Refrigerator = Frustration

First off plug in the trailer and then turn on the frig to electric. It will take up to 24 hours for it to cool to temp. you should see a difference at about 4 or 5. Turn the propane on and after the frig is to temp switch it to gas and see if it maintains the temp. Batteries won't matter if you are plugged in and during that process your converter/charger will charge the batteries. If you unplug then the 12 volt takes over and your frig may automatically turn to gas or you may have to move the switch. After you have done that and it doesn't work get back to us and give us make and model of frig and we can give specific information to help. A sticker on the door should give you the information.

double posting

dalmationlovers wrote:
First off plug in the trailer and then turn on the frig to electric. It will take up to 24 hours for it to cool to temp. you should see a difference at about 4 or 5. Turn the propane on and after the frig is to temp switch it to gas and see if it maintains the temp. Batteries won't matter if you are plugged in and during that process your converter/charger will charge the batteries. If you unplug then the 12 volt takes over and your frig may automatically turn to gas or you may have to move the switch. After you have done that and it doesn't work get back to us and give us make and model of frig and we can give specific information to help. A sticker on the door should give you the information.

This what I did...
1)I plugged trailer in...realized the refrigerator was not turning on, period.
2)I decided to trouble shoot through trial and error...so I replaced the battery and left it running on the plugged in cord for 24 hours and still nothing(strange thing is that the radio was not turning on either).
3)At that point, I turned on the gas. Gas would only run for a few min and the check light would come on.
4)I took out the refrigerator and cleaned all of the gas fixtures and flue and what not. I reconnected the refrigerator to trailer and turned on the gas and it worked, though it would still through a check like every now and again when I opened the refrigerator door. But the freezer got down to almost below 0 and the refrigerator was reading 40 degrees.

***this is where the frustrating part kicks in***

5)I decided to test out the electricity (running the trailer on the cord with No gas turned on) so I turned off the gas and plugged in the trailer. I left it running all night. I woke up this morning and the thing is like 80 degrees. I tested the battery up front and it was completely dead.

That is why I ask...Does the battery have to have a charge to work in both modes?

My common sense tells me that if it is working on Gas, than is should be working on electric, because regardless of the mode the control panel is still controlled by electricity, either coming from the battery or the cord.

No one can help much without knowing the make and the model of the fridge…
Chances are your is new enough to require 12v to operate but not all of the older ones need 12v…

If it works on gas but not electric chances are the electric heater element is bad…

I did not realize the putting a posting in two places was not allowed. My apologies. I was not sure where to post this so I put it in general issues. Upon further investigation of the forum, i found that there is a forum that is designated to Travel trailers. My apologies. I got the help that I needed So thanks.

Charged battery shouldn't make any difference.

But......how hard is it to charge the battery??..:h

Then you will have your "battery" answer.

~

It is a DOMETIC RM 2612.

I have a new battery on it now...we will see. I hear from some people that a battery is required and I hear from some people that a battery is not required.

It makes sense to me that a battery would be required to control the control circuitry...and the cooling can run on gas or electric.

i guess I'm back to trial and error.

If it requires 12v and most likely it will, it needs the 12v for both gas and electric…
so
If it works on gas but not electric chances are the 110v electric heater element is bad…
or it’s not getting the AC power to the heater…

Get out your voltmeter. You got some tracing to do.

The fridge does need 12 volts, whether running on gas or electric. There are two kinds of fridges in common use, one runs only on gas or 120 volt shore power, the other also will run entirely on 12 volt. That, needless to say, sucks a lot of power out of the battery, and is usually only on rigs with multiple batteries.

When you plug in the shore power, it is also supposed to make 12 volts for recharging the battery, but will also power the fridge 12 volt circuits. You need to check to see that when plugged in, you have 120 volts at the converter and the outlets. You also need to disconnect the battery and see that you still have 12 volts. It may be that the converter is bad or there are blown fuses/circuit breakers.

After you verify 120 volts and 12 volts where it's supposed to be, check the electric heater in the fridge to see that IT gets 120 volts. If so, and still no joy on electric, it means the heater is burnt out.

That the fridge throws intermittant error messages suggests you've got a bad connection somewhere.