Norcold 1200 problems again

[HD4Mark]

Just had the darn thing fixed last fall to the tune of $1200 Fortunately $700 worth covered by an extended service plan. Now it is warm in the fridge but the freezer seems to be OK. All our food from the fridge vacationing in a cooler.

The place we had it serviced is 1600 miles away and closed on Monday. So until I can bend his ear I will give the details here to see if anyone has an idea what is up with it.

I put the LED in diagnostic mode by pressing and holding the temp set and mode buttons then scrolled through the screens.
1 88 this indicates it is in diagnostic mode

2 LED Segments Reliability Check. Just get the on light meaning it is OK.

3 Thermistor fin temperature=63 not good

4 Stored fault history I only get Door ajar meaning the door was open long enough to register a problem. No big deal there.

5 Stored fault history. Just get bottom line which I assume means no fault.

6 Erase history. I won't erase history yet.

7 Power board inputs. I get food compartment light off and door closed,
thermistor sensing fin temperature. Good there. I do not get Sensing burner flame but it is on auto and running on AC so I assume the burner would not be on.

8 Power board outputs. DC power to divider heater and
DC power to ignition circuit. I do not get DC power to DC heater, AC power to AC heater. I do not know what that is telling me. I also do not get DC power to gas valve. Again I assume that is due to being on AC.

9 Power board DC voltage status. DC voltage normal

10 Power board AC voltage status. AC voltage normal


Thanks for any assistance.


P.S. To do it over again I would have replaced it with a household unit.

[historyljc]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HD4Mark Just had the darn thing fixed last fall to the tune of $1200 Fortunately $700 worth covered by an extended service plan. Now it is warm in the fridge but the freezer seems to be OK. All our food from the fridge vacationing in a cooler. The place we had it serviced is 1600 miles away and closed on Monday. So until I can bend his ear I will give the details here to see if anyone has an idea what is up with it. I put the LED in diagnostic mode by pressing and holding the temp set and mode buttons then scrolled through the screens. 1 88 this indicates it is in diagnostic mode 2 LED Segments Reliability Check. Just get the on light meaning it is OK. 3 Thermistor fin temperature=63 not good 4 Stored fault history I only get Door ajar meaning the door was open long enough to register a problem. No big deal there. 5 Stored fault history. Just get bottom line which I assume means no fault. 6 Erase history. I won't erase history yet. 7 Power board inputs. I get food compartment light off and door closed, thermistor sensing fin temperature. Good there. I do not get Sensing burner flame but it is on auto and running on AC so I assume the burner would not be on. 8 Power board outputs. DC power to divider heater and DC power to ignition circuit. I do not get DC power to DC heater, AC power to AC heater. I do not know what that is telling me. I also do not get DC power to gas valve. Again I assume that is due to being on AC. 9 Power board DC voltage status. DC voltage normal 10 Power board AC voltage status. AC voltage normal Thanks for any assistance. P.S. To do it over again I would have replaced it with a household unit.

You may have to yet. I can't give any advise on your problem. Are you sure your vent fans are working?

[tomsm]

Sounds like it's sensing AC and staying in AC mode, but not supplying AC to the AC heaters. Have you tried forcing it to LP mode to see if that thermistor fin temp will come down?

[HD4Mark]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomsm Sounds like it's sensing AC and staying in AC mode, but not supplying AC to the AC heaters. Have you tried forcing it to LP mode to see if that thermistor fin temp will come down?

Yes, tried that last night. Didn't seem to help.

Quote:

Originally Posted by historyljc You may have to yet. I can't give any advise on your problem. Are you sure your vent fans are working?

I'm not sure the vent has fans but the ambient temp last night when we noticed it misbehaving was only in the upper 60s so I am thinking that isn't the problem. Easy enough to try a small fan in there though.

[powerboatr]

mine to has issues, in fact we are waiting on norcold to ship out a cooling unit
i did the test above and my thermistor said 39F...but the accurate temp gauge i have said 49 in the main refer box
where did you get the codes and procedure for throwing it into the diagnostic mode? thank you for that.
so the million dollar question is why?

my current temps are lh freezer 20, rh freezer 30, refer box food area is 49
temp setting on 4....temps don't change if i select temp setting 1 or all the way to 9 it stays the same

[akadeadeye]

powerboatr and hd4mark,

Have you had the latest Norcold recall done? Are these problems after the recall fix?

Don

[alan1]

Do you hear the factory fans running? Both of mine went out.

[powerboatr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by akadeadeye powerboatr and hd4mark, Have you had the latest Norcold recall done? Are these problems after the recall fix? Don

yes i had the latest one performed week before last

just put in another thermistor to see if the board starts to see real temps

i had a hard fault of an upside down "U" in screen 4

[tomsm]

powerboatr - the thermistor measures the temp of the fins, not the air temp in the box. Mine generally is about 10 degrees different also. However, my thermistor is usually reading around 25 or less...

[tomsm]

For all those interested, you can download the service manual for your fridge here. Just scroll down the page and find your model...

[FreeByrd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by alan1 Do you hear the factory fans running? Both of mine went out.

Alan1,
Can you access the Condenser mounted Thermostat that's mounting on the end of the upper Condenser Fins? It's about the size of a Nickle/Quarter and secured with 2 screws to the fins. it has a hot wire on the top and the fan wires on the bottom. If it's bad, the fans will not work.
You can make yourself a quick bypass for this by crimping 2 "spade lugs" on a short piece of wire, and plugging both the "hot wire" from the top of the Thermostat and the fan wiring from the bottom of the thermostat and if the fans don't turn on, they need to be replaced.
If they do turn on, and most will, you need to buy a new Thermostat.
Hope this helps.
Mike

[powerboatr]

i ran the diagnostics again at 7pm
thermistor said it was 39
but real gauge showed 42 in the top of fridge near coils
out side temp 40F


sooooooo
i put in a new thermistor and placed it in the middle of the fridge coils

temp setting to #5
rh freezer 5F lh 10F
fridge lower compartment crisper 41, thermistor at door diagnostic 36

soooooo
i set temp to 9 and will wait till 1AM and see what changes.

outside air temp now is 31F
rv interior 72F


going to be pizzzed if the cooling unit is good and i wasted a week here vice heading south

thanks folks for the help

["007"]

Mark what did they do for $1200 replace your cooling unit and if it was was it another Norcold unit?
If they did change your cooling unit it should have been changed to a Amish cooling unit which is a better unit for better cooling and does not need the Norcold recalls.
Amish 1200 information
If your freezer is OK but box is high temp could be your cooling fans are not operating because of defective thermistor on coils as FreeByrd described or you may need more air movement of hot air in your vent area.

If you have a small fan 110 or 12V place it on floor rear of fridge and aim up to blow the hot air out your roof vent to cool down your cooling coils.
Another problem could be the upper vent area is trapping the hot air and not allowing the hot air out your upper vent. A vent baffle may have fallen or is out of place blocking hot air from getting out through your top vent. Page #15 of this PDF will show you the baffle positions in vent area.

[HD4Mark]

Here is where we are so far. Thanks for the link to the PDF 007. Thought I had a copy of that but could not find it. I dug out the receipt for the work done on it and was wrong on the price. The cooling unit alone was $1578.99 a new replacement. They new ones are not on the recall from what I can find out.

Powerboatr, The service center I took it to last time gave me a copy of the diagnostic procedure. After playing with it enough you can get pretty good at running through it. Wish I didn't have to though.

I will check the ventilation today but in the mean time I have put the smallest fan I have on a step ladder leaning into the vent kind of pointing up to try to push some air up. So far after a short while the temp continues to climb. From what I read the cooling fans on the fridge don't go on until it registers 114° F and I don't think it was that warm at night when it started acting up but who knows.

Keep getting the answering machine at the service center that fixed it even though they should have been there an hour or so. Might be snowed in back home though

So after much frustration with this thing I have to ask other owners of these one question. It this thing a tremendous piece of crap for the $4K price tag or am I just upset about it. Bad enough they don't seem to ever work correctly but have actually burned down RVs.