Norcold.......How Cold?

[Dr4Film]

I would agree with Jim's statement.

Actually, I had purchased the fan months ago hoping that it would solve my problem. Installed it and monitored the temperatures. A very very slight improvement, unfortunately as a result, there was a huge buildup of frost on the fins where the fans were not located. And the refer temp setting was still on 9. Significant frost buildup on the fins is not good thing as it prevents the correct transfer of heat/temperature from the contents to the fins.

Remember that these operate by transferring the heat from the food to the fins and then through the evaporation process, the heat is transferred to the evaporation coils on the rear and eventually into the air with the use of fans mounted on the outside coils.

Cooling Unit (How it works) Here is a great explanation of how these RV refer's work and I have included a copy of a graphic from the website at the end of my post.

So for me, the installation of the new thermistor did the fix, not the fin fans, although the fans are a big help in transferring the heat to the fins.

My original set of aux. fin fans developed a problem and Richard Lockhart replaced them free of charge including the shipping. In a previous posting, my reference to installing the fin fans was only the new replacement ones.

An update to the last set of data posted, yesterday, my wife had found some item's with frost on them, mainly some veggies, so the refer temp setting is now down to 4. It hasn't been there for almost 4 years. It's quite possible that I may end up having to go even lower or I may adjust where the thermistor is located on the fins.

There is no question that the fin fans help significantly in circulation of the cold air far better than having nothing or using one of those useless battery thingy's.

I would suggest everyone having at least one of these in their refer, some people have installed two. I may get another sometime in the future but for now, I am waiting to see what happens when the humidity goes up later in the year.

Dr4Film ----- Richard.

[Gary - K7GLD]

Seems to me, the installation of fans inside should be viewed as an enhancer of refrigerator performance, with the goal of more even circulation of internal cooling effect upon food stored - rather than any sort of "cure-all" for mechanical or related defects in the cooling unit itself - and that careful evaluation of refrigerator performance and related adjustment of refrigerator settings WILL be likely after installing cooling fans, for best performance and efficiency.

[wa8yxm]

One thought comes to mind.. 42 Degrees for a fridge is not all that bad as I recall..

There is, however, a standard.

Next time you go to Joe's for breakfast (you remember the old sandwich board sign in the cartoons "Eat at Joes" it's also the comic air-plane banner)

Ask JOE what the health dept says is the proper temp for a fridge.

He will know the proper temp for a freezer too

If he acts reluctant to answer.. Tell him why you want to know.

[Knotdodger]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Knotdodger I hope I don't appear to be changing the subject. I've been following this thread and learning. I am having the same problem and will order a new thermistor. I do have a question about the outside fans. According to my paperwork I should have them but I have never heard them work. We have certainly camped in weather hot enought to make them run but I have as yet to hear them. Do they make enought noise to be heard from the inside, outside or both? I don't have a wiring diagram that indicates which wires go to these fans. Can we discuss this here or do I need to start a new thread? Larry

I installed my new thermistor. We're taking our motorhome out of winterization (is that a word?). I turned it on yesterday and checked it this morning. It is 29 degrees on a 9 setting with the thermometer located on the upper left shelf near the front. I've never seen it that low. I'm going to adjust the settings over the next few days to see what kind of temperature readings I can get. My ambient temps. aren't' all that high but I feel now I have room for adjustment that I haven't had in the past. These forums really pay off. Thanks again Jim for the manuals. I'll be listening for the fans this summer. If I don't hear them I'll have a "road map".

[Dr4Film]

Larry,

Another good addition to the refer is a single pair of fin fans made and distributed by Richard Lockhart on the eBay website below. They make a good refer run even better by distributing the cold air more evenly around the inside of the refer.

DOMETIC NORCOLD REFRIGERATOR FAN FOR RV 12 VOLT : eBay Motors (item 250621970410 end time Apr-30-10 17:29:56 PDT)

Dr4Film ----- Richard.

[Diplomat Don]

DR4Film....My understanding of these, when working properly, is that they operate best between setting 4-6. I don't know why they even put a 7-9 setting in. I replaced my thermistor and lowered the refer to 4. It's staying pretty constant at 29-32. We'll take a long trip this summer with a lot of driving and see how it does. Last year, during a summer trip to Yellowstone, is when we started having issues with keeping our food cold.

I've also changed the location of the bin on the lower right door. I keep my milk on that lower shelf under the plexiglass covered shelf. I found that the lower bin, when filled with items, was blocking off circulation to that area. These refers are just not that dynamic and barely cope with hot weather.

For those that asked, the fan wire is attached to the light clip/connection closest to you when you open the door on the Norcold 1200 series. Other models are different.

[alan1]

For those interested in purchasing the 2 fans mounted on an aluminum case to mount on your inside cooling fans take a look at this item for less than $3. Add your own aligater clips.

Cooling Fan 3.5 Hard Disk HDD Cooler Heaksink Heat Sink - eBay (item 280523916385 end time Aug-19-10 08:34:25 PDT)

[Dr4Film]

Quote:

Originally Posted by alan1 For those interested in purchasing the 2 fans mounted on an aluminum case to mount on your inside cooling fans take a look at this item for less than $3. Add your own aligater clips. Cooling Fan 3.5 Hard Disk HDD Cooler Heaksink Heat Sink - eBay (item 280523916385 end time Aug-19-10 08:34:25 PDT)

Unfortunately, anyone that may buy one of these for their Norcold or any other brand of refer will be in for a surprise when they find out that it probably requires 120 volt versus the 12 volt that the authentic blue ones being distributed on eBay through user rflkt1.

Dr4Film ----- Richard.

[Bob&AnnaMari]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr4Film Unfortunately, anyone that may buy one of these for their Norcold or any other brand of refer will be in for a surprise when they find out that it probably requires 120 volt versus the 12 volt that the authentic blue ones being distributed on eBay through user rflkt1. Dr4Film ----- Richard.

Sorry Richard, your statement is simply not true. You must not work on the innards of PC's. The pc fans are 12volt dc fans, just like the one advertised for norcold refers on ebay.

I bought my rv fan from rflkt1 on ebay just for the convenience. But, for those with a soldering iron and some time, the pc fan can be made to do exactly the same job.

Bob

[Dr4Film]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob&AnnaMari Sorry Richard, your statement is simply not true. You must not work on the innards of PC's. The pc fans are 12volt dc fans, just like the one advertised for norcold refers on ebay.

Yup, I haven't been inside of a PC. I leave that to my PEE brother's to take care of for me.

Sorry for the assumption.

In that case, I will order a couple of them for spares.

Dr4Film ----- Richard.

[Knotdodger]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Knotdodger I installed my new thermistor. We're taking our motor home out of winterization (is that a word?). I turned it on yesterday and checked it this morning. It is 29 degrees on a 9 setting with the thermometer located on the upper left shelf near the front. I've never seen it that low. I'm going to adjust the settings over the next few days to see what kind of temperature readings I can get. My ambient temps. aren't' all that high but I feel now I have room for adjustment that I haven't had in the past. These forums really pay off. Thanks again Jim for the manuals. I'll be listening for the fans this summer. If I don't hear them I'll have a "road map".

We hope everyone had a good and safe summer. On our trip to the Outer Banks in June we started out with the refrig working fine. As the ambient temps climbed we began having problems keeping our food cold. After moving down the coast to Emerald Isle the food compartment climbed to over sixty degrees. I still could not hear the fans running so I climbed on top and bypassed the thermostat attached to the fins....still no fan noise. I removed the access door on the outside of our motor home and placed a clip-on fan blowing up through the back of the refrigerator and it started cooling. I had a suggestion from a very helpful gentleman. He told me to reverse the plugs on the back of the control board that feed the fans. I did and they are now working. They cycle on and off and I can hear them from the inside and the outside. It seems to have cured my problems for now. If you can't hear your fans try this. We are the second owners of our motorhome and I don't have a clue as to how they got reversed. We're going to enjoy it while it's working but with the history of these units I'm just waiting for the next problem. Thanks again for the suggestions from everyone.

[Dr4Film]

Another Norcold problem fixed.

After figuring out the Thermistor problem with help from RvDude and this thread, while traveling in Alaska this summer my two exterior cooling fans decided to come on one really warm day in Fairbanks and it sounded like the refer was going to come apart and explode. After researching how to disable the OEM external cooling fans, I gave the problem some thought about how I wanted to install replacement auxiliary fans without having to remove the refer to replace the OEM fans.

What I came up with took me a few hours to install once I had all of the material together. I have included a few photos of the project but took many more along with a write up of the complete project. If you are interested, please send me a PM and I will forward them to you.

Basically, I installed four 120mm computer cooling fans just inside the refer vent stack on top of the coach. I now have 300 CFM of cooling power drawing air past the tubes and fins. What I think is far more than the OEM fans however the ambient temps in Fairbanks have not been high enough again to activate the fans. Oh, they are much quieter than the OEM ones even though there are four of them.

Dr4Film ----- Richard.