Dometic fridge/ freezer/ oven tower won't work on 12v power

[Hymer Life]

Hi,

We're going away this afternoon and on checking the fridge/freezer (Dometic Tec Tower) it won't operate on 12v. It's fine on gas and 240v though.

I've checked the fuse and all seems fine.

Does anyone have any ideas, please?

 

[Ivory55]

I know nothing about 12v , but it’s not something daft like the fridge only works on 12 v after the engine has been running for X amount of minutes. Just that I usually get caught out by daft things. Haha.

 

[trophychap]

Normally they'll only show they're working off the battery with the engine running. Is it set to Auto? We sometimes have to turn ours off and then switch it back on as it seems to get stuck on the 240v setting.

 

[Hymer Life]

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.

I just checked the manual troubleshooting guide and it states "check the fuse"!! As if I didn't do that already. But that is all it says (other than check Digital+ which means nada to me).

You may well have a point though; I thought something similar like it only operates on 12v when there is an absence of 240v (so much the same as your point) and as we're still at home it has 240v. Maybe I'll go out and drop the mains to see if that works.

 

[Hymer Life]

Normally they'll only show they're working off the battery with the engine running. Is it set to Auto?

No, not set to auto (set to 240v) but will try setting to auto and drop the mains power to see if it goes to gas or 12v

Cheers

 

[DavidG58]

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.

I just checked the manual troubleshooting guide and it states "check the fuse"!! As if I didn't do that already. But that is all it says (other than check Digital+ which means nada to me).

You may well have a point though; I thought something similar like it only operates on 12v when there is an absence of 240v (so much the same as your point) and as we're still at home it has 240v. Maybe I'll go out and drop the mains to see if that works.

D+ refers to the relay that latches when the alternator is giving 14+ V output

Our D+ relay actually failed on our Mercedes Hymer, also meant we couldn't operate our E + P luckily it failed with the legs up

 

[Southdowners]

Do you have the engine running. 12v doesn't work if you haven't.

 

[sallylillian]

No, not set to auto (set to 240v) but will try setting to auto and drop the mains power to see if it goes to gas or 12v

Cheers

Peter when you drop 230vac and in auto, it will only go to gas, UNLESS you have the engine running. This puts a signal on the D+ in the connector box.

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[DavidG58]

Do you have the engine running. 12v doesn't work if you haven't.

oddly on Hymers it does if manually selected, no idea who would do that from choice though

 

[sallylillian]

Whilst not relevant to you current distress, your Tower is recent enough to have the S+ connection too. If your solar regulator has an S+ out then you can run a connection from it to the S+ on the aforementioned connection box on the fridge. This will have the effect of switching to 12vdc when there is excess solar and worth exploring on another day.

 

[Hymer Life]

You are all amazing! Thank you so much for your advice and wisdom.
Whilst I still have to test it with the engine running to see if it works, I was hoping the fridge/freezer would run off the leisure battery whilst we're on the 24-hour crossing to Santander. This seems not to be possible though.

 

[Hymer Life]

Whilst not relevant to you current distress, your Tower is recent enough to have the S+ connection too. If your solar regulator has an S+ out then you can run a connection from it to the S+ on the aforementioned connection box on the fridge. This will have the effect of switching to 12vdc when there is excess solar and worth exploring on another day.

You are too smart by half young man!

Cheers for that, I'll spend my holiday getting that wiring installed (not) but even that is still not likely to solve the issue of keeping the freezer cold on the ferry
(unless they put us on the top outside deck of course)

 

[funflair]

You are all amazing! Thank you so much for your advice and wisdom.
Whilst I still have to test it with the engine running to see if it works, I was hoping the fridge/freezer would run off the leisure battery whilst we're on the 24-hour crossing to Santander. This seems not to be possible though.

Ours would run off 12v when the engine is off BUT I would not do it as it would take too much out of the batteries I think.

Martin

 

[Hymer Life]

Thank you one and all for helping. You're all amazing

I was actually trying to get it to operate on 12v off the leisure battery whilst on the crossing to Santander tonight

 

[Pausim]

Thank you one and all for helping. You're all amazing

I was actually trying to get it to operate on 12v off the leisure battery whilst on the crossing to Santander tonight

I fear that if you had succeeded you might well have destroyed you leisure battery by the time you reached Santander.

 

[Jimbohorlicks]

Thank you one and all for helping. You're all amazing

I was actually trying to get it to operate on 12v off the leisure battery whilst on the crossing to Santander tonight

Best thing to do is to freeze several plastic milk bottles and leave them in the fridge whilst you are crossing, and don't keep Checking the fridge.

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[bigtwin]

Best thing to do is to freeze several plastic milk bottles and leave them in the fridge whilst you are crossing, and don't keep Checking the fridge.

Wot e Z!

Ian

 

[TheBig1]

Errrr ask the crew for a hookup on the boat

 

[Minxy]

Errrr ask the crew for a hookup on the boat

That's what I was thinking too ... I'm sure some people have said they have been able to do that.

 

[dpsuk999]

BUT be aware that many ships electric supply is vulnerable to spikes which has been know to ruin motorhome electric boxes (EBL/Schaudt etc) unless you have something like a Schaudt OVP installed

 

[Lenny HB]

BUT be aware that many ships electric supply is vulnerable to spikes which has been know to ruin motorhome electric boxes (EBL/Schaudt etc) unless you have something like a Schaudt OVP installed

Yep EBL' also don't like low volts. I fitted an AVS30 when I knew I was going on a Greek ferry.

 

[Hymer Life]

I fear that if you had succeeded you might well have destroyed your leisure battery by the time you reached Santander.

It's a Mastervolt Lithium system and would have shut down if the voltage got too low so not an issue I'm sure. As it was, the frozen freezer blocks I stuffed into it had all defrosted by the time we arrived in Santander. The only issue was that the Brie was ready to be eaten so I duly obliged.

 

[Minxy]

It's a Mastervolt Lithium system and would have shut down if the voltage got too low so not an issue I'm sure. As it was, the frozen freezer blocks I stuffed into it had all defrosted by the time we arrived in Santander. The only issue was that the Brie was ready to be eaten so I duly obliged.

Not too much I hope ... hubby ate a load once and he spent a lot of time 'talking' to the toilet from both ends!