110 Volt Fridge

[phonemd]

For those who want to remove the refrigerator from your chinook. After a lot of thinking about the puzzle, I did it. You must remove the verticle piece of trim on the left side, and then move it out very carefully. You will need a jack to keep it up when you slide it out. I removed the bathroom door and needed my friend to help me. I had to remove the cushions from the passengers side, and remove the window. it was quite a job, but it's out, and I"m waiting for the new frig to arrive. I will post how to get it back in when I figure that one out.

[pdemarest]

Back from 4 days at the lake. On our last night there I realized the fridge was warming up and I couldn't hear it running. Checked the fuse for that circuit as well as the breaker for the 110 volt side - nothing. The owner's manual isn't very model specific but does mention a fuse inside a controller box. After close examination of the wiring at the back I can't see anyplace where the fuse could be. So, tomorrow I'll be calling Sure Marine in Seattle to find out what the next steps are. Vitrifrigo has a two year parts and labor warranty so I'll be letting you all know if that's for real or not.

[Blue~Go]

You might like to have a look at these excellent videos (linked below), which run through some troubleshooting, and also describe how you can place a light across two labeled terminals to access any error codes (sort of like hooking up OBD to a car). It's pretty simple, especially with the access panel in back (the old vent for the propane fridge).

It's possible it shut down due to low voltage. You may not have had super low voltage at the batteries, but a combination of lower voltage due to usage, plus voltage drop could easily do it (with the ol' ~60 feet of 8AWG...). My buddy had his BD35 powered "cooler shaped" fridge shut down for that reason. Batteries were at like 12.6 but he had like 20' of 10AWG plus the ~6' of 14AWG or whatever the cigarette lighter cord that comes with it is. We quickly wired an outlet to the breaker panel that only had like 2' of 10AWG and it popped right back on, happy as a clam. Culprit: Voltage Drop.

I'm pretty sure you'd have the Danfoss (aka Secop) BD50. I have the BD35 which is its little sister. These videos cover them both.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C1pjE0yd4E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR_Ro6PGGfo

[Blue~Go]

For those who want to remove the refrigerator from your chinook. After a lot of thinking about the puzzle, I did it.

Congrats! Could you mention what year and model you have? Might help others. In my case, with the Concourse, I was pretty sure I couldn't get it out intact because of the counter "ell" that the Concourse has (it would hit that before it cleared the sides of the compartment). That said, I didn't actually try because since I knew I was getting rid if it, I just sawed it in half and took it out the back door

In my case getting the new one in was easy because it is a bit smaller (less deep). So by removing the refrigerator door it came right in the back door. I wanted more space in the hallway so looked for a shallower unit.

[Scott]

For those who want to remove the refrigerator from your chinook. After a lot of thinking about the puzzle, I did it. You must remove the verticle piece of trim on the left side, and then move it out very carefully. You will need a jack to keep it up when you slide it out. I removed the bathroom door and needed my friend to help me.

It's a smaller fridge, but thought I'd mention for the record that my Norcold 6052 made it out the passenger door with the front seats removed. We're talking a couple millimeters of clearance (Ford door not removed). I didn't have to remove any trim, just the fridge retaining ring. Bathroom door was removed, and I used a floor jack, as you mentioned. I did it alone, which was a bit dumb.

[pdemarest]

Hey Blue - I watched the videos. I don't have a tester for the circuits but will get one. My RV service guy did connect the unit to the original 12 volt wires so it may be that the compressor quit due to low voltage but I'm wondering why it ran for two months and had no problems. Hoping to get scheduled in for service at the nearest authorized Vitrifrigo dealer, which in my case is about 100 miles away.

Its always something...

Paul

[Blue~Go]

On the "why it ran two months" -- not saying this is why, but it's a plausible theory. Say you had the rig plugged in mostly over that two months, so your batteries were nearly always at 13.5 volts or so. If that's the case, then the voltage drop would still keep it fairly high. Now say you are out using the Chinook and the batteries get down to 12.4 volts (not unusual). Now start the voltage drop from there...

I don't know that the above is true, but just giving an example. I know from experience (buddy's rig) that the compressor WILL shut down if the voltage drops. You could measure the voltage at the refrigerator when that happens and see. I think in his case batteries at around 12.6 plus a bit of voltage drop (circuit that wasn't intended for refrigerator) brought it down to around 12 volts (if I remember correctly) and it shut down. We moved it to an outlet (portable unit has cigarette lighter cord) that was only about one foot of wire from the breaker panel and it fired right back up and happily hummed along.

[pdemarest]

I'll have to give the unit a try today. With my solar panels the batteries are usually at 100% during the day even with the fridge running. It looks like I'm going to be troubleshooting this myself as I can't get a reply from the nearest service center and emails to Vitrifrigo are replied to in Italian (auto-reply) and then no follow up. Will keep you posted on any progress.

[Blue~Go]

Do keep us posted - I"m really interested.

It's too bad you have to troubleshoot it yourself if you don't really want to (perfectly valid). OTOH, you'll know it much better once you do, so there is that.

By the way, once you have some data to share with them, I've found tech support at Danfoss to be quite helpful.

[pdemarest]

Hi Blue - update; an authorized service place finally called me back. Its a marine repair place but they have lots of experience with the Vitrifrigos so I'm driving the rig up there on Wednesday. Hopefully I'll at least get a diagnosis so we can get this thing running again.

On the voltage drop issue I'm wondering why it won't run on the generator either. I'm hoping its the thermostat but we'll see. Stay tuned...