when nobody was in the camper, and it only had one battery. I could run the reefer, DC lights, and fantastic fan for a weekend of dry camping.

I suppose even with two batteries it is too much to expect to run the fridge for 5 or six days on propane?

Live and learn I guess.

I just turned the fridge back on and will check on it tomorrow or later tonight.

Thanks,

Wes (feeling a little stupid!)

wesslvm · 06-02-2013, 04:36 PM

Thanks for the reply Dan,

I'm sure I didn't give it enough time. It is on now and I'll go check it later tonight or early tomorrow.

I did check the battery, but forgot that I already had turned on the AC so all I saw was a charging battery.

I checked it again just now (after three hours on the charger) and it is fully charged (I turned off the AC this time!).

I doubt the batteries are damaged, just maybe shortened their life a bit. On the bright side, some times a full (but not excessive) discharge is good for deep cycle batteries, as long as you don't reverse a cell.

Hopefully the only thing wrong is a new owner making a rookie mistake!

Wes

Quote:

Originally Posted by bikendan

a common mistake new owner make, is expecting the fridge to cool quickly, especially on 110vAC.

it can take hours for an absorption RV fridge/freezer to get cold. and it takes longer on shore power than it does on propane. remember, RV fridges are NOT like your one at home. there's no compressor motor to cool it down quickly.

and if you left the trailer without shore power, the house battery will be dead easily and unable to run the fridge on propane. and the battery may not recharge fully anymore from being run down so far.

sounds to me like there's nothing wrong with the fridge.
did you check the house battery?

**bikendan** · 06-02-2013, 05:05 PM

newer RV's have many more parasitic power drains than older RV's, especially the propane detector, which is hard-wired.
and your newer fridge/freezer is much bigger than the one in your old trailer, i'm assuming, therefore requires more battery power to keep it cool on propane.
it would be highly unusual for a brand new fridge to be bad. not impossible but the odds would be very low.

DXSMac · 06-02-2013, 08:52 PM

One other thing. There is a tiny "reset" switch hidden in the fridge panel. I didn't know this until my fridg went "poof" (I had the FR Sunseeker 3120 at the time) and an RV dealer showed me the reset switch and didn't charge me a thing.

On the other hand, I did have a fridge on a prior RV that went POOF and HAD to be replaced under warranty, I think it went POOF when I stayed in a VERY UNLEVEL site one night and operated on propane.

wesslvm · 06-03-2013, 10:43 AM

Checked it out this morning, working just fine.

Thanks for all the operating experience.

Now I'll have to learn what all the "parasitic" DC loads are and learn what I can do to minimize them when off of shore power.

Can't really justify solar panels when I have a generator at the ready, but any thoughts on amount of draw (in amps) the parasitic DC loads are? Maybe I should save that for another thread?

Thanks,

Wes

**ependydad** · 06-03-2013, 10:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wesslvm

Can't really justify solar panels when I have a generator at the ready, but any thoughts on amount of draw (in amps) the parasitic DC loads are? Maybe I should save that for another thread?

Wes, I think there's a sticky thread somewhere that describes various appliances and their average load.

TURBS · 06-03-2013, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ependydad

Wes, I think there's a sticky thread somewhere that describes various appliances and their average load.

http://www.forestriverforums.com/for...aws-17300.html

Turbs

wesslvm · 06-03-2013, 11:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by f1100turbo

http://www.forestriverforums.com/for...aws-17300.html

Turbs

Thanks, good info for future reference.

Wes

BarryD0706 · 06-03-2013, 12:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wesslvm

Checked it out this morning, working just fine.

Thanks for all the operating experience.

Now I'll have to learn what all the "parasitic" DC loads are and learn what I can do to minimize them when off of shore power.

Can't really justify solar panels when I have a generator at the ready, but any thoughts on amount of draw (in amps) the parasitic DC loads are? Maybe I should save that for another thread?

Thanks,

Wes

Very glad to hear that your fridge is still good.

You could rig up something to allow you to power just your fridge and not any of the other parasitic devices if that would buy you much. Rather than estimating numbers, I think you need to use an ammeter to determine how much current is actually being drawn. I would start by pulling the fuse for the fridge and see how much the "parasites" are using. Make sure you turn off everything you can (like the thermostat for instance).

Then put the fridge fuse back in and look at current draw for that. It's going to be in three parts:
- Power for the electronic controls (~ constant)
- Power for the gas solenoid
- Power for any fans.

Since the second two will not be drawn except for say 30% of the time (but will be bigger numbers) you would have to figure out how to measure on vs. off currents for those.

Once you know what the current draw will be, you can calculate how much battery you need.

As an example lets just use 1 amp continuous times 168 hours per week =168 amp-hours.

Let's use 4 more amps (total 5) when those things are on: 4 * 168 * 30% = 201 amp-hours.

So that's a total of 369 amp-hours. Since you don't want to discharge your batteries more than 50% of capacity, you need 369/.5 = 738 amp-hours of battery capacity. (Currents are low so no derating due to higher currents per Peukert's Law.)

So 8 batteries of 100 amp-hour capacity rating should do you just fine! (No, I don't think that's practical.) Hopefully someone like Lou (Herk7769) will check my math. He's the real expert on this stuff.

F and E Damp · 06-03-2013, 10:07 PM

You're a lucky man. I guess because your rig is fairly new, you didn't have the same problem I did. Mine is an '02.

We were getting ready for our first trip of the season. 4 days ahead, I closed up the fridge and turned it on auto. The "AC" light came on and I assumed everything would be cool in a couple of days. Wrong - that day before we were due to leave, I checked the fridge temp and it was 68F!

I did a search on this forum and found an informative post about fridges. The poster said "take the outside cover off and see if there are any yellow powder deposits round the base of the flue. If there are, your cooling unit has died".

I took the cover off and there were deposits, maybe a couple of tablespoons full, of powdered sulphur. We went on out trip to the Oregon Coast anyway, but two weeks of buying ice every day got to be a real chore.

Almost $1800 later, we have a new Dometic fridge installed and this one has a temperature adjustment feature that the old one didn't. I have a hard time accepting that a fridge manufacturer can say "we know better than you what temperature your food should be at" and not provide an adjustable thermostat. Although the old one was a Dometic, it was made in Sweden.

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