Bad circuit/power board on Norcold 838EG2 refrigerator?

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borffmann

Member
Joined
Sep 30, 2015
Posts
14
I'm new to this forum, good to be here. My family of four and I live in a 1987 Fleetwood Bounder, that we recently bought from the first and only owner and our refrigerator has stopped working on both electric and propane power. It's a Norcold 838EG2 two-way fridge with what looks to be recall circuit board kit already installed. The fridge switch is powered up and seems to be working fine - if I switch it to GAS, the blue light comes on and the red "check" light comes on briefly before going out and leaving just the blue light on. When I switch to "Elec" the blue light goes on. But the fridge cooling system never powers up on either setting. On GAS, the igniter doesn't fire and there is no propane coming out of the electric inline valve to the burner (I pulled the gas line going into the valve and it is providing gas, but when I pull the line off the downstream outlet of the valve there is no propane coming out of the valve). On Elec, the elec heater doesn't turn on. I have checked power into the circuit/power board and the board is getting 12V (actually about 13.5V) from the batteries but there is no voltage coming out of the board to the electric propane valve, nor is there any power coming out to the elec heater. Can I assume that this circuit board is bad and is the cause of the fridge ceasing to work?

This is the third RV my wife and I have lived in in the past 15 years, and the second that we've lived in with our two daughters (5 and 2 yrs old) and every one of these RVs has had a fridge that crapped out on us in the first week. Must be something in our karma?

Thank you in advance for any and all advice.
 
In advance, please pardon these links if this violates any anti-commercial guidelines this Forum has. These are the only links I can find that show both the part and the recall information I refer to in the post above.

Recall:
http://norcoldparts.com/norcold-838-8310-parts/

Circuit board:
http://norcoldparts.com/norcold-power-board-61716822-fits-838-8310-2-way-refrigerators/
 
Yep.....most likely control board. Did you check fuses on board(if there are any?)
Typically fridge has 2 power circuits. 1 which is 12VDC to power board and gas valve, the other 110VAC for the heaters.
Its possible you also have a bad thermistor (temp sensor) which is giving the board a signal that it is already cold. Just unplug it from the board and see what happens.
I'm working on my Dometic as we speak. Will not shut off. Guessing its the thermistor and have one ordered.
Good luck.
 
Check the fuses on the board.

Clean the connectors from the control panel to the board, and from the board to the gas valve.  (Clean all of the connections). I use a common pencil eraser when I can.  It's just abrasive enough to do the job.
 
Update: finally got the Dinosaur Elec circuit board and installed it. Problem fixed.  :D
 
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