Hello!
I have a 2017 Travel Lite 625SL truck camper that I bought new.
The fridge/freezer unit which is a Dometic RM2354, mfg 2016, worked OK when I bought it, but never as well as the larger units in two other rigs I've owned. It got intermittent for a while, and now it is consistently bad.
I have a digital thermometer with an external probe that I jammed into the fridge through the thermistor hole, so I can check the temp without opening the door. It agrees within a few degrees with the analog one that is inside the fridge.
The problem is that while the freezer can freeze things and keep them frozen, the refrigerator portion does not get very cold, depending on the outside temp. For example, this morning we got a little frost on the roof of our house, and the RV fridge was at 35 degrees. On warmer days (65 to 75 degrees), the fridge gets to about 55 or 65 degrees, only a few degrees below the ambient air temp outside. But the ice packs in the freezer are still frozen solid. The cold just is not making its way into the fridge section well.
I am testing in my driveway. The fridge is perfectly level according to the bullseye level inside the fridge.
I have moved the thermistor clip to different areas on the fins, though my understanding is that this is a maximum of 5 degrees variance, not enough to cover what I am seeing.
The thermistor, when dunked in a glass of cold water with crushed ice, reads 9370 Ohms - right in "the zone". After reading a bit, I have now left the thermistor unplugged and we'll see what happens - it has been about an hour since I unplugged it.
There has never been an ammonia smell nor any yellow residue.
I have very little stuff in the fridge, so there is no air circulation blockage.
I have a little solar fan blowing on the condensor. It doesn't seem to make any difference. I have tried a battery powered fan inside the fridge. No difference.
It doesn't seem to matter whether it's on shore power or propane; in either case the chimney gets hot, the freezer stays frozen, and the fridge is tepid.
I have inspected the door seal. It is tight all the way around.
While I did not measure clearances exactly, I looked at the diagrams in the manual, and the fridge compartment looks pretty much the same as every RV fridge compartment I have looked at.
So, anyone have ideas what the heck is going on?
How, exactly, is the cold supposed to enter the main refrigerator compartment? Does it trickle down from the freezer, or is it a separate mechanism, attached to the cooling unit independently from the freezer?
