Northstar TS 1000 3 way frig. It's gotten hard to get lit. Lights with the piezio but won't stay lit when I let off the manual gas button. Problem seems to me that the flame is too small, not heating the thermocouple enough to activate it. Eventually it will stay lit after many tries. I thought maybe it was a plugged gas orifice. Took it off today. Orifice is clear and clean. I now suspect that what is happening is that the thermostat is stuck in the low position, keeping the flame very small. Problem has been occurring for over a year but I've been tolerating it. One time after turning the thermostat knob back and forth a few times, I could see a marked difference in the size of the flame thru the sight window and it stayed lit right away. Now it's gone back to its old habit of a small flame and difficulty getting lit. Anybody with insight as to how to solve the problem? Is there a way to force the thermostat to produce full gas flow? Is the problem in the thermostat sensor or the gas regulating system in the valve? Does the flame control mechanism in the gas valve get gummed up over time? Can it be cleaned or lubricated?
Refrigerator diagnosis?
- Thread starter kerry
- Start date
Some googling reveals there is an LP gas filter in the line in Dometic frig's. I suppose I should check to see if this is partially plugged. https://www.arprv.com/dometic-does-not-cool.php
Any idea how to do that?
Wife and I went to the storage lot yesterday, where I removed all the shrouding and watched the lighting process. (I also had cleaned the orfice but it actually showed no evidence of being dirty under 25x magnification) It lit fine. I have an hypothesis as to what has been happening after observing the flame. My typical practice has been to pick up the camper from the storage lot the night before we begin a trip and plug the frig in on electricity on the max thermostat setting to get it cold. Then, before we left, I'd unplug the electric and (try to) light the gas. That is when I've had the troubles. So what I think is happening is that when the frig is at its cold maximum the thermostat calls for a very small flame. That small flame is both hard to light and relatively ineffective in heating up the thermocouple, making starting difficult. So what I'm going to try as standard practice now is to not light the flame when the frig is maxed out on cold on electricity. I'll either set the thermostat on medium on electricity, allowing me to turn it to max when lighting it on gas, hence enlarging the flame, or just cool it down on gas right from the start. I figured this out by looking at the flame while turning the thermostat up and down to see how big and small the flame is on various settings.
Coachgeo
Explorer
It's a 3way fridge??? Why are you skipping the 12v? Drive to your location and then light the LP.
Northstar never wired inthe 12 volt from the frig at the factory. When I set out to wire in the 12 volt, I called Northstar to inquire as to why I hadn't been able to find the wires for the frig and they informed me that they don't do it because that big a frig draws too much amperage and the battery/alternator can't keep up with the load. So, I never fulfilled my intention to make the 12 volts functional.
According to this thread, the problem is typically that the wiring is not heavy enough to keep up with the draw on 12 volts.
http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/26391037/print/true.cfm
http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/26391037/print/true.cfm