Bad, and good news on my Truckfridge

86Scotty · 10-15-2014, 08:55 AM

This past week I was at the beach when we noticed our food wasn't very cold. We were just packing up to leave and apparently one of my kid's cheapo tablet chargers, on the same circuit as my fridge

, knocked the fridge out for some reason. The fridge is mounted low and we don't see the light in the top in the daytime unless we really kneel down and look at it, but it was pulsing dimly. That spelled trouble for me right away. I checked the fuse and it was still good. That made sense of course. Since the light was pulsing it obviously had power. I pulled the fuse and waited, then reinstalled only to get the same result. No compressor function and a dim, pulsing interior light. We immediately made room for a 20 lb bag of ice thinking it was our only hope of salvaging our food during the 9 hour drive home. I had an idea at our next fuel stop that, perhaps, like some cars, it needed to be totally unplugged, ground and all. I unplugged power AND ground from the back of the fridge with some high tech contortionist maneuvers and waited about 30 seconds, replugged in and it came back on. That was 5 days ago and it's still working fine.
I called TF today, since there are no troubleshooting ideas to be found anywhere online, and they were very helpful. They told me that it is possible to unplug the LED wire and move it to a diagnostic port on the control board, which will then give you a troubleshooting light sequence. Pretty cool. Glad I don't need it at this point, but now I know it can be done. Also, he said that in the event of a failure like this, they stock all parts for their units, they are not throwaways. All parts in stock usually at their location.

Sorry for the long post. This was a scare, but I got lucky and am an even more happy TF owner knowing they are a quality company standing behind their product. Also, I'm posting this so that at least there is now some info to be had online about troubleshooting one of these. I had searched high and low the last few days.

So, now I'm thinking of adding an indoor/outdoor thermometer right beside my fridge. I was going to try one of the Accurite (read cheap) models from Walmart or the like in hopes that I can monitor the temp inside the fridge from a display on the outside. I want big digital numbers. No one likes warm beer! (well, except those strange Europeans).

mikracer · 10-15-2014, 09:36 AM

Did they give you any reason why it went into that shut down mode? Kinda reminds me of computers where things get wonky and all you have to do is reboot and all is good in computerland.

86Scotty · 10-15-2014, 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikracer

Did they give you any reason why it went into that shut down mode? Kinda reminds me of computers where things get wonky and all you have to do is reboot and all is good in computerland.

No, but pretty sure it was my fault for trusting a cheap tablet charger on the same circuit. The shutdown mode kept it from that from being damaged I'm hoping. He did confirm that like a computer, a reboot often solves the problem.

rockbender · 10-15-2014, 10:58 AM

Great news - thanks for sharing! I am getting ready to order up a TF and your post title had me a little concerned at first. Time to get one coming!

TexGX · 10-15-2014, 11:13 AM

I have a cheap ($10) wireless thermometer that has been working great for years. It gives temp inside truck and fridge. It was white, but I painted it black. Batteries last for awhile. Found it near home and garden area on a side cap.

TexGX

**daveb** · 10-15-2014, 01:07 PM

Eric, I'm trying to wrap my head around the cause. Were you using a 12vDC to 120vAC mini inverter running a computer charging brick? Seems more like a low voltage situation.

Glad you got it working though.

86Scotty · 10-15-2014, 03:17 PM

Dave, I honestly don't have any idea what happened. I wired the fridge on the left side SMB circuit, 30 amp fuse. I must've been hung over or something that day, because the TF should be run on a stand alone 15 amp circuit and I am usually really picky about that stuff. Anyway, we had been parked for a week and my kids, friends, my wife, etc. were using all of our charging ports and plugs all week for phones, tablets, Fantastic Fan, etc. I was plugged in to shore power so I wasn't using any inverter, and we never charged our laptop that week either. I have no idea when the fridge went down, but I suspect it was the night before we left. I noticed the light and lack of cooling about mid day on the day I left. They usually charge all of their stuff overnight.

Either way, I rewired the TF today on it's own 15 amp fuse (in the SMB fuse location for the fridge), and I also put the outdoor temp sender from my in/out thermostat inside the fridge. It was 38 in there within an hour or so. Now that I can read my temp, assuming it's correct, I'm going to try to get it down to 34 or so and see if that adversely affects my power consumption.

**daveb** · 10-15-2014, 04:36 PM

If your truck fridge is AC/DC and automatically switches to AC when shore power is detected I would suspect poor incoming shore power as the problem. I'm trying to figure out how feedback on the 12vDC side would cause a problem if it's a DC only refrigerator. $#!t happens though and at least you're not replacing it.

larrie · 10-15-2014, 06:09 PM

I took a look at the manual that came with my TF and under the Wiring System: Functions and Features section it says that the TF will shut down around 10V. Once the voltage has come back up to normal, 11V, it will restart. The fridge will also shut down if the ambient temp is above 125F.

Glad that it started running again.

86Scotty · 10-15-2014, 07:19 PM

Thanks Larrie!

Dave, mine's DC only.