Help: Fridge not turning on

[nryn]

Hi. I’m 3 days into an 80-day trip with the kids, currently at Badlands National Park. The Dometic fridge in my 2019 Globetrotter stopped working when I switched over to propane from electric or vice versa. I was also about to defrost it, as I’ve seen the ice build up on the fins over the last few days.

Checked circuit breaker—no result. Took a multimeter to the terminals in the back and have 3.x volts for the electronics and 13+ volts for the heating element.

Is there a fuse I’m missing between the power controls and the power leads? I can’t find one and don’t know where to look.

Thanks.

[nryn]

Got a lead (pun intended) for an in-line fuse from the user stevejones and his wife SewStream. I’ve got stuff on ice for tonight and since I can’t get a fuse tonight anyway, am enjoying my time with the kids. I will check the fuse tomorrow morning, updating with pictures afterwards if that is in fact the issue...

[AirstreamInc]

Originally Posted by nryn

Hi. I’m 3 days into an 80-day trip with the kids, currently at Badlands National Park. The Dometic fridge in my 2019 Globetrotter stopped working when I switched over to propane from electric or vice versa. I was also about to defrost it, as I’ve seen the ice build up on the fins over the last few days.

Checked circuit breaker—no result. Took a multimeter to the terminals in the back and have 3.x volts for the electronics and 13+ volts for the heating element.

Is there a fuse I’m missing between the power controls and the power leads? I can’t find one and don’t know where to look.

Thanks.

Hi nryn,

We're very sorry to learn about the issue you are having. Please send us a direct message with your contact information and the last 6 digits of your VIN so we can share it with our Customer Service and Technical Support team. We look forward to helping you get this resolved.

You can also reach Airstream Customer Service and Technical Support at*customer_support@airstream.com*

Thank you.*

[Al and Missy]

Something is wrong with your measurements. The electronics should be getting 12 volts from the batteries and the heating element should be getting 120 volts from shore power. Are you reading the wrong scale?

You must have good batteries to run the fridge on propane or shore power. The control board runs from 12V.

The control boards have been known to go bad in the newer trailers and the replacement boards have also failed. One member went through three boards before purchasing a Dinosaur brand board to replace the failed board the factory supplied under warranty. If AS sends you a new board, ask if it has a better failure rate than previous boards supplied under warranty.

Al

[nryn]

Al and Missy, I spoke with Dinosaur about 5-6 months ago and they did not yet have a replacement board for this particular model fridge. I’ll call them again tomorrow and see if that has changed—it would be great if it did because from everyone I spoke with, it seems like getting a replacement board is going to be the hard part. But my readings are correct. I was not taking readings off the 120AC plug, I was taking readings off the board. The Globetrotter has a 3-way fridge and the panel in the back is showing power to the fridge and reduced power (~3.5V) to the board (no power now because I took the inline fuse I mentioned out).

Airstream inc, I got a call back from Dave today and am in dialogue with him. Dave at Airstream (and a few others I spoke with) think it’s the board. When I opened the panel to take readings from the terminals, it smelled faintly like an electrical fire (the kind of smell you get right before a hair dryer bites the dust). I checked thoroughly and there was no fire or smoke or anything like that.

AirstreamInc, If there is anything that can be done to get me a replacement board en route, I would really appreciate it. Otherwise I’m looking at a dead fridge for the next three months of travel with the kids.

[nryn]

Quick update—sure ain’t easy to get a service appointment these days. The biggest logistics issue, though, is not going to be service, it’s going to be getting a new board. The 3-way Dometic fridge in the Globetrotter is pretty new.

BUT Coachnet got me into an authorized Dometic service center—tomorrow (!)—and about 50m from my current location and on my way to my next destination. AND my dealer back in MI is priority overnighting a board that they happened to have in stock. I was (and am) determined to not let a bad fridge ruin a trip—I’ve never traveled with a fridge before and can live without it. But boy would it make things easier over an extended trip to Alaska. So I’m cautiously optimistic. At the very least I’ll have the issue diagnosed and can start the warranty process and maybe get Airstream to expedite sending parts to me. But after yesterday—maybe 2/3rds of a day of troubleshooting, calling, and making arrangements, I’m turning my attention to the thing that matters—showing my kids the national parks.

Thinking through this, I’m guessing something on the board fried when I turned the fridge back on after defrosting and that blew the fuse. That’s just a guess though. Hopefully the service center can sort it out tomorrow. Will update soon.

[pteck]

Sorry to hear of your troubles. Looks like you're lining things up well and will hopefully be "back on the road". No trip would be complete without some unexpected adventure right?

Wishing you the best of luck that things work out tomorrow.

[nryn]

Thanks man.

Another quick update: everything went like clockwork today. Got to the Dometic authorized service center just as UPS was dropping off the new board. Had lunch with the kids while they worked on it. Then got a call.

The service center did everything they were supposed to do and more. They called Dometic and went through everything with them. They isolated the fridge’s power from the trailer and couldn’t get it to respond. Dometic is pretty emphatic that the fridge is dead. The board was fried too (huge black spot on the pins) but the current theory is that it took something out internal to the fridge. It’s not clear what did it. All I did was turn the thing off for an hour or so to defrost then try to turn it back on. So I suppose some investigation is in order.

The tech said that the fuse in the 12V panel is a red herring. It has nothing to do with the fridge as far as they can tell.

Spoke with Airstream. They said they’ll take care of me. Ordered new fridge from Dometic and with luck it will be here and installed on Thursday. If the fridge does in fact arrive on Thurs, we won’t miss a beat on our trip. And if it doesn’t, we’ll stay another day.

We’re on dry ice and all smiles here, camping at Rafter J at the moment. It’s my first site with full hookups and the campground is amazing (though stormy right now). Everyone has been incredibly helpful.

[Al and Missy]

Good to hear! Glad things are working out for you.

Al

[nryn]

Another update: thought we were all good for a fridge replacement tomorrow but when the service center called for tracking information today they found out Dometic didn’t ship the fridge on Monday. Dometic‘s reason: only Airstream can purchase this model fridge. Bummer.

So the new plan is to have Airstream arrange to have a fridge shipped to an Airstream dealer in Missoula, where I have a service appointment on July 2. We may have to cut our Glacier NP stay short but I’m willing to do that since we’ll still have a lot of trip ahead of us. The daily ice routine is not terribly inconvenient since we are at campgrounds that carry ice (at least so far) and we can live with it for the next few weeks.

More as this unfolds!

[nryn]

Final chapter: Dave at Airstream Customer Support received documentation given to me by the Dometic authorized service center I saw in Rapid City and had a new fridge drop shipped to the Airstream dealer in Missoula, with whom (on June 12) I made a service appointment for July 2. The fridge was delivered on June 27 and I dropped my trailer off on July 1–my kids and I stayed with a longtime friend in Missoula.

On July 2, Airstream of Montana replaced the fridge. At around 1pm they called and said it wasn’t going well—they could get power to the new fridge (which was progress) but couldn’t get the board to power on. They couldn’t get schematics for the unit from Airstream and Dometic’s schematics made no sense based on the wires that were brought to the fridge. So they were calling to ask me what exactly had happened and what I had tried.

I told them what happened and about the fuse 12V board under the inverter under curbside bed. I told them Dometic did not know what that fuse was and the service center I went to said they were sure it had nothing to do with the fridge (which didn’t make sense to me given my voltage readings). The tech listened carefully and said he would do what he needed to do to get the fridge working even if that meant running new wire.

He said later that the old fridge was absolutely toast but the power-to-the-board issue he was having was absolutely the fuse. But the tech also said he found a bunch of “cracked wires” (not sure what that means) by the board and a few things that were disconnected. He also said that the old fridge’s board had a jumper on it that wasn’t supposed to be there based on the Dometic schematics and guessed it was troubleshooting by the Dometic service center, but that the jumper had fried the second board. This guys did everything by the book, wired a new blade-type inline fuse so it would be easier to replace, and fixed/cleaned up the wires. I brought him some beer and tons of thanks and we were on our way to Glacier by 4pm.

The new fridge is working just fine and we are now in West Glacier. Next time I need to defrost the unit I’m going to use the button on the control panel .

Thanks to everyone who chimed in, particularly users stevejones and SewStream, who shed light on the fuse issue. Thanks also to Dave at Airstream for the excellent communication and logistics. I’ll post pics of the board and fuse as soon as I am able.

[GOUSC]

You are a real trooper at handling this situation and continuing to not let it deter you and your kids from having a great time. What a great example to show to your kids. I hope you guys have a great trip as you conintue your journey to Alaska!