No, Darnit, The Light Doesn't Go Out When I Close The Door!

[Mike_LeClair]

Yes, I did a search and there were no related previous posts. I read another posters thread about wondering if the light goes out or not and enjoyed some of the more humorous replies and tried to look past the snarky old usual posts from the usual snarky folks.

Anyhoo - the light does not go out when we close the fridge door. I took earlier advice and used my phone to video the thing after the door is closed. Yup, STILL ON!! WTF???? The plunger thingy (tech term) seems to work in that it slides in and back, it just doesn't break the connection to power. I can't for the life of me figure out how to get this thing free from the top of the fridge as I can't see how it is held on up there. It almost seems as if it is glued up there. There is no way to pop the thing into two halves so I am flummoxed.

Anybody in the collective here have any experience gutting and repairing these things? Thanks

Cheers!
Mike

[Ivylog]

Hopefully there is a switch that will solve your problem.^^^^^ If tearing into the door switch is hard, then I would replace the bulb with a LED that will draw 0.1 amps and not worry about it.

[Roger10378]

If you post the make and model of the fridge you will get better advice.

[ksg5000]

Chris Bryant wrote:

SoundGuy wrote:

DrewE wrote:
Some RV fridges have a switch of some sort that turns the light on all the time, using it as a little heater (for climate control or cold weather operation or some such, I can't recall precisely what at the moment).

Never heard of anything like this nor would it make any sense at all.

Called a Low Ambient Temperature switch or control (LAC or LAT). Used on some Dometic models. In low temperatures, the fresh food compartment stays at temp, but the cooling unit doesn't run enough to keep the freezer below zero, so they add heat to the fresh compartment, making the cooling unit run enough to keep the freezer cold.

On my fridge this switch is located in the freezer compartment door jam way up top - almost impossible to locate unless your looking for it. Open the door and look for black sitch on black trim.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Try to access a parts book.

Sometimes the key to figuring out a puzzling design is to look at the entire part. Your local RV service center should be a starting point. Once access is made use a 12 volt test light and if power is showing on both sides of the switch disconnect one wire or a harness and check either for continuity or power on both sides of a disconnected switch.

[Chris_Bryant]

SoundGuy wrote:

DrewE wrote:
Some RV fridges have a switch of some sort that turns the light on all the time, using it as a little heater (for climate control or cold weather operation or some such, I can't recall precisely what at the moment).

Never heard of anything like this nor would it make any sense at all.

Called a Low Ambient Temperature switch or control (LAC or LAT). Used on some Dometic models. In low temperatures, the fresh food compartment stays at temp, but the cooling unit doesn't run enough to keep the freezer below zero, so they add heat to the fresh compartment, making the cooling unit run enough to keep the freezer cold.

[j-d]

PaulJ2 wrote:
Look up everything you can find on your model of frig. Make sure there is not a delay function involved in it before you tear it all apart. In todays world you never know.

Correct! Even Yesterday's World: We have a Norcold N811 that was made in about 2002. Old enough that the door hinges aren't Plastic! Anyhow, the Light turns Off after several minutes when the Door is Open. You might try leaving the phone in there, say 05 minutes. It may well go dark.

You didn't ask, but our model has a rudimentary "defrost" system where the Board shuts the Cooling Unit off for awhile about every 24 hours. When it's really hot out, we can't afford that time off. So, Doug here mentioned that turning the Fridge Off for more than 10 seconds, re-stats the Defrost Timer feature. So if we do that once a day, Cooling Unit will run as demanded, no time off.

The "strips" are called Mullion Heaters, and they keep the Gasket Surfaces dry. And Yes, a power consumer...

[SoundGuy]

DrewE wrote:
Some RV fridges have a switch of some sort that turns the light on all the time, using it as a little heater (for climate control or cold weather operation or some such, I can't recall precisely what at the moment).

Never heard of anything like this nor would it make any sense at all. Yes, gas absorption fridges usually have a climate control heating element wrapped around the perimeter of the freezer door to help minimize frost build up. It's a 12 vdc heating element so when dry camping it's drawing down the battery, however manufacturers in recent years started deleting the switch used to turn this element on/off. This is irrelevant if you're camping on an electric site but if you're dry camping it's unnecessarily depleting the battery. The solution is to add your own switch, just as I've done ... however, this has nothing to do with the fact the fridge light is not being turned off when the fridge door is closed. In the OP's case it sounds like the switch is faulty, if so just replace it.

[DrewE]

Some RV fridges have a switch of some sort that turns the light on all the time, using it as a little heater (for climate control or cold weather operation or some such, I can't recall precisely what at the moment). Maybe that's what's going on.

[time2roll]

The fridge light was burnt out when we got this thing. Got a new lamp, one of those glass fuse looking things, and it draws about 1.6 amps. Found that with the fridge door closed it still did. Oops!

> TrimetricSaves the Day Again

[PaulJ2]

Look up everything you can find on your model of frig. Make sure there is not a delay function involved in it before you tear it all apart. In todays world you never know.