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FL420 · 06-15-2018, 12:47 AM

Last spring J.R. of J.C. Refrigeration in Shipshewana installed a new DutchAire(Amish) hydrogen cooling unit in our Norcold 1200LRIM with an ARP ver 2.0(no fan control) Control Unit. It has worked problem free until now and we have been very happy with it. It maintains the proper freezer and reefer temps on a setting of 4 out of 9.
Today when we came back from a visit to town we found the ARP had shutdown the power to the reefer and was counting down to let the temps cool before restoring the electricity and restarting the reefer.
It repeatedly started the reefer, shut it down due to high temps then restarted again after the cool down period. It did this 5 times before shutting it down for good as it is designed to do. The highest temp I saw was 200 deg. C. The last 2 times I switched the heating from AC to LP and both worked as advertised.
About a week ago the freezer had accumulated enough frost and the ice maker froze up so we defrosted the freezer. The ice maker resumed normal operation after defrosting and the reefer operated fine on both AC and LP. Yesterday we drove about 50 miles before I had to pull over on the side of a country road to check a paper map as the Verizon 4G outage in Oklahoma deprived me of Google map navigation. The coach was leaning to the right at a pretty severe angle for no more than 5 minutes due to a sloping shoulder. The reefer was on LP.
We drove for another 50 miles before settling into a campground and hooking up to 50 amp 120VAC service. The coach was level and operated fine for 24 hours on pedestal AC before it began to overheat and shutdown.
Is there any chance the defrosting or the 5 minutes out of level may have caused the ammonia and water to separate and not recombine. Any chance I can "burp" the cooling unit by driving the coach before giving up and calling in a so-called rv tech. I'm getting really tired of incompetent and sloppy "professionals" draining my wallet.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.

MSHappyCampers · 06-15-2018, 10:56 AM

You need to call Paul at ARP and get is take on this!

FL420 · 06-15-2018, 01:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSHappyCampers

You need to call Paul at ARP and get is take on this!

Thanks. I have sent them the above post via their CONTACT US msg. system. Seeing as how its Friday I'll call them if they don't respond soon.
Do you have a better number than the 406-494-1959 on their website?

powercat_ras · 06-15-2018, 01:57 PM

X2 on contacting ARP. The number you posted in the thread is correct. When calling it , it will go to a voice mailbox where you can leave a message with your phone # requesting a call back, leaving a short but detailed message.

The defrosting and or the out of level would not have messed up the ARP or the refrigerator.

You might make sure of is that the temp sensor clipped on the fins in the refrigerator compartment is still where it was and did not get dislodged or wires disconnected.

Beyond that, you may need to JC Refrigeration about how to go about getting it checked out for problems. Could be a control board or tubing leak issue.

If you put your ARP into setup mode, you can view and jot down all the stored parameters and put them into an email to Paul, arprvsafe@gmail.com.

FL420 · 06-15-2018, 06:31 PM

Thanks to both of you for the help. I had a good conversation with Paul on the phone and he talked me through the diagnostic process. I found the videos on the website could have been better done. If you worked with it every day it would be easy but the human engineering of the operation of the tiny buttons and the meaning of the cryptic displays need a lot of work for this DIYer.
Paul said that some of the earlier ARPs like mine experienced drift over time of the temperature control settings. Also, the high OAT and high humidity here at Keystone Lake causing a heat index of 103° may be causing the shutdowns. I am letting the ARP go through the Auto Tune process for the next 24 hours to reset the temperature limits.
Here's hoping.