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  1. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by xrated View Post
    Holy Cow....110 degrees. That's brutal. I'm hoping that mine will really make a difference. On the Norcold 2118 that i have, the thermistor that controls the fans is preset to not kick on until it senses 130 degrees. By then, it's too late and the frig never catches up....plus they really don't move that much are anyway. They also located the thermistor on the very outside edge of one of the fins on the condensor.....way too far away from the tube that is carrying the amonia...so no telling how hot it is there.

    It’s a dry heat lol. Sounds like although they are different brand refrigerators they are setup similar. When my 4 exterior fans would run the hot air they created couldn’t “exit” the black vent area. That was why I wanted to try what we did so I could help exhaust the air better. So far I have:

    1. Installed insulation around the fridge
    2. Installed interior fans
    3. Added a new condensation drip hose with a loop in it that I keep water in so hot air doesn’t work it’s way into the fridge.
    4. Adjusted door flap
    5. Did the exhaust fan mod on top exterior vent
    6. I have experimented with the lower temp cut on (85 degrees) for exterior fans but it ran almost non-stop (although it did seem to help). I will probably add that back in the next few days
    7. I also don’t allow the fridge to do the defrost cycle
    8. Turned off condensation heater strip to decrease battery consumption and maybe reduce heat?
    2013 Ram Cummins 3500
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  2. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Justa5th View Post
    It’s a dry heat lol. Sounds like although they are different brand refrigerators they are setup similar. When my 4 exterior fans would run the hot air they created couldn’t “exit” the black vent area. That was why I wanted to try what we did so I could help exhaust the air better. So far I have:

    1. Installed insulation around the fridge
    2. Installed interior fans
    3. Added a new condensation drip hose with a loop in it that I keep water in so hot air doesn’t work it’s way into the fridge.
    4. Adjusted door flap
    5. Did the exhaust fan mod on top exterior vent
    6. I have experimented with the lower temp cut on (85 degrees) for exterior fans but it ran almost non-stop (although it did seem to help). I will probably add that back in the next few days
    7. I also don’t allow the fridge to do the defrost cycle
    8. Turned off condensation heater strip to decrease battery consumption and maybe reduce heat?
    I did the door flap thing on the Norcold too, and that made a pretty big improvement. When the flap doesn't close all the way, it's like not shutting the door completely and the cold air in the frig just falls out on the floor. Mine is insulated very well around the outside of the frig, no complaints there. The new fan system will start the fans when the temperature in the compartment area behind the frig gets to 68 degrees. Hopefully, with it starting much earlier than the OEM fans, the frig will not have to try and keep up after falling behind. I guess we'll see sometime this summer when it heats up down here. I'm just praying that it NEVER gets to 110.....that's just too hot for me.
    2016 F350 CrewCab Dually
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  3. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mikec557 View Post
    First a big thank you to all who have posted "how to(s)". Learning from those allows me to tackle the projects I have taken on.

    And fair warning, this is a long post.

    Okay, here's the story. We full time and our fridge is a Dometic 2862, 2 door, 8 cubic foot, using either 120vac or propane. It's about 11 months old and we turned it off for maybe 2 months around the holidays. It is located inside the slide-out of our Reflection 29RS. By definition, this means that it struggles to exhaust the hot air out the upper access panel. During July and August, we were in a few locations that had 100-105 degree days. In some locations, the sun was beating down on the reefer side; in other locations, the reefer side was in the afternoon shade. Regardless, the inside of the reefer struggled to keep things cold. Nothing I hate worse than warm milk. Our model has only one fan, and its hooked to a thermostat mounted high on the back of the fridge, which I think is a 130 or 135 degree on/off switch. The fan would come on, but it was infective. I decided to install both outside fans to help move the air up the chimney and out; and inside fans to help circulate the cold air near the cold-sync on the inside back wall of the fridge. One or the other fan kit "may" have been sufficient, but I decided overkill was the way to go. I should mention that sometimes we put too much food inside the fridge, but we're full timing, that happens.

    All that said, I think I should break this up into two threads so that other readers do not confuse the two modifications.

    Outside Fan Kit:
    I bought the two-fan kit from rvcoolingunit.com. It came with brackets that might work on another fridge, but there is no room in mine to use them. Ideally, you would mount these two fans inside the upper access panel, below the row of cooling fins. However, on our unit, both pieces of the chimney baffle are sheet metal screwed into place from the inside. You simply cannot get your hands into that area without pulling the fridge completely out of the slide.

    So, the second best option is to install them inside the lower access panel. I decided to zip tie them into place. As you can see, one mounted perfectly horizontal, and one had to be placed at an angle due to the tubing that zig zags up through that area. Not perfect, but much more effective than nothing. This kit comes with a piggy-back 1/4 inch spade on the power source wire. This allowed me to remove the upper fan power source wire on the lower left of the circuit board, push on this power wire, and then push the upper fan wire onto the piggy-back connector. See pic.

    The negative wire has an eyelet crimped onto it. There is a screw you can see in one of the pics that already has 6+ ground wires on it. I thought, what's one more? Do NOT use it. The jam nut came off easily enough, but when I tried to put it back on, after adding my wire, it was nearly impossible to keep the screw head from spinning. Eventually I used a small screwdriver that has a straight and phillips on each end bent at a 90-degree angle. I had to bend the sheet metal on the fridge upward a little, just to get it under it and onto the head of the screw. This is low amperage stuff we're doing here. If I had to do it again, I'd use a posi-tap and just tap one of the negative wires.

    The fans, the 85 degree thermostat, and the pos/neg wire harness are all crimped with 1/4 inch spade connectors. All that was easy to put together. After I made the connections, I zip tied the wires to the propane hose as you can see in another of the pics. Throughout the night and early morning, the compartment is less than 85 degrees and the fans are off. However, once the sun gets up, regardless of power source (120v or propane), that compartment gets hot quick enough. So the fans do run quite a bit of the time. But it did help cool down the inside of the fridge, and that's what matters.

    For boondocking concerns, the oem fan is marked at .46a. The outside fans are maked .17a each. I think the oem fan does not come on nearly enough. The extra fans may come on a little early at 85 degrees, but they do not use much power. But that's for boondockers to decide.

    Attachment 22470
    Attachment 22471
    Attachment 22472
    Attachment 22474
    Edit to remove a wrong pic

    Questions?

    Mike
    I was reading through some old posts and came back to this one as I'm getting ready to add some exterior fans under my condensor fins. On pic #2 it looks like the 85 degree switch you got is wired in at the bottom of the fridge, where as the original snap disk thermostat is located at the top of the fridge on the fins. Wouldn't you want the new thermostat up top where the original snap disc one was located?
    2020 Imagine Mk2670
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  4. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by chrisopy View Post
    I was reading through some old posts and came back to this one as I'm getting ready to add some exterior fans under my condensor fins. On pic #2 it looks like the 85 degree switch you got is wired in at the bottom of the fridge, where as the original snap disk thermostat is located at the top of the fridge on the fins. Wouldn't you want the new thermostat up top where the original snap disc one was located?
    Maybe yes, maybe no. When I did this install I didn't have the means to extend the wiring that it would take to put the 85deg thermostat up high. Where I put it in the lower half of the compartment worked and because the fan harness came wired that way, it was easy.

    But I think that if you mounted it high, the ordinary heat of operating the fridge on either vac or propane would trigger the 85 deg and the fans would always be running. I don't know if that's good or bad.

    Since this install someone posted links to a button like thermostat on Amazon that is adjustable. It could be, I don't know, but it could be a better idea to use a thermostat that triggers at greater than 85 degs. But it might also be easier to put a manual on/off switch on the original wire harness. Then if I thought it was running unnecessarily I could just turn it off.

    Add to this decision that at the time we were full timing on two Gr24 FLA marine (weak) batteries provided by the dealer. And I don't think we had solar yet. I was much more power conscious. Now we go out for a few months at a time with solar and two Battleborn lithium batteries. And mostly we camp with hookups. But I don't worry about power anymore.

    I better stop before I muddy the water any more than I have. Hope you find something useful in here somewhere.

  5. #25
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    By the way. Remember to try to keep a "water trap" in the drain tube. In all the taking off and putting on the lower grill I ended up pointing the drain tube entirely downhill from the catch basin under the fins inside the fridge. This let hot outside air freely enter the inside of the fridge. Make the tube exit high on the outside grate such that there's a low point of water in the line... sort of like a P-trap under the sink. This will prevent outside air from entering the fridge through the drain tube.

  6. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by xrated View Post
    I did the door flap thing on the Norcold too, and that made a pretty big improvement.
    I have the four door norcold as well. What is the 'door flap thing' modification?
    2018 Dodge 3500 6.7 Cummins SRW w/Aisin
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  7. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scott'n'Wendy View Post
    I have the four door norcold as well. What is the 'door flap thing' modification?
    The Norcold 4 door units are somewhat notorious for having issues with the "flapper" that is on the left door of the refrigerator, not closing/sealing all the way when the door is shut. You can check yours out pretty easily by doing the following. Open both doors of the refrigerator compartment (the freezer section does NOT have the flapper). Then close the left door slowly and watch as the door closes, you will see the door flap pivot 90 degrees. If it doesn't pivot the full 90 degrees, then there is an issue with it not sealing and cold air will just fall out of the refrigerator. The reason that they sometimes do not pivot the full 90 degrees is that the bottom of the black plastic flapper is hanging up on the inside of the fridge. Make sure that you try it several times...AND also try it with the right door already closed. You may need a flashlight to shine in to be able to see whether or not it rotated completely to 90 degrees. Shine the light into the gap between the two doors when they are closed.

    If the door flapper DOES NOT rotate into position every single time, you need to do a repair on it. Probably the quickest way is to remove the left door and add a small washer on the bottom hinge pin. To do this, take the UPPER hinge loose from the fridge, lean the open door back towards you and lift the door off of the bottom hinge pin. With the door off of the bottom hinge pin, add one small washer onto the pin and set the door back on it. Reinstall the upper hinge screws and try the door again. This action slightly raises the door just enough to keep the flapper from dragging on the inside of the refrigerator cabinet and this is what most folks do to solve the problem.

    I took a bit of a different approach. I removed the flapper from the door and shaved off the bottom of the flapper itself. I used some #80 grit emery cloth and started removing material from the bottom of the flapper until mine wouldn't hang up at all.....every single time. So there you have it....the infamous "Door Flapper Mod".
    Last edited by xrated; 03-02-2021 at 04:31 AM.
    2016 F350 CrewCab Dually
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  8. #28
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    Per the information for both of the outside fan kits
    https://rvcoolingunit.com/2-Condense...-P5819605.aspx
    and
    https://rvcoolingunit.com/-2-Condens...-P5819119.aspx
    the following statement shows up DC voltage up to 13.7v

    What happens when you auto or on board battery charger goes to 14.4 volt. Maybe that way the temp sensor to turn the fan on stopped working. I have an email in to them for an answer.
    2018 Reflection 150 Series 220RK 5th wheel with 6K axle upgrade. B&W 25K OEM Companion, Steadyfast system, 2022 F350 SRW 6.7 King Ranch 8' bed, Trailer reverse lights, rear spare tire holder, storage tube, sumo springs, Victron MultiPlus 12/120/3000, and Solar

  9. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by xrated View Post
    So there you have it....the infamous "Door Flapper Mod".
    Thank You! Once the snow is melted off the trailer, I will investigate.
    2018 Dodge 3500 6.7 Cummins SRW w/Aisin
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  10. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mikec557 View Post
    By the way. Remember to try to keep a "water trap" in the drain tube. In all the taking off and putting on the lower grill I ended up pointing the drain tube entirely downhill from the catch basin under the fins inside the fridge. This let hot outside air freely enter the inside of the fridge. Make the tube exit high on the outside grate such that there's a low point of water in the line... sort of like a P-trap under the sink. This will prevent outside air from entering the fridge through the drain tube.
    Thanks for the P-trap tip. I had read about this and did reconfigure my drain tube to make one. With regards to the fans running all the time, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. They just may not last as long. I think I'll just get two new fans to replace the oem one, and hook them up to the original thermostat. If I find this isn't cooling enough I can always get a lower rated thermostat.
    2020 Imagine Mk2670
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