Dometic not cooling via electric power?

[[email protected]]

Hi all,

We have a 2020 Reflection that we had out a few times after we bought it last fall. It has a Dometic RM1350SLMX fridge that worked fine last fall. We are getting ready to leave on a camping trip so my wife brought a load of food out to the fridge this morning. The fridge panel indicator was at 38 at the time, but warmed up to 42 by late afternoon. It was on setting 3 and given the temperature was increasing, she was questioning whether it was working so she turned it up to 5. We just went out a couple of hours later and now it is at 43. It seems to be getting closer and closer to the outside temp. I'm not hearing it kick in when we turn it off and back on. I tried cutting all power to the camper, including 12v, in hopes to try to reset something. Any other thoughts?

We had the same problems with our 120v / propane-powered refrigerator. I ended up going on Amazon and buying two 12 volt fans that would fit inside the refrigerator panel that is mounted on the outside of the camper. I place one fan on the bottom half blowing up at the condensing coils, and a second fan at the top vent sucking out. There is a live 12 volt wire in the back of the fridge that is easy to tie into and then a ground. The fans also came with a temperature sensor device setting that I believe was set at 85 degrees outside temperature to turn on the fans. We never had a problem with cooling after that including very hot days in the desert.

[greenjeans]

What and wear did you buy the 2 fans that included the thermostat? We have a 2019 337 that struggled all last winter in AZ. The slide was only in the sun early morn and outside temps only got to mid 70's late in the day, a real PITA. Had it set on 5 usually got down to 33 over night then up to mid 40's during the day.

[[email protected]]

I have a 2020 Reflection with the smaller Dometic. We were in AZ this winter on our first long trip and the Refer would not cool on electric even though it was set right. After a great deal of investigation and testing I discovered a blown fuse, after the fuse was changed it still wouldn't work. So I went one step deeper and figured out that the elec heating coil had failed. It's a simple fix. The only thing I can figure is a power spike took it out although everything else in the coach is fine. Get a voltmeter and go to work on the 12v side after removing the controller cover in back.

I got it at etrailer.com. The part number is A10 - 2618 VP. These are very simple to wire in once you find the positive 12 volt wire inside the vent area. I did not bother putting in the on-off switch because that is for storage so you can turn the fans off so they do not turn on. When I store the trailer I turn off the 12 volt disconnect so it seems sort of redundant. I'm not sure if one will work, I put in two because I was so frustrated with a 60deg. Fridge every time the temperature got above 100degs.

[Big Blue]

1st trip with our 230RL fridge temps climbed into the 40's during warm days cooled down in low 30's at night... I took the following steps.... Disconnected the Thermistor/Temp sensor at the circuit board. this puts the cooling unit in a full cold mode & if it freezes a water bottle over night the cooling unit is fine.... Reconnected thermister. & added a fan to back of Fridge. ( small improvement ) Next added insulation to top of Fridge... also used sheet metal to direct airflow from fans... from top of Fridge to top of vent.. nice improvement... Then inside Fridge moved thermister to top of fins....small improvement... finally removed thermister from fins and duck taped it to side of Fridge.... FIXED... maintains 34 deg. day or night

[Timmer]

Another update. We have the fridge set at 3, per the dealer's recommendation. It got up to 72 today, with high winds. The camper was in the shade of our shed with large 16' garage doors and 10' doors open. The fridge warmed to 50. I checked the outside high panel and the fan was still not running. I'm getting more confident this is the issue.

[Big Blue]

On my Fridge there is a thermal switch attached to the fins above the fans... fins could be very hot... but if you have the confidence to do so, you could bypass the switch with a short jumper wire... if the switch is bad the fans will come on..... If you have a volt meter there should be power (12 volts ) on one of the switch terminals.....

[SolarPoweredRV]

Another update. We have the fridge set at 3, per the dealer's recommendation. It got up to 72 today, with high winds. The camper was in the shade of our shed with large 16' garage doors and 10' doors open. The fridge warmed to 50. I checked the outside high panel and the fan was still not running. I'm getting more confident this is the issue.

Even without the fans running, your fridge should not be registering 50 degrees internally. These fridges were designed to cool without fans, unfortunately they couldn't keep the temp low enough (below 40) in warmer outside temps. To keep the fridges cooler many little things were tried which all added up to keeping the fridges at temp (< 35 ). Fans were added inside and out, air flow was improved on the backside, baffles were added to fridges mounted inside slides, each tweak improved performance incrementally until the fridges were able to maintain safe food temps of less than 35 degrees.

If your fridge is running at 50 degrees on a 70 degree day (in the shade) then your fridge is failing. It is time to demand replacement from your dealer.

[Timmer]

Hi all.

Thanks for all the input. We have proven that when it's on electric and it's cold outside it works. However, if it warms above 55 if can't keep up. Today we switched over gas. It was at 38 in the morning when it was 48 degrees outside, but it warmed up to 60 degrees and within 4 hours the fridge was at 52 degrees.

[Timmer]

Hi all,

Good news, I guess. On Monday Grand Design authorized the replacement of our refrigerator after 2 months of dealing with it. I understand the unit doesn't fit through the door so they actually have to remove a window to replace it. At this point I have moderate to low faith in my dealer's service department and feel like removing a window is going to ask for another set of problems and we'll be dealing with leaking windows or something of the sort in the future.

We really struggled to prove to our dealer there was a problem because it only failed when the temperature outside was above high 60's or low 70's. At the same time, the components behind the outside low and high vents never got hot so it may have been an elusive issue. My dealer noted there should have been components that were almost too hot to touch. I wouldn't describe anything as ever having gotten warmer than luke warm. Before we finally got the dealer to agree to look at it, they were reluctant to agree we had a problem because there were points in time when it did work. The reality was that it was early spring and we had days that never reached 70 so the problem didn't present itself. We believed we trended the outside temperature relationship early on but that fell on deaf ears. When we did bring it in, they put a thermometer in it overnight and then said they couldn't recreate the problem. We had to push the issue before they proved that indeed it failed when it warmed up outside. Next they ordered a replacement part, we had to wait for delivery, and then wait for the dealer to install it, only for it to still not work. We went through this process twice as they ordered 2 different parts. The dealer never adhered to our service appointment, rather they would get to it a week or so after our scheduled appointment. Later, they claimed for a couple of weeks to be waiting on Grand Design to approve a warranty replacement. After weeks of frustration we called Grand Design only to find out that the dealer had just submitted the request for replacement to GD the day before. Within 3 business days GD had approved it. Now we have to wait for it to be delivered and installed, which I'm sure will be several weeks at best, and who knows what kind of lag time we will see with the dealer.

It's been a bummer of a spring. With Covid we have more family time than ever before because kid's sports were canceled. We went camping a couple of times, but had to arrange the timing with picking up the camper from the dealer. That timing didn't work for an annual fishing trip so we had to skip that for the first time after 20+ years. When we did get out, we had to deal with coolers for a family of 5, including growing teenagers that eat constantly. I certainly remember why we stopped tenting and moved to a camper, and then bigger campers as the kids grew!