Troubleshooting fridge problems

[jjonak]

Just bought a 2020 Minnie Winnie 31H. Love it except the fridge which has been super fussy.

It works on propane though takes a while. Shore power at campground worked well a week ago. But both attempts to connect to shore power at our house (we have two separate RV outlets that we have used with success with our other 30
Amp RV) haven’t worked. Can get lights and microwave to work. Norcold fridge has a green light and appears to work but will not cool.

Had electrician double check outlets with meter and he said they look fine and our other RV fridge works fine on electrical with same outlets. Any idea what could be going on? Why would it work with one campground outlet but not another?

Thanks so much.

[be happy]

Have you checked the GFI outlets? You may also re set the breakers in the coach by turning off then on. You may find one had tripped somehow.

Good luck

[Morich]

Step one would be to but a meter and start some simple testing as calling for repair on simple things is really not worthwhile. A meter for thirty dollars and simple instructions you can get here will save a lot of time, money and frustration!

An Rv with 30 amp is a pretty simple item when you begin to understand the basics and we can talk you through those.

For starters, the 30 amp circuit has only two wires that are actually doing the work, a hot wire and ground wire, the third is for safety, so when your microwave works, it requires the two important wires and they are getting to the RV!

Next step is to find which other items require the 110 AC voltage as the lights, vents fans and smaller stuff use 12VDC from the batteries. What else doesn't work? Outlets, dead or alive? The Air cond. requires 12VDC to feed the controls like the thermostat but also needs 110 AC to run the motors, etc, so is it working?

When you have looked it over and found what is/is not working, going to the load center and checking the breakers or fuses is often a good start as one ore more may be tripped or blown for some reason and getting them back may cure it all!
If it is only the outlets which are dead, that is often a GFCI button on an outlet which needs reset by pushing back in again.

Do a few checks and report what you have and there are lots of small tricks to learn!

[creativepart]

Is the RV level when parked at your house? Are you trying to run A/C or electric hot water while parked at the house?

[jjonak]

The RV is level. Only running the fridge, nothing else. It's a Norcold fridge and the various lights make it appear to be working (no error codes or switching over to propane).

However, no cooling - fridge is 60-70 inside.

Checked breakers, reset everything, flipped and reset breakers. Didn't make a difference.

AC runs fine. Checked outlets and other items run fine. Microwave runs fine. Seems to only be the fridge, but it's weird that it's not giving me any kind of error message and what's also weird is that it worked at a campsite when we first got it on electrical just fine.

Makes me wonder if there could possibly be something weird about our home RV outlets that makes it appear to be getting power but somehow it's not getting something it needs. Or maybe the fridge is going bad and it just works intermittently - though it does work fine (if slowly) on propane.

[Morich]

No worry about the home AC being odd as it is simple enough that if other things in the RV work on AC, the frig should also!

One thing to keep in mind on frig is that the lights and controls are often run by 12VDC but if you switch to cooling with AC, that portion may be a problem while the controls still are getting the 12VDC they need.

Each frig has certain things slightly different than others and I like to look for the "correct" best info I can so look for online sources for manuals that often give troubleshooting flow charts to follow as they tend to keep me on the right path and not overlook things.

Opening the back of the frig often gives a label that has the specifics of model that you need to do a good search for info.
If it is a Norcold, there is a site that goes by "Norcold guy" that if often referr to for help.

It may be something as simple as a dirty or corroded connection for the frig, so a "quickie" way to clear it can sometimes work. There are lots of places on the back of the frig where the wires connect that use simple push on connectors and those tend to corrode, so if you go there and wiggle them around or clean then and tighten any screw connections you see, sometimes magic happens!

Don't assume it is the board until you may sure the board is getting good connections.
The board and controls are like a small computer and if it gets "garbage in" it gives "garbage out" !

[jjonak]

Thanks so much! I found the Norcold guy and booked a tech support appointment with him and will see if I can figure it out further. Will keep you all posted in case anyone else ever winds up with the same problem.