Thetford refrigerator

[lolo]

Anyone with any ideas, please. I recently acquired a 2007 Ace Supreme Globestar, fitted with a Thetford refrigerator. Just prior to going away for the winter, I thought I had checked out all the systems, which were O.K., but I have found out at the last moment that I have a problem with the fridge. It is the model with an LCD display window, with a button to the left of the window giving the options for the power, e.g. battery/mains/gas, and a button to the right for temperature control. When I switch it on, I get no refrigeration, and no indications at all when I select mains or gas. However, when I select battery I get the figure 10 displayed with a spanner alongside.

A friend telIs me that that configuration indicates a fault number and when I have looked it up it tells me that the fault indicates that the caravan is not connected to my car with the engine running. I also gather that the fridge needs a constant 12v supply to enable its control board to function. Even though the caravan is not connnected to the car, the car/caravan switch is selected at caravan and the caravan is connected to mains with the battery charger on.

I have checked through the two batches of fuses - found only one relating to the caravan battery side of the fridge - and have drawn a blank.
Can anyone help, please.

 

[Damian]

When you switch it on by the small button at the lower right side of the digital display you then slect on the left hand button either gas , mains or battery.
As you have the correct information when selecting battery, ie no power as you are not connected to the car, then there must be some indication as to which source you have selected.
On gas you should get a gas flame symbol and as long as the gas is on, it should start and you should hear the burner .

On mains you should have a plug symbol showing,,,but thats all the indication you get.

If there are any faults they should show up as a number and spanner symbol, 9 being gas lock out.

 

[lolo]

Damian. You are quite correct. When I said that I only got an indication when selecting gas,what I was ambiguously saying was that the only indications I got on gas and electric was the symbol and no 'fault' indications.
Thanks for your response.

 

[Martin_E]

Is the back of the fridge gettin hot?

 

[lolo]

Martin. I have not been able to detect any areas of heat, although during an extremely quiet period and whilst checking in the bed-box for any additional fuses, I thought I could hear the rumble of the gas operating at the back of the fridge, and it seemed to stop when I deselected gas. It produced no coldness, though.
Studying the on-line wiring diagram for this model (not my strong point) I notice that one of the circuit wires seems to be connected to a fancy remote control thing. When I had played with this device out of curiousity previously, I found it seemed to switch on and off the 12v lighting, but it is now in the mode of lighting on. Don't know if it's connected with this, but I shall check, out of desperation, when I go down to the caravan today.

 

[Damian]

If you remove both top and bottom vent covers and run the fridge on gas on max cooling for 40 minutes you should be able to feel heat from the flue end to prove the gas is working and if you carefully feel the top right hand side of the cooling coils, they should be HOT.
If you then feel the top left hand side of the cooling coils, it should be slightly cooler and gradually the heat in the coils should be reducing as you feel downwards to the bottom.

If this is not happening and you have the coils hot at the top but no heat anywhere else, there is a problem with the coolant and it will mean a new fridge

 

[lolo]

Damian and others. Many thanks for your interest and help. I think have gone as far as I can with my limited knowledge. Have called in a specialist Tuesday morning. Really don't want to fork out £6-7-800 for a new fridge, so here's hoping.
Many thanks again.

 

[Parksy]

Damian. You are quite correct. When I said that I only got an indication when selecting gas,what I was ambiguously saying was that the only indications I got on gas and electric was the symbol and no 'fault' indications.
Thanks for your response.

If you are connected to ehu there will be a plug symbol visible. Swith the fridge on and use the left hand button to cycle through the power sources and the right hand button to increase the degree of coldness. Select the flame symbol on lpg, the burners can become clogged which will prevent the fridge from operating on gas and the engineer will resolve this for you. The battery option is only for use when travelling and could potentially drain your leisure battery if left on. Is your leisure battery charged? The fridge requires a 12v source to ignite on gas and for the controls to operate properly.

 

[Dustydog]

Damian. You are quite correct. When I said that I only got an indication when selecting gas,what I was ambiguously saying was that the only indications I got on gas and electric was the symbol and no 'fault' indications.
Thanks for your response.

If you are connected to ehu there will be a plug symbol visible. Swith the fridge on and use the left hand button to cycle through the power sources and the right hand button to increase the degree of coldness. Select the flame symbol on lpg, the burners can become clogged which will prevent the fridge from operating on gas and the engineer will resolve this for you. The battery option is only for use when travelling and could potentially drain your leisure battery if left on. Is your leisure battery charged? The fridge requires a 12v source to ignite on gas and for the controls to operate properly.

Hi Parksy
Does this mean the Thetford fridge takes its 12v power from the leisure battery rather than like my Dometic which runs off the car , but only with the engine running

. The ignition source on the Dometic is a battery fitted behind the fridges gas ignition switch. It never ceases to amaze me why there are so many variables!!!!!

 

[Surfer]

Our Thetford automatically selects the power source so if you connected to EHU it will select EHU and display the symbol. You have to physically change it to gas if you want it on gas by pressing the buttons as described by Damien and Parksey.

 

[WoodlandsCamper]

I am a mere man so I don't know how to operate the fridge in the new caravan.

However, the OH has said she doesn't think the fridge in the van has operated whilst towing since we had it and a new13-pin connector fitted, so I took the car into the towbar place at the weekend and they replaced the split charge relay. My test board now lights up for the fridge connection, which it didn't before the weekend. They didn't say they changed any pin allocations so I couldn't blame them. Total cost labour and parts £15.80, so not too bad.

 

[Parksy]

Hi Parksy
Does this mean the Thetford fridge takes its 12v power from the leisure battery rather than like my Dometic which runs off the car , but only with the engine running

. The ignition source on the Dometic is a battery fitted behind the fridges gas ignition switch. It never ceases to amaze me why there are so many variables!!!!!

Mine does as I discovered to my cost and my total embarrassment four years ago.

We were about to attend a music festival off ehu near to Bedford, around a two hour drive from our house. I'd brought our caravan home to give it a good clean inside and out and I'd hooked up to our domestic 240v to allow the fridge to cool so that it would keep some milk fresh until we arrived at the festival site. I don't use a vehicle 12s socket for the caravan fridge when towing, it's more trouble than it's worth for me so the fridge would not be powered while we travelled to the festival.
Unfortunately, I unplugged the ehu before leaving home but completely forgot to turn off the fridge and the caravan 12v system and when we set up I couldn't get the fridge to ignite on gas, and we had no 12v at all even though the leisure battery had been charged via the ehu at home.
We called out a caravan engineer after trying to get the 12v in the caravan to work and it began to look as though the new fangled digital 12v panel in the caravan had failed.
When the engineer arrived on the festival site (this was August Bank Holiday Friday evening) he began to trace the fault and he soon discovered that the leisure battery was completely discharged despite it being less than 12 months old.
One new leisure battery later and after money had changed hands we found that the fridge had been running using the power from the leisure battery which is why it had discharged so completely.
I'm now the proud possessor of not one, but two 110 amp/hour leisure batteries, after my C-Tek rescued the original back from the dead.
I make sure that everything is switched off completely now before I move an inch!