Need help Norcold 1200 with a Amish cooling unit

donandmax wrote:
Lets see...you have to take your windshield out in order to get the home type frig in the coach right ?.......ehh no I'm not going there. Thank you very much..
Our 18 yr old Norcold 1200 is serving us very well to this day..Its just as efficient as our home refer.when it goes I'll get it fixed or buy one that fits through the door..Taking your coach apart to fit the home type refer in is sheer insanity.Now if they have one that fits through the door of course thats a different story..

It depends on the rig. On mine they took out a side window. I took maybe 45 minutes total in and out. That includes recaulking. I think the reinstall was better than the original. Not sheer insanity. The best single improvement we ever made to our Tour Master.

Lets see...you have to take your windshield out in order to get the home type frig in the coach right ?.......ehh no I'm not going there. Thank you very much..
Our 18 yr old Norcold 1200 is serving us very well to this day..Its just as efficient as our home refer.when it goes I'll get it fixed or buy one that fits through the door..Taking your coach apart to fit the home type refer in is sheer insanity.Now if they have one that fits through the door of course thats a different story..

When I'm the only MH in a CG where there's plenty of soft sided rigs... I stick out. I limit my generator use and I do not use my outside 40" TV unless there's a race on. Unfortunately many feel that the bigger the MH the less friendly we are as they give us a wide berth. If they make eye contact I wave with a beer in hand and say bring a chair and watch the race. Has made for some fun times, but you have to work at it.

OK, I was wondering what unit you had as the Magnums also have under charging issues.

Ivylog wrote:
For those reading this with a NorCold 12xx: As DSDP Don said, there are two different thermistors and yes I bought the correct one as a spare several years ago for $15. It's easy enough to check your thermistor by holding the Temp and Mode buttons down until you get 1 and then using the Mode go to #3 where it will show the temp of your fins.
I found a NorCold PN 628661 control board on Ebay for $100. Should be here this week.
My inverter/Charger is a Xantrex Trace RV2012 2000W and there really is a 33% reduction in charger output using the generator and I'm not the only one with this problem. If my charger would put out 70 amps for more than 15 minutes that would be fine but at 40 amps it takes three hours to get to float charging on a 800AH battery bank from more than 50%. Another 04 Dynasty owner's numbers were even worse and installing a PSW I/C solved the problem. Granted I can buy a lot of diesel instead of an new bigger I/C but in most of the places I stay, I already stick out.

Put a pencil to it, $2000 at $3.65/gal. for diesel is 548 gallons. Would it be worth it? Not when you figure while you are running the generator the refrigerator and all other appliances are running off of it too and not the inverter. Three hours to charge your batteries from 50% doesn't seem out of line to me. Don't get what you mean by "sticking out". Here's hoping a new board will take care of your problem, cause if it doesn't I think a Samsung is in the offing.

For those reading this with a NorCold 12xx: As DSDP Don said, there are two different thermistors and yes I bought the correct one as a spare several years ago for $15. It's easy enough to check your thermistor by holding the Temp and Mode buttons down until you get 1 and then using the Mode go to #3 where it will show the temp of your fins.
I found a NorCold PN 628661 control board on Ebay for $100. Should be here this week.
My inverter/Charger is a Xantrex Trace RV2012 2000W and there really is a 33% reduction in charger output using the generator and I'm not the only one with this problem. If my charger would put out 70 amps for more than 15 minutes that would be fine but at 40 amps it takes three hours to get to float charging on a 800AH battery bank from more than 50%. Another 04 Dynasty owner's numbers were even worse and installing a PSW I/C solved the problem. Granted I can buy a lot of diesel instead of an new bigger I/C but in most of the places I stay, I already stick out.

DSDP Don wrote:
Ivylog....Sorry...I didn't mean to side track the post with the residential refer.

I did a BUNCH of stuff to my Norcold to make it perform at a reasonable level. Something I learned by accident was there are two different thermistors for that refer. I was cruising websites looking to buy a thermistor one day and found a site that asked for the serial number. Apparently, there are two identical looking thermistors for the Norcold, but different part numbers. I ordered the correct one and my refer worked well again for awhile. Sorry, I can't remember the website.

I also added two additional computer fans to the exterior and one of the double fans to the interior. In weather under 90 degrees the refer would stay about 34 inside, but NEVER kept ice cream frozen, even though it made ice quickly.

As I said, sorry about distracting the post, but the Samsung was the best single improvement ever in my coach. All of the people on the Monaco forums installed it with the MSW inverter and four batteries and are doing just fine. I also think your idea of the costs to convert are a little high. You can get the SS model for $1209 OTD. If you can do your own install, just a few dollars in parts. Your charger issues don't make sense to me and if it's not working properly it seems it would be an issue for other things in your rig.

Ivylog, I too apologize for getting off topic. I was just trying to convince you to quit putting good money after bad with the Norcold and bite the bullet and get the Samsung. You, won't be sorry. I agree with DSDP Don. The Samsung was the best single improvement we did to our Tour Master. I tried the computer fans in the back and the one inside and there was some improvement. But still when it got up around 90 deg. the temp inside the refer would go up to at least the mid 40's. I tried changing the fin the thermistor was on to no avail. A repairman told me that if the thermistor was bad it would get too cold in the refer. He said my problem was a weak cooling unit. Basically, I just got tired of fooling around with the No Cold. After looking at the charts that are in the Xantex manual the 3 stage inverter charger will not put out close to 100 amps until the batteries (which would be two of them) get down to 11 volts. At 50% battery charge I think 30 to 40 amps would be proper. The fact that it is a 3 stage charger would be the reason the charge rates would change after charging for a while. This is also evident in the charts that are in the manual. And finally, $1209 is exactly what I would have paid for my Samsung without the $60 delivery charge. I know its a hard thing to do when you've already spent the money on the Amish cooling unit, but we sure love ours.

Ivylog....Sorry...I didn't mean to side track the post with the residential refer.

I did a BUNCH of stuff to my Norcold to make it perform at a reasonable level. Something I learned by accident was there are two different thermistors for that refer. I was cruising websites looking to buy a thermistor one day and found a site that asked for the serial number. Apparently, there are two identical looking thermistors for the Norcold, but different part numbers. I ordered the correct one and my refer worked well again for awhile. Sorry, I can't remember the website.

I also added two additional computer fans to the exterior and one of the double fans to the interior. In weather under 90 degrees the refer would stay about 34 inside, but NEVER kept ice cream frozen, even though it made ice quickly.

As I said, sorry about distracting the post, but the Samsung was the best single improvement ever in my coach. All of the people on the Monaco forums installed it with the MSW inverter and four batteries and are doing just fine. I also think your idea of the costs to convert are a little high. You can get the SS model for $1209 OTD. If you can do your own install, just a few dollars in parts. Your charger issues don't make sense to me and if it's not working properly it seems it would be an issue for other things in your rig.

What make/model of charger?

Ivylog wrote:
For what it's worth??? We boondock a lot and until last week I had never used shore power to bring my batteries back up... always with the 10K generator. My 100 amp charger has never put out more than 70amps with my batteries at 50% and then only for 10-15 minutes on a 800AH temp regulated bank. Last week I ran them down to 70% and then charged using the generator 30amps and shore power 42amps which explains why I've never gotten 100 amps. Some type of imbalance with the sine wave from the generator and the charger's restive load.

I don't get it. Why do you think your charger should put out more than 70 amps when the batteries are at 50% even if it is capable of 100 amps? Isn't it doing the job and getting the batteries back up to 100%. The charger certainly doesn't draw 100 amps to put out 100 amps of charge.