Mike 1, Yellowed Plastic 0

[Mike Ellis]

This afternoon while cleaning the inside of my refrigerator compartment door, I happened to squirt some regular old "409" cleaner on the door channel, which had yellowed and defied all attempts at removing same in the past. To my surprise, immediately an egg-yolk yellow stream started running down the side of the camper - the 409 just immediately dissolved the yellowing and a quick wipe with a rag produced once-again ivory white door trim.



If you have seen this info a million times, please disregard. If not, give the 409 a try.



On the down side, my Dometic 3-way fridge has apparently given up the controller board ghost and no longer recognizes presence of 120 VAC at the board. I checked it all out with a multimeter, everything appears to be in order and 120 VAC is making it to the board but is not switched over to the AC heater element. In auto mode with no AC competence it switches to gas, the gas ignites fine and the thermocouple puts out correct voltage but the controller soon shuts down the gas valve and puts up the infamous "check light". Seems to work OK in DC mode though.



If I can't find any better info, guess I will try a Dinosaur board. In the meantime, at least my door is white again...

 

[Casey Balvert]

Mike, check the 120 volt heater element first with an ohm meter. Then also disconnect all power from the unit and clean all contacts to the board as well as the connections under the grounding bolt. There is a small bolt at the back where several wires are grounded. If it still doesn't work, then go for the Dinosaur board.



Casey

 

[DPelletier]

Good to know.

Like Casey said; check the ground first.



Dave

 

[Mike Ellis]

I had checked all the connections and grounds with DVM the first time around, the AC heater element was about 40 ohms (not open or short) so it seemed functional, all other connections looked good too.



I did some more checking later on with the trusty multimeter and noticed that the DC input voltage to the controller board had dropped a few tenths of volt since I previously checked it (only a few hours before). I remembered reading that the Dometics were very sensitive to variations in input voltage, so I checked out my battery a little more closely. Sure enough, the battery was TU and could not sustain a constant voltage with even a small load. I had the camper plugged in while I was doing the fridge checks and the converter had been masking the battery problem.



Crammed in a new deep-cycle battery, and presto! Fridge works like a champ in all 3 modes, wasn't the controller board after all.

 

[DPelletier]

Excellent!



I do a lot of "boondocking" in my Bigfoot. I have a new Trojan group 31 12volt in the factory battery box and I have two TE-90 telecommunication glass matt batteries under the dinette. Used a marine battery switch to go from bank 1 to bank 2 as required. Total AH is now 275. I can go for about a week at sub-zero temps now.



Cheers

Dave

 

[Casey Balvert]

Mike, glad you found the problem. By the way, I physically remove the grounding nut and PC board connectors every couple of years, spray a bit of TV tuner cleaner on them and put everything back together. I have fixed several "dead" fridges that way. I will try the 409 spray on the plastic fridge vent. My last one yellowed and I used acetone to make it white again. 409 sounds like a better idea.



Casey