Freezer or Fridge?

My camper's fridge has been a freezer since we purchased it over a year ago. You might think having too much cooling would be a good thing, but just try using yogurt or mayonnaise after it's been frozen... and forget veggies.

My pleas to online forums and phone calls to Dometic were no help at all. I followed suggestions about moving the thermistor up or down on the cooling fins, checking the camper for horizontal placement, all to no avail.

Eventually I did replace the thermistor, thinking that it was simply not sending a signal to the cooling system saying ENOUGH!! Still no change.

Along the way I kept thinking there must be a temperature control somewhere on the fridge. But I guess in the great white north of DometicLand there is no differentiation between cold and COLD. So the temperature is set by the electronics on the control board behind the fridge.

Then it dawned on me that the only thing left to test was the controller board itself. I called Dometic customer support (who attempted to be very helpful in fact) who advised me to go to a dealer/service center to have the unit looked at. Since the nearest service was over 100 miles from me and I didn't want to disrupt my camping to wait at a service center I went to a local 'unauthorized' service center and gave them the part number for the control unit that Dometic provided to me.

Surprisingly the service center owner pulled out a unit with the part number on it (he had bought it for a customer that never picked it up) and offered it to me for $150. Since Dometic told me the list price for the part was $120, I was sceptical and took a closer look at the card. It didn't look like the card in my fridge. It was smaller, but sure enough it had the correct Dometic part number on it. I decided to take a closer look at the card in my unit and bring it in to compare.

When I looked at the card in my fridge I saw that it was, in fact, not a Dometic part, but a Dinosaur component (strange, I thought). It even had a "For service and support call..." sticker on it, and so I did call. I also noticed when looking at the card that there was a small dial marked "Cooler" and "Warmer". Wow! Temperature control on a Dometic!

After a very informative call to the service department I was able to order a replacement card for about $110 that included the temperature control. The card arrived 3 days later, and after labeling each connected wire, I was able to replace the old card in about 15 minutes.

I put a cup of water in the fridge and left it overnight to see if it would be magically turned to ice the next morning. It didn't!

If you've been longing to be able to control the temp fo your Dometic fridge, check out RG-elecrtospec.com for your replacement control unit. Service is great and the product makes a simple and effective replacement.