Norcold 1210 Fridge Troubleshooting: INFORMATIONAL
Howdy folks!
We’ve been all over the country with our Voltage, in both cold and really hot weather. But this winter, we are full-timing in eastern WA where last week’s high temps were hovering in single digits and low teens. There was even a -4F one overnight.
Within 2 days of that deep freeze, our fridge stopped cooling well. Fridge and Freezer temps hit 55 and 40 degrees respectively, and both A/C and Propane seemed to be working - with ZERO errors on the panel in diagnostic mode. In this mode, I could see cooling fin temps were hovering at 46F. I did 4 or 5 resets and power cycles from the panel. No change.
I checked everything from door seals to voltage at power supply, the thermistor impedance against the chart, even looking for the infamous yellow powder indicating a cooling system leak. Nothing. The ONLY thing I found odd was the coils were cold and the exhaust fan stopped running as it would occasionally in normal operation. Heat in the “boiler” and exhaust tube were moderate.
So I called a tech. He couldn’t find anything either and suggested maybe there was a blockage on the cooling system and it should be replaced. Estimate: $1800 with labor!
So, this morning, just for giggles, I pulled the 12V fuse in the house panel that feeds the kitchen slide out. When I did that, the fridge control panel went dark. I waited 30 seconds and reinserted it, all while the fridge was still “On”. Control panel fired back up and the fin temps have been slowing dropping (from 45F to 34F in about 2 hours). So I am leaning toward either a control panel anomaly where it went stupid in the extreme cold, or a DC voltage drop or interruption that made the board dopey.
Let me know if any of you have experienced such a thing and I’ll report progress as it (hopefully) continues.
Cheers!
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