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Old 12-17-2012, 08:23 AM   #61
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I went back and read all the posts, it seems, that the issue here lies with 5.0 Dometic model. The other two mentioned, 3.3 and 6.7 seemed ok. Let's monitor this some more next summer and try to get it resolved. Thanks everyone for their input.
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Old 12-17-2012, 10:54 AM   #62
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cpaharley2008 View Post
I went back and read all the posts, it seems, that the issue here lies with 5.0 model. The other two mentioned, 3.3 and 6.7 seemed ok. Let's monitor this some more next summer and try to get it resolved. Thanks everyone for their input.
Yes, I posted our story so that others will be aware of monitoring their refrigerators, particularly the Dometic 5 cf model when used in the Escape 19.

Regardless of the particular Escape model and the particular refrigerator model, though, it sure wouldn't hurt to watch the temperatures by thermometer and know that your food is consistently staying cold. It is possible that (most?) other owners have not been using a thermometer in their refrigerators so they do not know just how their fridge is performing under driving vs sitting conditions.

At every gas stop, I dashed back inside the Escape to record the refrigerator temperature, and consistently observed that the temperature started descending again as soon as we stopped driving. It came down a few degrees even in a 10-minute stop. So, if you are not using a thermometer, it might be that your refrigerators are moving out of a safe temperature range during a drive, but drinks are tasting cold again by the time you have stopped for a while and happen to do a taste test.

In case anybody is doubting the accuracy of our thermometer, or thinking that our thermometer inexplicably didn't work while the camper was in motion, these were desperate thoughts we also had. As I have probably posted before, we use a thermometer that can be read from the outside of the refrigerator so we do not have to open the fridge door, knowing that opening the door has a quick warming effect in there. During part of our latest trip, we also added a second thermometer so that we could verify that the first thermometer was working properly, and yes, they were consistent.

We'll definitely look forward to hearing what everybody else's fridge is doing when more people are taking data with a thermometer. And we'll be camping on the Gulf Coast in late February, so we can hope for outdoor temperatures warm enough there to perhaps teach us something about our new fan and baffle.
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Old 12-17-2012, 12:29 PM   #63
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I read someplace about placing a penny in side a container that has frozen water. Then you place this in your rv freezer. If you find the penny encased in ice, then it indicates that your freezer thawed, the penny dropped, and then refroze again. A cheap indicator that your freezer stopped working long enough to thaw something and come back on to refreeze.
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Old 12-17-2012, 01:04 PM   #64
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We bought our 17B a little over a year ago, moving up from tent camping so we had no experience with gas refrigerators. That, and being an engineer, I had to throughly analyse its performance. I bought a wireless thermometer that, with the sensor in the refig, I could read its internal temperature from the car. Since our refig is the smaller one, it can run on DC so when moving, we used the car’s power. That worked fine for the first 3-4 trip during the winter.

Our first long trip came in July when we traveled from California (San Jose), through Nevada, Idaho, to Yellowstone, then back, for 2 weeks. While traveling, the temp was in the high 40’s to low 50’s. We too distrusted our sensor so I put another one to verify the readings. That led to some confusion for a day or two until I realized that here was a big difference in the temperatures within the refig. The door trays apparently receive little cool air and were much warmer than other parts and for a while, one sensor was lying under the cooling fins and reading much lower than the other sensor. When the outside temps were high, we switched to using gas (instead of the car’s DC) which seemed to work better but I’m not sure how much since I had confusing temperature data. My conclusion from that trip was that we had put too much food in for the little blue cube fan to effectively move the cool air around.

On a later trip, were camping were it was in the 90’s during the day and the frig temperature would rise from about 42 in the morning to 50’s in the day (similar to when traveling during the other trips). This was not acceptable especially since the frig was not overloaded so I needed to do something. I added curved baffling at the top vent and baffling along the side of the absorber as shown in Dometic’s documentation. I stop short of adding a fan since people on the Casita web site say baffling works well and I wanted to see how the passive system works before adding more complexity. The blue cube fan just didn’t seem to cut it so I then added 2 small fans attached the internal cooling fins which move the air around in the internal compartment better. I have used my modifications a few times but the weather was cool and I can’t tell how much difference they make. I do notice less of a temperature difference in the compartment so the moving air is good.

As a side, I never seemed to have problems with the freezer section. I didn’t put the sensors in that compartment but our ice cream was always hard.

I will be watching this closely next summer; I really need a refrigerator that I can trust.

Ben
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Old 12-17-2012, 01:27 PM   #65
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While operating on DC, was there a big drain on your battery? Do you have solar and 2x6's or just one battery? I'd like to think that 12v is a viable choice for non propane situations.
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Old 12-17-2012, 02:01 PM   #66
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the little blue cube fan

Ben[/QUOTE]

Ben, do you have a picture of this? Where did you get it?
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Old 12-17-2012, 02:10 PM   #67
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CW sells them as well as most other rv suppliers, I think it is by Camco.
http://www.campingworld.com/search/i...p_sort_default
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Old 12-17-2012, 02:27 PM   #68
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While operating on DC, was there a big drain on your battery? Do you have solar and 2x6's or just one battery? I'd like to think that 12v is a viable choice for non propane situations.
On DC, the frig draws about 10A so I wouldn't want to run it too long without the car engine running. Sometimes when we get on site, it may take us 1/2 hour to turn on the gas and I can see the battery gauge take a hit. But I do have solar and dual 6V batteries so have no problem getting the charge back.

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CW sells them as well as most other rv suppliers
Yes, that is what I used.

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Old 12-17-2012, 02:35 PM   #69
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With solar you should only be drawing 3-4 amps less your charging, did you ever measure your net loss while hooked up to tug, if 1-2 amps loss, may be worth to switch to DC?
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Old 12-17-2012, 02:48 PM   #70
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I'm watching this situation in my 17B as well. On a pop-up I once owned I added a 12v computer fan in the outer compartment to help dissipate heat, and it seemed to work well. In that instance I had a separate on/off switch, since I only needed it when the weather was particularly hot. Don't see how that kind of installation would work with the Escape, however, so I'm interested in the baffles Ben mentioned, and the 2 small fans you installed.

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Old 12-17-2012, 05:04 PM   #71
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did you ever measure your net loss while hooked up to tug
While towing, I can easily supply the refrig and change my batteries. I always got to my next site with fully charged batteries, just not very cold food.

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I'm watching this situation in my 17B as well. On a pop-up I once owned I added a 12v computer fan in the outer compartment to help dissipate heat, and it seemed to work well. In that instance I had a separate on/off switch, since I only needed it when the weather was particularly hot. Don't see how that kind of installation would work with the Escape, however, so I'm interested in the baffles Ben mentioned, and the 2 small fans you installed.
Bob
You can easily add an external fan; Dometic sells one as an accessory for their larger refigs. Some of this conversation was covered in another thread http://www.escapeforum.org/forums/f8...ions-1867.html. Scroll down to #6 for a link to Dometic's instructions on baffles. I'll see if I can post a picture of my fans on the internal fins in the next few days.

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Old 12-17-2012, 06:20 PM   #72
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Ben,

Thanks, I'm printing the Dometic pdf as I write this. I missed seeing this earlier, thought I'd gone through the site pretty carefully.

Bob
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Old 12-17-2012, 07:24 PM   #73
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I see one installation mistake already, Dometic states in the pdf that the space above the refer should be blocked off from the rear to prevent hot air being trapped. In the 19', there is about 6" of open air space all the way to the rear, open. You can remove the interior top panel off the refer and look, if you see the wall then your is open. Mine is so the first thing I'll do is close off the space, maybe even cut an access panel and use that space, pretty big.
Then go from there.
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Old 12-17-2012, 11:40 PM   #74
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Here are the 2 fans that I installed in the refig

They are small fans which draws around 35mA per fan and I installed a switch in the trailer to control them.

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Old 05-06-2013, 03:04 PM   #75
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Problem Solved/Another One Spotted

Quote:
Originally Posted by cpaharley2008 View Post
I see one installation mistake already, Dometic states in the pdf that the space above the refer should be blocked off from the rear to prevent hot air being trapped. In the 19', there is about 6" of open air space all the way to the rear, open. You can remove the interior top panel off the refer and look, if you see the wall then your is open. Mine is so the first thing I'll do is close off the space, maybe even cut an access panel and use that space, pretty big.
Then go from there.
After having problems getting the reefer temp down in 93 degree (F) weather last week-end, even when put on highest setting, I came home and checked out whether the back was properly blocked, as above. Nope, about a 2 inch gap above he reefer. Used some pipe insulation to seal off and all is now normal, even at the middle temp range. Outside temp was in the 70's when I tested it.

Went one better and thought I'd install a cooling fan behind the top louver as "back-up", for those days we venture into the 100+ degree realm. Bought a very quiet 3" computer fan from Radio Shack, and mocked up a plate to hang it from the angled board above the back cooling fins. I was all set to wire in a switch when I thought I'd test it out. While the fan is super-quiet on its own, when attached with a piece of aluminum to that very thin piece of what I surmise is Masonite, the effect is a sounding board with quite a noticeable rumble.

Looks like I'll need a different approach to mounting the fan. Has anyone put one directly on the louvered metal cover?
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Old 05-06-2013, 03:17 PM   #76
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It appears that most of us have a gap above the fridge. The Dometic manual states that a large gap should be blocked off to prevent heat build up and poor cooling performance. Any ideas as to why this isn't done? It seems that this would help the cooling more than raising the top vent as is now being done on all of the trailers.
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Old 05-06-2013, 03:52 PM   #77
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Did you just wedge the pipe insulation into that space? Any pictures would be helpful, thanx.
What model do you have? I just went out and inspected mine, I have the smaller 3.x cu/ft
3 way dometic-120/12v/gas. The upper cooling fins appear to be right at the opening that I mentioned, so perhaps I can install from inside and push it to the rear to these cooling fins?
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Old 05-06-2013, 04:31 PM   #78
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Yep, just wedged it in tight, but from the outside, not the inside. From the inside I might have pushed too far and into the cooling fins. It's set back from the edge about 1/2". I was also able to put a strip down one side of the reefer at the back, which I wouldn't have been able to do from inside. Once I took the louvered vent off it was obvious that would be the easier approach. I too have the smaller 12v/gas/120 model (RM2354). I'll try to take a photo tonight.

It sounds as if you have more of a gap than I do (6" v 2"), so you may need a really thick piece. I had only a short piece of what would have been perfect, so I had to double up on a smaller diameter piece of insulation, fitting one inside the other. I used the gray stuff, which has a pretty high density. I don't think it's going to shift with vehicle movement, but I'll be watching it. And I don't think it's close enough to the fins to be damaged by any heat.
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Old 05-06-2013, 05:14 PM   #79
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I saw the space on the side, the side towards the rear when I took off the lower vent. I assume you took off the upper vent which has something like 18 screws holding it on?
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Old 05-06-2013, 05:26 PM   #80
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Yeah, the upper vent is very well attached! It's that one on my 17 that gave me the access. I had also put screen meshing on the back side of the top vent, I removed the screen on the premise that it likely contributed to heat build up also. The Dometic brochures state that vents and access panels are to be installed without modification, perhaps I should have believed them. I was worried about insects, but it might not be the problem for me that it is for other parts of the country.
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