Fridge runs almost all the time

[Creeker]

Originally Posted by Loneoak

Try this: turn the fridge off for a minute, then on again around 9 pm. If you turn it on at a different time of day (like in the morning), it will go through a defrost cycle in the afternoon instead of in the night.

This is excellent advise. The defrost time on a Dometic 1350 is 60 hrs after power on then every 48hrs there after. The cycle lasts around 2 hrs. Probably not the same for the Norcolds so check your manual or google your model number. Its much better to have this occur at night than in the heat of the day. Playing catch-up in 90+ degrees is near impossible. I turn ours on around 3PM so it will start the defrost cycle at 3AM.

Just a FYI - On our Dometic 1350 unit it requires all power to be disconnected from fridge for a defrost reset to occur. From converter and batteries. Simply turning the unit off at the fridge will not work. It also takes a couple minutes not just a quick off and on.

[artfuldodger]

I have just gone through reading the manual and ARP instructions for our 2118 and the defrost on them happens every 24 hrs and lasts 2 hrs. The ARP 3.1 allows the user to skip defrost by a defrost override. It does this by shutting the fridge off briefly once a day to reset the fridge's 24 hr clock. The fridge then doesn't warm up for 2 hrs every day and then have to struggle to cool it down again.

[hemiallen]

Thanks for the information. I can't fathom any refer shutting down for 2 hours every 24 hours, that doesn't make sense to me. Seems to be a pretty useless feature, defrosting, for those of us that aren't using our rigs longer than a week at a time, or shorter trips.


I do believe the fan system I have seems to run 24-7, but I guess it could shut off if the defrost cycle shuts everything off.

My Refer is a Model 2811X ( 2021-3120RL that I believe has the 2022 upgrades-IE it might be a '22 model), and I just read the english portion of the owners manual. In 2 places it mentions " At regular intervals the temperature control system automatically melts most of the frost from the cooling fins.

I don't see anything else about any defrost cycle, but I have been known to miss reading instructions.....

[artfuldodger]

My fridge is older than yours so perhaps they changed the programming so that defrost doesn't run as often. Perhaps they have added a defrost heater element like my home fridge.

[hemiallen]

Thanks

Yea, they mention what I posted above, but no specifics like your manual says.

It is odd almost everyone has to add shims to the left door hinge, mine shows drag marks when new so it probably was sagging as-installed.