Fridge, new house fridge vs rebuild old rv fridge

[stevemorris]

our 15 yr old dometic is working reasonably well, but thinking ahead!!
rebuild it or replace it with an inexpensive house fridge which of course is 120 vac only. rv fridge is in great shape cosmetically
we very rarely dry camp, maybe 1 night at a walmart once in a while
running a 120 volt fridge off an inverter is probably not an option, we only have one "normal sized" rv battery and really don't want to expand on that
so really two issues, running the fridge on the road and when dry camping.
thoughts/opinions?

[Weldon]

The money you save by buying a residential unit will allow you to buy more batteries.

[AllegroD]

BFL13 wrote:

AllegroD wrote:
We replaced our Dometic RM1350 with a Samsung RF18. We got tired of it being OK. We wanted frozen food and hard ice cream in the freezer. We do as the OP. No dry except a couple nights on a cross country trek to the family. We do this with a RV750ULHW inverter/charger and 2 Trojan105. Fridge stays cold and freezer frozen for over 8 hours, without shore hookup. The batts stay charged while driving. If needed, we could run the gennie for a couple hours. It works.

Expensive!!!

https://www.amazon.ca/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=rv750ulhw&tag=googcana-20&index=aps&hvadid=267156749726&hv...

Not sure I understand. Question!!! If the reference is to buying an RV750ulHW then, we did not. It came with our Allegro 36LA. For an install for just a RR, then yes there are other choices. BTW, I did not catch that the OP had no inverter. Sorry.

[camperdave]

stevemorris wrote:
our 15 yr old dometic is working reasonably well, but thinking ahead!!
rebuild it or replace it with an inexpensive house fridge which of course is 120 vac only. rv fridge is in great shape cosmetically
we very rarely dry camp, maybe 1 night at a walmart once in a while
running a 120 volt fridge off an inverter is probably not an option, we only have one "normal sized" rv battery and really don't want to expand on that
so really two issues, running the fridge on the road and when dry camping.
thoughts/opinions?

Well, given your constraints of one battery and no inverter, your options will be to rebuild/replace the existing fridge, or use a residential and keep it off/closed when travelling and hope it stays cool enough. Could always supplement with a cooler when you know you'll be overnighting in a hot area.

You could hook up a 400w or so inverter to your one battery and hope the truck charging system keeps up with the demand while driving, but that doesn't help you overnight.

No matter which option you take, I'd run it till it quits first. No point in replacing a fridge that may just last another 10 years...

[BFL13]

AllegroD wrote:
We replaced our Dometic RM1350 with a Samsung RF18. We got tired of it being OK. We wanted frozen food and hard ice cream in the freezer. We do as the OP. No dry except a couple nights on a cross country trek to the family. We do this with a RV750ULHW inverter/charger and 2 Trojan105. Fridge stays cold and freezer frozen for over 8 hours, without shore hookup. The batts stay charged while driving. If needed, we could run the gennie for a couple hours. It works.

Expensive!!!

https://www.amazon.ca/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=rv750ulhw&tag=googcana-20&index=aps&hvadid=267156749726&hv...

[AllegroD]

We replaced our Dometic RM1350 with a Samsung RF18. We got tired of it being OK. We wanted frozen food and hard ice cream in the freezer. We do as the OP. No dry except a couple nights on a cross country trek to the family. We do this with a RV750ULHW inverter/charger and 2 Trojan105. Fridge stays cold and freezer frozen for over 8 hours, without shore hookup. The batts stay charged while driving. If needed, we could run the gennie for a couple hours. It works.

[sayoung]

midnightsadie wrote:
it ain,t broke ,I,d leave it alone.

X2
Don't waste your time rebuilding either.IMHO

[DrewE]

BFL13 wrote:

It still must get its 12v from the power supply board at the back though? Mine has +12 wire going from J1 to door switch, then to lamp, then back to J2. The board has -12 from J4 to the chassis bonding terminal block at the back where the fridge-battery wires go to.

It does get 12V power from the board or somewhere, and that power is consistently reliable to the light. I don't know if there's a switch on the board to kill the light during storage; it would make sense if there was, as the light is otherwise on even if the fridge is not turned on (and indeed I've added a separate toggle switch to allow the light to be turned off without having to remove the bulb, which may have been unnecessary extra work).

At any rate, I am perfectly fine with my fridge; it keeps things cold when it should, and has given no hassle at all that hasn't been obvious operator error, such as forgetting to turn it back on after turning it off temporarily for one reason or another.

[BFL13]

DrewE wrote:

BFL13 wrote:
On my Dometic S630, the door switch goes to the top blade on the power supply board J1 (orange) and the light goes to the next one down J2 (yellow). Perhaps the wires are loose on the blades. I had that with one of the connections on mine, only it was for the heater.

Unfortunately that's not the case on my fridge. The switch and light socket are wired in series directly at the door. The switch is in my opinion not the greatest design and tends to get a bit of corrosion or crud internally from the dampness etc. and fails to make good contact. I've taken it apart and cleaned it, which helped for a time, and may do the same again...or pony up for an expensive replacement switch, or kludge together some other switch arrangement (a magnetic reed switch, perhaps with a transistor or relay for increased power handling, is one appealing option).

It still must get its 12v from the power supply board at the back though? Mine has +12 wire going from J1 to door switch, then to lamp, then back to J2. The board has -12 from J4 to the chassis bonding terminal block at the back where the fridge-battery wires go to.

The board has a feature I didn't know about before I had the recent heater problem-- an on off switch on the side they say is for "storage" that lets you kill power to the fridge light so you can leave the fridge door open when the RV is not in use, so the fridge does not get smelly.

[ScottG]

Those older Dometics seem to be better built and may last forever. Personally, I would not touch it.
But if you want to go to electric, there are kits for converting what you have to an AAC or DC compressor based system from JC Refrideration that work great.

[DrewE]

BFL13 wrote:
On my Dometic S630, the door switch goes to the top blade on the power supply board J1 (orange) and the light goes to the next one down J2 (yellow). Perhaps the wires are loose on the blades. I had that with one of the connections on mine, only it was for the heater.

Unfortunately that's not the case on my fridge. The switch and light socket are wired in series directly at the door. The switch is in my opinion not the greatest design and tends to get a bit of corrosion or crud internally from the dampness etc. and fails to make good contact. I've taken it apart and cleaned it, which helped for a time, and may do the same again...or pony up for an expensive replacement switch, or kludge together some other switch arrangement (a magnetic reed switch, perhaps with a transistor or relay for increased power handling, is one appealing option).

[time2roll]

If you never camp off-grid more than a few hours then the compressor is fine.

Otherwise for off-grid camping I would replace the absorption fridge with a brand new direct replacement.

Either way no replacement until it fails.

[2oldman]

You'll need more batteries.

[BFL13]

On my Dometic S630, the door switch goes to the top blade on the power supply board J1 (orange) and the light goes to the next one down J2 (yellow). Perhaps the wires are loose on the blades. I had that with one of the connections on mine, only it was for the heater.

[DrewE]

midnightsadie wrote:
it ain,t broke ,I,d leave it alone.

x2 on this. Your fridge is working fine and fits your usage scenario. There is no reason whatever to replace or repair it. With care, it ought to last quite a bit longer...there's nothing inherent in an absorption fridge that "wears out" (corrosion and off-level usage being the main killers).

My ca. 20 year old Dometic RV fridge works very nicely still...excepting the inside light, the door switch for which is a bit flakey.