Fridge barely cooling on AC

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
J

jazz-n-rv

Member
Joined
Sep 4, 2018
Posts
7
Good afternoon,

This is my first time posting on this forum.  My issue is my trailers refrigerator barely cools on AC.  It only gets the fridge down to 45 degrees after being on for over 24 hours.  How when I turn the fridge to propane it gets down to 33 degrees within a few hours.

My thought is my heating element is going bad.  What I am not sure of is if these are either working or not-working items.  I would like to have a good approach plan so that I do not just throw money at it with parts that are not bad.

From what I understand the issues could be a bad heating element, thermistor, and control board.  The fact that the fridge works great on propane makes me think that the issue is not the thermistor and maybe not the control board.  Thanks for your help.
 
Well you can start randomly replacing parts and hope to stumble on the one causing the problem or you can hire a mobile mechanic who knows what he is doing.
 
I'm hoping to avoid randomly replacing parts, but with the price of RV mechanics around here, I will be charged about as much for the repair as just replacing all the parts myself.
 
How are you measuring the temp? A pocket thermometer in a glass of water or a remote display work best. A regular thermometer will give you a false reading by the time you can focus on it.
 
I'm using a digital outdoor thermometer and I leave the thermometer on the middle shelf.  This is where I get a reading for both electric and propane.  This allows me to never open the door and just read the temperature by the remote screen.
 
There are others who will weigh in who are experts in this area, however the fact that it cools fine on LP strongly indicates the electric elements. The manual for my 1210 states the fridge will not cool properly on one element. I believe the elements are about $50
 
Arch Hoagland said:
Year, make and model would help us to help you.
Click to expand...
AMEN

Welcome to the Forum!

It is likely you have two electric heating elements, and one of them is bad.  Since it works on LP, it is most likely something unique to the electric side.
 
I just checked the heating element for resistance and it measured 43.3 ohms, which from what I can tell is spot on.  From what I read online it should be between 40-45 ohms of resistance.  What I have not figured out is what the bottom thing is going into the metal tube.  I don't even know how I would replace it because it looks like it is riveted into the tube.  My guess is it is the thermal fuse, but since it cools just fine with gas I'm assuming this part is also okay if it is the thermal fuse.  Attached is a picture.

 

Attachments

  • 0D6B32E6-2498-4253-8CCD-B0327BDA194A.JPG
    0D6B32E6-2498-4253-8CCD-B0327BDA194A.JPG
    289.8 KB · Views: 35
The RM2652 has only one heater element. Its conceivable that it is only partially working, but that is a very rare failure mode. Usually the heater element either works 100% or fails completely (burns out).  Still, it's a fairly simple and inexpensive DIY, so maybe worth a try. Before doing so, make sure you have adequate line voltage to the fridge (it is plugged into an outlet behind the fridge) - at least 106v and preferably 115-120v.  Low voltage will cause the heater to under-perform.

You need the service manual rather than the Op manual. Get it free at http://bryantrv.com/docs2/docs/1252service.pdf
 
Thank you for everyone's info...especially for the service manual.  I have checked the power input AC from the outlet to check for voltage loss.  I got 118 volts, so I was good.  I then checked the output to the heating element from the control board and I also got 118 volts.  I then also checked the ohms of the heating element and got 43.3 ohms.  The service manual states that it should be 44 ohms 10%+-, so that is complete good too.  I am completely lost now.  From what I have read that propane works better, but I would expect AC to work almost the exact same or the exact same, but just maybe takes longer to initially cool.
 
Mine takes up to 24 hours to cool down depending on the initial temperature.  Also that's with it empty and for the last 2 years I have a tiny fan that I put inside initially.

Sometimes it is 110 degrees inside the refrigerator when I first turn it on, gets very hot here in Central California.

We prechill everything before it goes inside the refrigerator too.

I don't use propane initially. That is used only when we are disconnected from shore power.
 
Yes, I too always allowed to to cool for at least 24 hours and it usually gets stuck around 45 degrees, but once I change it over to propane it goes down to low 30's within a few hours.
 
The RM2652 uses a 325 watt heating element and you've confirmed that the resistance of the element and voltage applied should produce 321 watts of heat. Well within the tolerance.  It's possible that the heating element is marginal and when current is applied and the element is hot, the actual watts produced is below 325 watts.  Anyway, It's my experience that initial cooling of the refrigerator compartment is faster using LP rather than AC, but once cooled, the cooling unit should provide proper temperature in the refrigerator compartment. However, the heating element must be able to radiate the heat efficiently to the boiler, so it might be a good idea to remove and inspect the heating element to insure there is no corrosion on the element or in the element's holding tube that would make it inefficient.

Here's a link to a youtube video describing removal of the element in case that is your choice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X20ZlDPOEY

good luck
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Members online

Total: 1,149 (members: 28, guests: 1,121)

Forum statistics

Threads
131,973
Posts
1,388,467
Members
137,722
Latest member
RoyL57
Back
Top Bottom