Dometic Fridge not working on electric, but does on propane?

[iqraceworks]

We took our 2011 Zinger camper out this weekend. We loaded it up Thursday night and switched the fridge “gas” so that it cooled down faster. We headed out of town Friday morning, and got to camp Friday afternoon. I switched the fridge over to “Auto” which should have forced it to run on electric.

Everything seemed fine, but when we opened the freezer Saturday night, it was melted….and we noticed that the freezer and fridge were getting warm.


I went ahead and switched it back over to “gas”….and luckily, in a few hours everything started getting cool again.


Any idea on where to start troubleshooting this issue? Could the control panel with the on/off and gas/auto buttons be faulty?


Any other ideas?

[javelin]

Well as you know when the fridge is set on auto mode the shore 120vac power is takes priority over the propane alternative. If your fridge wont heat on shore power, but works fine on gas then you focus your attention on the 120vac feed to the fridge for some easy checks first and then if you have a voltmeter you can do some others tests as a followup to try to isolate the problem.


The easy ones:
- check all GFI outlets inside and outside if equipped because they may in fact feed the fridge 120vac
- check that the coach is in fact getting shore power to other devices like the microwave, A/C, 120vac outlets etc.
- all AC breakers are on and not tripped
- has the front fridge panel caused any intermittant problems before when switching to Auto mode?


The voltmeter ones: If you are not comfortable working on AC circuits have a proper service person investigate:
- open up the exterior fridge vent panel so you can access the control board and 120VAC outlet mounted on the wall.
- verify that when set to auto and all other AC is known to be good in the coach, that there is 120VAC on the outlet inside the external cavity of the fridge.
- if outlet is good then your problem could be the control board; fusing; or bad heating element mounted in the chimney pipe about the propane burner. You will need to isolate the trouble.


Attaching a Utube video that shows a typical troubleshoot of this problem.....a bit long but......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aE_4SuljE4

[Beau388]

1. There is a 120 volt fuse (2 amp AGC) on the circuit board that often blows if the board gets wet.

[iqraceworks]

****UPDATE****

Well, before I did any troubleshooting.....I went ahead and plugged the camper back into shore power....turned the fridge on, and put it on "auto".....so it was running on power, not gas.

I checked it about an hour later....and sure enough, the freezer was getting frosty.

So at this point...it's not a fuse, or a bad 120v receptacle.....it's intermittent. How do I even start checking things now when it's working fine? Does that sound like a bad board or control panel? I thought that when those go bad.....they go bad, they don't start working again after a few days.

Ideas?

[javelin]

Intermittent electrical troubles are the hardest to repair because, how do you fix something that is working? This problem could be anything from a corroded or loose wire or AC plug connection to a bad solder joint or copper trace crack on a fridge circuit board and may have resulted from the vibrations of coach travel, or simply a marginal quality component. Until it fails again you can visually inspect the various visible connections for obvious looseness or corrosion.....and be prepared to do some testing when (if) it fails again.

[RV20192]

I have a Norcold refrigerator which acts kind of this.

Even when on shore power, and in temperatures around or above 60, it will not start on AC nor stay in AUTO, it switches to PROPANE after a few seconds.

However, after a minute or 2, I can then select AC or AUTO, and it keeps on running on electric.

Once the temperatures are lower, it will start or stay on AC or AUTO/electric.

[greg&bev]

My Norwood n8xrt on this trip would run on shore power, breakers ok fuse in panel ok and when on electric and propane or just propane it worked fine.when I would turn on shore in 5 seconds the green light would go to red.are there any fuses in the outside panel? Just not sure what to try next,

[16ACE27]

Originally Posted by greg&bev

My Norwood n8xrt on this trip would run on shore power, breakers ok fuse in panel ok and when on electric and propane or just propane it worked fine.when I would turn on shore in 5 seconds the green light would go to red.are there any fuses in the outside panel? Just not sure what to try next,

I assume you mean NORCOLD N8X model? Closest I could find here:

https://norcold.com/product-manuals/

So what is your problem? You said on "this trip would run on shore power, breakers ok fuse in panel ok and when on electric and propane or just propane it worked fine."

The refrigerator requires 12 VDC control power from The house DC buss to operate. It can then use 120 VAC from SP or the generator to cool, OR, propane to cool.

A solid RED light means it tried to operate on the selected source (gas or electric) and was not able to. You would not get the light if you did not have the 12 VDC control power.

For gas, you obviously need propane available.
For electric, you need 120 VAC available (breaker shut in the Power Center).

Beyond that you need a good control board in the fridge and an intact colling system.