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JBarca's avatar
JBarca
Nomad II
Apr 20, 2019

Atwood/Dometic Stove regulator 51062

I have a Atwood range model R-A2133BSE. I am having issues with the stove regulator to sustain 10" WC and I need a sanity check if I am missing something.

Background. Earlier this week, I did a LP leak test and pressure test on my camper. I am using my new Dwyer gas gage.

I hook up the gage at the burner orifice, read the pressure. I am getting 10" WC with a tap on the gage at the burner orifice downstream of the stove regulator. OK this sounds good. I close the main tank valve.

I vent a burner to bleed down to 8" WC at a burner orifice to open the main tank regulator. I let the system sit for a 3 minute leak test, no drop. I let it continue to time for 10 minutes. No pressure drop. Great, I have no leaks.

I then take the gas line off "upstream" of the stove regulator to do a system pressure test. Hook up the gage, open the tank and I get 10" WC. OK what's up? I then suspect my gage is not reading right. I go get my old water manometer. Sure enough it is reading right on with the gage. OK the tank regulator is acting up.

I adjust the tank regulator up to 11 1/2" WC before the stove regulator. Fire off the furnace and the system drops down to 10" WC. I never had much luck trying to adjust these cheap tank regulators, when they start acting up, they are usually toast.

But, I tweaked the regulator up to 13" and with the furnace running it drops to about 11 1/2". Now let me check the stove regulator again as I really do not know if it was working right.

I put the incoming line back on the stove regulator, and put the gage on the burner orifice and check the pressure at the stove burner. Yup, it reads 13"WC. Darn, the stove regulator is bad too.

I order a 3 new tank regulators and 3 new stove regulators as I have several campers. They are all over 10 years old. And all using Atwood ranges.

Today I put the new tank regulator in. That works right now. When the furnace and water heater are on, it only goes from 12" WC to 11" WC. SO I feel good the tank regulator is good now.

I put a brand new Dometic 51062 regulator in the stove. Take a reading at the burner. I get 12" WC. This new regulator is not working. I check it again with my manometer, same thing, 12" WC.

Ok, so I go get a 2nd new Dometic 51062 and put it in. Same thing. It passes full tank pressure at 12" WC.

OK what am I missing here? I have had stove regulators go bad in the past when Atwood was still in operation and the new replacement worked right out of the gate. It was 10" WC right on the money. (now about 8 years ago) Now I have 2 new Dometic ones since the takeover of Atwood and neither one works.

I have not yet opened the 3rd spare stove regulator. I even tried putting the regulator face up (diaphragm axis up) verses 90 degrees like the stove was originally. No luck

Any suggestions?'

This I will say, the older Atwood regulators you could pull the plug out and adjust the pressure. These new Dometics are sealed up with what looks like a pressed in disk over the diaphragm stem, so it is non adjustable.

Thanks in advance.

John
  • BFL13's avatar
    BFL13
    Explorer II
    Apr 20, 2019
    Does the stove work? If you didn't have the measuring device would you suspect anything is wrong with the stove?
  • JBarca's avatar
    JBarca
    Nomad II
    Apr 20, 2019
    BFL13 wrote:
    Does the stove work? If you didn't have the measuring device would you suspect anything is wrong with the stove?


    Yes, the stove worked before as the main tank regulator was creating 10"WC which is what the stove is supposed to be working at. If I did not checked this, I would not have known I had a problem.

    What I have seen in the past on these cheap regulators is, once they start to deteriorate in performance sooner or later the water heater and the furnace may act up without enough pressure to operate correctly. Or worse, the pressure goes way too high, beyond 14" WC and then you run into risk of overheating.

    From my background, doing preventive maintenance with checking to correct things before they stop working, keeps you running longer.

    It is just hard to believe I got 2 brand new Dometic regulators that do not regulate properly right out of the box. I'm hoping some others have run into this before to give me some clues what is going on. Maybe Dometic changed suppliers and they have a quality issue. Don't know, yet anyway.
  • dougrainer's avatar
    dougrainer
    Nomad
    Apr 20, 2019
    1. I would indeed suspect the Dometic Stove reg's are bad. But, I doubt Dometic will fess up. It took months last year to get Dometic to agree that the Atwood Water heater Control boards on thousands of DSI water heaters were faulty. They then replaced them. Probably the same thing now. Their supplier has built faulty regulators and it will take time for the bad ones to show up in service centers before Dometic realizes the problem. You need to contac Dometic and explain in detail your testing process so they will understand that they are dealing with someone that knows RV LP systems. Hopefully they will want all your regulators back for testing. BTW, it is RARE got the Range/stove regulator to go bad. Usually they just leak. Doug
  • JBarca's avatar
    JBarca
    Nomad II
    Apr 20, 2019
    BFL13 wrote:
    Need one of the real techs here, but I did find this review where he says the OEM was too weak to run the oven but the new one does. Perhaps the new spec is 12 since the ones you got are both at that?

    I don't know if it matters that the OEM was Part 52154 for an R-2136.

    https://www.amazon.com/Atwood-51062-Pressure-Regulator/product-reviews/B004QN0WNC/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_show_all_btm?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews


    Hi, Thanks

    From my manual, the RA2133 uses the 51062 (year 2006 range). As does all the stovetops and ranges in the service manual,(2007 vintage manual). Seems they just use a standard step down regulator. It does mention that the 52154 regulator is the same as the 51062.

    As to the pressure, ranges and stove tops have been at 10" WC a long time. And the one I have, has orifices sized to work on 10" WC. I do not know of a change in the spec. That would be a major departure from prior industry standard 10" WC on a range/stove top.

    I also looked at the dates in the review you linked. They are all several years old when Atwood was still steering the ship. The person with the flow issue may have had a bad regulator not opening up enough under load.
  • JBarca's avatar
    JBarca
    Nomad II
    Apr 20, 2019
    dougrainer wrote:
    1. I would indeed suspect the Dometic Stove reg's are bad. But, I doubt Dometic will fess up. It took months last year to get Dometic to agree that the Atwood Water heater Control boards on thousands of DSI water heaters were faulty. They then replaced them. Probably the same thing now. Their supplier has built faulty regulators and it will take time for the bad ones to show up in service centers before Dometic realizes the problem. You need to contac Dometic and explain in detail your testing process so they will understand that they are dealing with someone that knows RV LP systems. Hopefully they will want all your regulators back for testing. BTW, it is RARE got the Range/stove regulator to go bad. Usually they just leak. Doug


    Thanks Doug.

    These 2 new failed regulators are not doing any regulating. They are passing whatever the tank pressure is straight through. This camper also had a fridge cooling coil failure and with the fridge out, I caped off the fridge gas line. As a troubleshooting effort, I had my Dwyer gas gage on the fridge for tank pressure and the manometer on the stove burner. If it tweaked the tank regulator up or down, 13 to 12 to 11" the stove burner on the manometer would follow it exactly. Theses new Dometic regulators I got just plainly do not work.

    If I find anything out from Dometic, I will pass it along. Years ago when I called Atwood I got a lot of help. Calling Dometic was not the same experience.
  • JBarca's avatar
    JBarca
    Nomad II
    Apr 20, 2019
    dougrainer wrote:
    BTW, it is RARE got the Range/stove regulator to go bad. Usually they just leak. Doug


    Thanks and I can agree with that. The last Atwood regulator on my prior camper leaked at the vent. Must of been a pin hole or something in the diaphragm. I finally caught it with leak solution.

    See here.
  • BFL13's avatar
    BFL13
    Explorer II
    Apr 20, 2019
    That could explain what happened recently with my new burner for the old Atwood water heater. As I posted in that thread:

    "New burner arrived and installed. The amazon info and bag it came in all said Part 91638 Main Burner, but the Dometic paper in the bag said Part 91629 Main Burner Replacement, with a drawing showing the pilot light version of the heater. (my heater is with no pilot)

    Anyway it turned out to be the same, so it went on ok."
  • JBarca's avatar
    JBarca
    Nomad II
    Apr 20, 2019
    Update:

    I tried the 3rd new regulator today. Same issue, the stover regulator follows the tank pressure.

    I did try one of them under demand. One burner on hi, drops the stove pressure 2" WC, 2 stove burners on hi drops to 3" WC or adds 1 " drop. These regulators just do not regulate.

    These 51062 Dometic regulators have serial numbers on the package and mfg dates.

    1. Ser. # 84699676 11/15/18
    2. Ser. # 84699712 11/15/18
    3. Ser. # 90298483 01/18/19

    2 of them are made very close on the same day. The other one 2 months later. This does not seem like a good trend.
  • BFL13's avatar
    BFL13
    Explorer II
    Apr 21, 2019
    Yes, you have to report all this to Dometic. Otherwise, how will they ever know? It is not their style to screw up, normally.

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