Dometic gas fridge (in Jayco camper trailer) issues

I am just doing a rewire with new triple batteries etc for a friends caravan. She got pulled over the table buy the guy selling her the second hand van. He pulled out the charger and power supply and replaced it with the cheapest around. She also has a Dometic 3 way fridge and it is piece of cr@p. Do yourself a favour and throw it out and put a decent compressor fridge in there.
It takes ages to cool down (your times do even sound fast) and with 12V it need above 10amp pretty much permanently. I have it wired with some relays that the fridge only runs when driving on 12V. No supply from battery (she has only 220Ah AGM) which would discharge too quickly.
I have several fridges myself and NONE is a 3-way. They are utterly useless.

sorry nut thats my opinion. others may think differently but it is a bit like 1000 flies can't be wrong: but they still sit on sh.t

It requires good insulation and one has to make sure that the airflow actually is hitting the vents otherwise you get heat everywhere.

good luck
gmd

Dirk,

I had the same fridge in my Penguin, it did take about a week to start working efficiently and I was getting a bit concerned.

I did find that when the outside temperature was above 30c it really did work overtime and when you turn the gas up more to get it colder heat builds up.

I did a few of things, insulated around the fridge sides and top by packing ceiling type insulation. I also took both vents off when we were camped which did have a great effect as the hot air escaped much better, those vents face downwards to stop water getting in there which tend to slow down the escape of hot air.

I also attached roll up awnings on all sides which stopped the sun adding more heat to the fridge side.

After I did this we found that the fridge worked much more efficiently on 4/5 and at night when the outside temp was below 20c we needed to turn the gas down to the 3 setting as it was too cold and ruined some of our veges like tomatoes and lettuce, also the milk was getting a bit of ice in it.

Ours was down to 4c in a couple of hours max from start up but it did take a while during that first week.

The sink never got hot though that's a bit strange.

Hi
Many years ago had a Jayco camper van & had similar problems with the heat @ rear not being able to get away THEY ARE ONLY AS EFFICIENT AS THE COOLING OF THE REAR OF THE UNIT. Ventilation as designed is hopeless .I removed the rear louvered covers & fitted a door that I could open to get rid of the heat, worked wonders.A small fan to assist in cooling the condenser fins would also help
The sink gets hot because of the trapped heat above the ventilation.
Incidentally unless they have changed you cannot run on 12v with top down & I certainly would not run on gas with top down. the risk of fire would be very high
A12v compressor fridge is great IF YOU CAN KEEP THE POWER up to them NO GOOD FOR LONG TERM CAMPING unless you have a means of recharging bats ,ie genny or solar ,or go for loooong drives every day or so. how long your bat s last depends on a number of factors m. Many threads & posts on this issue , you should seek them out & then sort the wheat from the chaff.

The Standard RM2350 90 litre fridge is fitted to just about every mid sized van on the market.

It fails to keep cold above about 35 celsius.

Why Van Makers keep fitting them is a mystery to me.

3 way fridges can work well. My parents had an upmarket, big Jayco, with a "T" rated Dometic Fridge and it held 0 degrees, when our RM2350 was at 10 in 42 degree heat.

Jim.

We have ordered a new Van and asked for a Large 2 door 12volt Vitrifrigo Fridge instead of the 3 way 2 door. I like my beer cold. We will have 2 x 120Watt solar panels and 3 x 110amp/hr Batteries.

Thanks guys,

As always, great responses.

Seems like we will keep operating our 12 V car fridge as we have in the past. I will have a look at installing a small fan to run during the day and changing the ventilation.

I just find it hard to believe that they got away with such an ordinary product for so long... not enough choice and competition I guess.

Anyway, thanks again.
Dirk

Also when the van is parked & the fridge is on make sure that the van (fridge) is level in all directions (particually front to rear)

If you can check this with a spirit level each time you set up (in the fridge if possible) as it can cause the fridge to not cool efficently & cause blockages to occur in the cooling system that are not able to be rectified unless the cooling system (the back of the fridge) is replaced

These fridges are not a bad as some on the forum might have you believe but are generally slower to pull down to temperature when initally switched on than a compressor fridge would be

Regards Don

I have an Electrolux/Dometic fridge in my caravan. What I have done is install a 4' fan in the top vent to extract hot air and completely sealed around the sides and top of the fridge so that the only air to pass goes over the fins. There is also a baffle that directs hot air straight out through the top vent, which is also sucked out by the fan.
In regards to 12v operation. Upon checking the voltage at the fridge I found that I only had 11+ volts (this power was being delivered by the caravan builders cabling) I have two 75 amphr batteries mounted on the draw bar of the caravan and I now supply the fridge through these and now have 13+ volts at the fridge. The old wiring is used to operate a relay which connects the fridge to the batteries but isolates them when the car ignition is turned off.
When on gas I can freeze a cup of water in the freezer compartment in two hours.

I have a few questions...

How do you power a compressor fridge for a week not connected to 240V? (please read next question before answering)

How do you carry/fix/install 2-3 solar panels and 3 AGM Batteries in a wind-up camper trailer?

Dirk, we have a similar fridge in our wind-up (non Jayco), and it goes fine on 240V and gas but average on 12V.The bench above ours gets warm but not hot. We always run it overnight on 240V before leaving home then on 12V while travelling (via car). The freezer works fine on 12V, ice cream even stays frozen. I've never recorded times and temp. I always use another method to cool beers as there's not enough room in the fridge for any anyway!

Nige.

There is not too much wrong with 3 way fridges. The only people who have problems with them are those who don't understand them. A lot of van manufacturers are incompetent when it comes to installing these fridges, they take scant notice of Dometic's instructions. Any fridge is just a heat pump. It does not matter how much heat you generate in the boiler of a 3 way fridge, if you do not vent the fridge properly then it will not pump the heat out of the cabinet.

To check the quality of the installation of your fridge digest the following links and compare what you learn with what the installation looks like.
Site Link
Site Link
http://www.rvmobile.com/Tech/Trouble/vent.htm

Jayco are not noted for following the installation instructions carefully. Looks like agent attempted unstuffed the installers stuff up. Check the above links to see if to see if he did a complete job.

If you install a compressor fridge and solar/battery system, the extra weight you will add to your camper will consume half your loading allowance. You will probably have to get the chassis up rated so that you can again carry your food and clothes.

PeterD

Hi dirk, I have a Jayco Penguin off roader2003 model & had trouble with fridge cooling, I wont bore you with details but this is what I did to rectify the problem.
1/ Bought a replacement gas jet $50 odd for that model which was a larger jet size.
2/ placed a baffle on top of the bottom vent to within 6mm of the fridge pipes & placed a bafflel at the bottom of the top side vent within 6 mm of the fridge baffles.
3/from Jaycar put a 150mm barrel fan on the bottom to push the air through the system, uses about 2.5m amps & operated via a switch inside the van it has an inbuilt operating light. I also plug in to 240v over night for initial cooling. Ihope this has been of some value to you.

peegot

Dirk,

You dont't mention which model fridge it is.

Tony

hi dirk

i also own a jayco camper - swan - and recently did some research on the fridges as i like you wasnt happy.

have a look at fridge venting and you will see why it wont work well the way it has been installed. from what you describe you need to do a few modifications to get it more effecient. some of the things you can do include any or all of these:

1. change cable size for 12V. ths alone can fix most 12V problems
2. fit a 240V and a 12V fan behind the top vent thats behind the fridge. fit a switch to them so you can turn on/off to suit your needs. fit 240V so it comes on/off with compressor timing. get good quality so its not noisy
3. fill in the gaps between the edge of the fridge and the surrounding cabinets and underside of benchtop. use insulation blanket if space permits or just seal the smaller gaps
4. fit some baffles above the bottom vent and below the top vent to force the air flow into and through the fins. you can also fill the space thats left between the two baffles if you want using sisalation, sarking etc pulled tight or something similar. most likely the space behind your fridge will be like mine was and was too large, about 40 to 50mm (or more?) between the outside van wall and the fridge fins. really easy to fit baffles - use 2x1 timber cut to width and glue into place if you cannot get in to screw it in, or use aluminium angle cut to the width which is what i used. i glued a piece of timber 20x20mm vertical next to outside wall in corners and glued the angle on top of that. a good glue to use is selleys All Fix which is available for cartridge guns or even in tubes. it drys very quickly and glues most things and is strong. another one which has consistency similar to PVA type glue is Weldbond but takes longer to dry. (All Fix is easier to use). if you look a the link above and the two lower diagrams your fridge install will probably be like the one on bottom right so it really isnt designed to work well. the top vent is probably too low, the bottom of the top vent should be in line with the top of fridge which is impossible in the camper vans due to canvas walls. that is why you often see a vent on top of the bench inside the van behind/beside the sink - it allows the airflow to draw up and out of space behind fridge but inside the van (good for extra winter heating though), and without a vent your sink can get warm/hot. when I fitted the top baffle i screwed in a 50x12mm piece of timber flat at the base of top vent, screwed into the vents bottom timber frame surround (allow for vent thickness or it wont be able to be refitted). I then screwed a length of 40x20mm aluminium angle (40mm up and 20mm was down flat like an L shape) so it was 5mm off back of fridge and covered bottom section of the vent opening. this forced the airflow up and over it and then outside through the vents with aid of 12V or 240V fans.

when i did the above it fixed my problems so recommend you give them a go. the baffles are really easy to do. just unscrew and remove the outside vents and you can see what needs to be done. just fill all the gaps in (3) above before you do baffles to give you more room to fit everything and dry fit all before gluing it all in. hope this of some help, good luck...

You have the best warranty in Australia, don't waste your time with the dealer contact customer care direct ,you gave the dealer the chance to rectify now go direct to the TOP
Any air vents ?
WRVA