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Old 07-20-2011, 12:17 PM   #41
Mike2338
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Bill,

Thanks for the advice. I hope that is all it is. The unit is at the dealer now and they were to look at it yesterday.
I called about an hour ago and the service adviser did not have any info but is checking and will be calling me back.

m
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Old 07-20-2011, 01:31 PM   #42
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I just heard from the dealer.
The Thermal fuse was blown. Normally this would mean a replacement refrigerator or cooling unit. But the tech says a baffle was dislodged on the back of the unit which he feels caused the fuse to blow. They are letting it run overnight to see if it happens again.

I know the Thermal fuse is a safety device to prevent firee so i will be keeping a close eye on it.

m
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Old 07-20-2011, 05:03 PM   #43
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Mike: the thermal fuse referred to is the small dime sized item with a couple of wires that is fastened to the outside of the boiler chimney and is there to detect a higher than normal temperature within the insulation pack around the boiler itself which usually indicates a leak of ammonia from brine and subsequent flaring of flame from burner and yes, this would necessitate a replacement coling unit or fridge itself. It is also intended to detect a propane malfunction resulting in a flame occurring before the ventury tube. That would also be detected by a lack of flame in front of the flame sensor at the ignitor end.

The function of the sensor is to inhibit power to the propane solenoid valve, shutting off the burner if a drastic rise in temp is detected.

They are talking about a baffle and the only one that is in the chimney itself is the one in the very top of the chimney and could only dislodge if it's retaining spring wire were to break or rust through.

The rest of the shielding around the boiler/burner housing is merely there to prevent wind gusts from constantly blowing out the flame. While stationary the fridge will operate without any of this stuff for troubleshooting purposes; NOT IN NORMAL useage however.

I'm having difficulty in determining what "baffle" could have become dislodged so as to raise the stack temps within the boiler chimney itself. Perhaps something covered the top of the chimney like a stray piece of fiberglass insualtion falling down from the very top of the cabinet but that would be rare ineed.

It takes quite a bit of added sheet metal to inhibit the air flow around that boiler enough to raise internal chimney heat enough to trigger that sensor as the Dometic recall of "flame containment" sheeting added to many fridges basicly closed the entire thing off completely other than a small air inlet area at the propane jet housing itself.

Keep us posted with ongoing assessments & repairs by tech's; this stuff is interesting.
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Old 07-20-2011, 09:29 PM   #44
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Our Mobile Suites is only one week old and we have had the E03 error code twice already. It only happens when we travel, at this point. We are in Indiana getting a laundry list of issues taken care of, and now this is added to the list. the guy from Bill's thinks that whoever filled our propane tanks for the first time didn't purge the air out of them first, so the flame is too hot.
I guess our next step is to have them replace our Propane tanks with new ones?
I really was not expecting to have so many problems !

Sue
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Old 07-20-2011, 10:08 PM   #45
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Soos: no need for new tanks. Purging refers to the act of filling and bleeding a tank to make sure all air has been expelled. Your next fill up should take care of this little detail.
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Old 07-21-2011, 06:21 AM   #46
soos
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bstark
Soos: no need for new tanks. Purging refers to the act of filling and bleeding a tank to make sure all air has been expelled. Your next fill up should take care of this little detail.
Hi,
I realize that but with a unit thats only a week old, I am not willing to wait 2-3 months for us to use up the propane to find out if that is why the refrigerator doesn't work. The stove also doesn't work right. If thats the problem then it's easily fixed by swapping out the tanks now. The tech guy suggested we just run the furnace to run out the propane. Not in 95 degree heat thank you.
We'll see what we can do.


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Old 07-21-2011, 11:21 AM   #47
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Aaah; I understand now. You're correct they should just take your tanks and purge them at the dealership or give you new 'already purged' and filled ones.

No loss to them other than the price of the propane. The newer fill stations are required to have a recovery return to the main filling tank and it is this feature that allows them to perform purging without venting the contents to atmosphere so they wouldn't be out of pocket at all if done correctly.
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Old 07-21-2011, 08:35 PM   #48
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I picked up the coach from the dealer. The tech showed me the plate that was loose. It has a single screw to hold it in place that was not installed. The plate shifted and diffused the flame is such a way that caused the thermal fuse to fail. At least that is the diagnosis of the tech and the Dometic tech help line.
The refrigerator has been running all day. It showed 46 degrees when I picked it up. I questioned the high temp and the tech said that when the porter shifted it in the yard the door was opened and it still had not cooled back down.

Well now I am home and the temp is up to 58. The freezer is getting good and cold but the fridge part is not. Temperature in SE Michigan today was 100 with high humidity.

We are heading out in the morning for a few days in Canada on Lake Huron. I will see the temp in the morning to see if we work out of a cooler rather than the refrigerator.

Is there anything you suggest I check before I just let it run tonight? It is running, the fans are spinning and I checked and there is no blockage on the back.

m
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Old 07-22-2011, 09:07 AM   #49
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Well. The refrigerator appears to working. The temp is down to 36 degrees on electric. We will be heading out soon so hopefully it keeps up on propane during the day.
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Old 07-22-2011, 02:34 PM   #50
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Temp is up to 42 degrees.

everything seems to be operating as it should.

Any suggestions?
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Old 07-23-2011, 09:59 AM   #51
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Dumb question. Have you tried moving the thermister upward on the cooling fin since the last repair?
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Old 07-23-2011, 11:23 AM   #52
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The fridge relies upon a thermal connection of bonding material between a plate that connects the actual cooling portion in the back of the freezer to those fins in the fridge compartment below.

It also relies upon adequate cooling air to rise up the chimney behind the fridge cabinet to lower the temps of the brine solution (shed BTU's and return to liquid state) as it descends back to the boiler. Slideout fridges require convection current of air to take two right angles and that is something air flow resists; making right angle turns. Pancake fans help this immensely.

Air is the most difficult thing to change/control the temperature of so the less there is in the freezer/fridge cabinets the better. This requires that the freezer compartment AND fridge compartment have that air deplaced by food items.

A veritable catch 22 in that, to have the thing working efficiently requires that it's internal volumn be occupied by food stuffs but, if it's not working as designed, resultant spoilage is more costly.

My understanding of the workings of the "thermistor" Motor31 mentioned is that it's resistance changes according to ambient temps of fridge cabinet and I tested this years ago with a volt/ohm meter and a cup of boiling water alongside a cup of ice water but I've forgotten the actual ohm's readings I was able to detect to determine quality of thermistor ie: thermistor unplugged creating a 'constant on' condition so moving the thermistor to the warmer 'upper' air of the fridge cabinet, thus changing the resistance, would signal the fridge to cycle on more often and remain on longer.

The electrical heating element is a 360/375 watt element and it will not create the kinds of boiler temps that the propane burner should be capable of, ergo; your fridge 'should' be more efficient while on "gas" setting.

A small fan powered by 2 'D' cell batteries is often sworn to by users of being very effective in assisting the movement of air within the fridge cabinet to maintain a more consistant temp within the cabinet so that there is less discrepancy in temps between the upper and lower part of the fridge cabinet.

Many 'happy-hours' have descended into discussions of these fridges and their inherant failings: "What setting have you got yours on?" "I'm afraid to defrost mine because it might take two weeks to get the thing back to correct temperature!" "Mine won't go below 45 with it set at number 5". "we buy our grocieries one item at a time because the fridge can't handle any number of warmer items being inserted at once."

Anyone whose owned one of these things has heard all of these and a bunch more complaints about these gas absorption fridges for years.

Good luck to all with their DFF's - Dometic Fridge Follies.
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Old 07-27-2011, 01:45 PM   #53
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OK, here is the ltest, and, perhaps the LAST experience in this adventure.
Yesterday, the 26th of July, 2011, an engineer from Dometic came down to our campground, in Anderson, Indiana. Replaced a suspected faulty fill valve, outside in the refrigerator cabinet. Not a bif problem, got it replaced.
Came inside, forced the ice maker to cycle, and walah, flood city.
Water poured from around the ice maker. As I originally suspected, the fill tube was mis-aligned, all along.
What an ordeal to fix that, as it turned out to be.
I was glad an engineer, who knew the construction details of the box was here, and not a service technician.
It was several hours defrosting with a hair dryer, mopping up, and disassembling the entire freezer section, just to get the ice maker out.
Once freed rom the icy grip, of a large build up of ice from the mis-aligned spout, re-assemble went smoothly, and, soon, we had ice cubes aplenty, without the flood inside the ice making equipment.
Lessons learned by the engineer, 1. re design the spout to make it possible to actually see it, to confirm whether it is properly aligned, as is, it is not possible to see, or touch it. 2. re design entire ice maker installation, so as not to have to completely dis-assimble the freezer compartment to service it. 3. re design outer cabinet access to all controls in the rear, tidy up the electical connections, and make the mother board box accessible, for folks with normal size hands.
In short, if you have ever said, "I wish the guys that designed this thing had to work on it", well, he just did!
Justice was served!
He was a terriffic fellow, learned a lot, and for now, we seem to have a box that cools and makes ice.

Interesting note of information, he said their standard of cooling is that the box temp would stay at or below 43 degrees, with the outside temp at 110 degrees.
They had come up with a baffle, can be installed by a dealer, necessary to scoot the box out a bit, that's why a dealer, and it direct the air from the fans over the fins more directly, resulting in a couple degrees cooler inside.

I was able to get service from them, not necessary to threaten, or cuss, just be reasonable. They did a great job of getting to the bottom of the mess....took a lot of time....but we Got 'er Done!
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Old 07-27-2011, 02:15 PM   #54
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Glad to hear things are looking up, and our hopes are that your problems are now at an end with the refrigerator.

Quote: "In short, if you have ever said, "I wish the guys that designed this thing had to work on it", well, he just did!
Justice was served!"

Oh, that just really is a good thing. Now, if the engineer can go back to Dometic and convince everyone else that those changes need to be made for every unit in the future, and to convince them to have a more sypathetic ear will be cocked for those having problems.

It that were to happen, I would definitely have hope for the future. It would also be nice if EVERY systems manufacturer could undertake similar actions.
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Old 07-27-2011, 03:24 PM   #55
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"Oh, that just really is a good thing. Now, if the engineer can go back to Dometic and convince everyone else that those changes need to be made for every unit in the future, and to convince them to have a more sypathetic ear will be cocked for those having problems."

In 9 years of hearing of Dometic customer service, and watching the way they handled the recall of thousands of defective units-------

NOT GONNA HAPPEN!!!

Joe
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Old 07-28-2011, 08:43 AM   #56
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I'm also skeptical that Dometic will make those changes as suggested. It's always been about the bottom line for Dometic and if they can save a buck by making us all on-going 'Beta-Testers', it's all profit for them.

You've been the very model of patience and understanding for those folks but that is certainly not the norm and I believe they've simply become inured and complacent with still selling every peice of junk they can ship to the manufactures.

Kudos to you.
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