Refrigerator question

[illinibill]

New Jayco 317 RLOK and first fiver. After four Motorhomes we stepped off the cliff to fit wheel. Camped 2 weekends for shakedown but real test will be extended stay in Florida. One "issue" is the refrigerator goes thru auto defrost every 48hours! Huh, and why would this be? Basically Norcold or Dometic are about only choices. Who has had experience with this? Seems crazy to me.

[LJowdy]

Prior to my current coach with a home refrigerator I had a huge Dometic in my Winnebago Tour. Seems to me it went through the defrost cycle 48 hours after first turning on the refrigerator. I'd start the refrigerator prior to a trip then later, I'd turn it off then back on again to get the 48 hour cycle sometime around 10 or 11 o'clock at night. It caused absolutely no problems with the temperature of the food stored in the refrigerator especially since it wasn't being opened during the defrost cycle.

The beauty of the automatic defrost cycle is it NEVER had sheets of ice in the freezer which required turning off the refrigerator and allowing it to thaw out.

[MSHappyCampers]

You can either turn it off and back on once a day or buy the ARP protection device which has a setting to disable the auto defrost! You really need the ARP for protection anyway!

Good luck, happy trails, and God bless!

[momdoc]

Welcome to the forum and congrats on the new rig.

You are joining a good group of folks here with good info to share. It sounds like your question has been answered.

Enjoy the adventure.

[Old-Biscuit]

Because there was/is a increased demand by consumers for bells & whistles


Norcold goes thru a 'semi defrost' cycle every 40-52 hrs of continuous operation which allows temps in 'food compartment' to increase just enough for any ice on the fins to melt.......food compartment only.
Cycle lasts roughly 2 hrs total


Dometic 1402 does a full defrost ---freezer/food compartments every 24 hrs
Freezer temp is lowered to thermostat cut out ,,,,,,10 minute delay then heater is energized/fan shut down until: cooling surface temp reaches 41*F or 75 minutes

Then after a 1 minute delay food compartment heater is energized until: cooling surface reaches 41*F or 20 minutes
Defrost cycle time is based on a real clock in fridge controls




Bells & Whistles.....shiny things.....bling

[illinibill]

To the four respondents- Thank You. Thank You. Great knowledge.