So much to learn.....

[Chad Heiser]

1 hour ago, eddie1261 said:

So today I did some more testing and learning, and with the digital VOM that I bought I looked at my cranking battery to find it sitting at 8.6 volts. Now I haven't been a mechanic since the Army, but I am pretty sure the basics haven't changed THAT much where a battery that should be at 13.4 to 13.8 will crank a V10 engine with 8.6 volts. So I plugged it into my garage with the dogbone adapter I also just bought, and in 10 minutes that battery was at 13.46 and I revved him right up. Next step is to borrow my friend's battery charger and charge it up to see if there is any recovery left in the battery., If not, I need to replace it.

Also tested my outlets with the AC off and with the AC on, and found them to be right at 110 with the AC off (again, running on power from my garage) but 99 with the AC on. So, my experienced forumites, are those readings right?

Out to go back to shore power to test the fridge. The dealer told me to give it 2 hours to cool once I apply energy to it. Today I will test it on electricity. Tomorrow, propane. I do love learning, so this is fun!

 

Two things.

Your battery was not at 13.46 after only 10 minutes.  That voltage was what was coming off the charger being powered by your shore power plug.

99 volts is way too low to run 120 volt appliances.  You will cause damage to electronic devices over time if you allow them to run on that low voltage.  The voltage drop is a result of your coach pulling too many amps through the outlet your dog bone adapter is plugged into.  You need to turn off some 120 volt appliances when plugged into regular outlets (15 amp) like you are now.

[Yarome]

1 hour ago, eddie1261 said:

The dealer told me to give it 2 hours to cool once I apply energy to it.

2 hours?!? You must have one of those new "it's a miracle" reefers.  You might be able to feel a slight difference in temps when you first open the door after two hours, but I wouldn't touch it for 8hrs before trying to get any temp reading out of it. 12hrs would be better to really let the temps stabilize and get a good feel for how it is performing. 

[eddie1261]

33 minutes ago, Barbaraok said:

I'd just replace now

I'll give charging a shot. This RV isn't going anywhere for a while yet. This will be experience in reliving my Army mechanic days!

 

[eddie1261]

Just now, Yarome said:

2 hours?!? You must have one of those new "it's a miracle" reefers.  You might be able to feel a slight difference in temps when you first open the door after two hours, but I wouldn't touch it for 8hrs before trying to get any temp reading out of it. 12hrs would be better to really let the temps stabilize and get a good feel for how it is performing. 

To be accurate, they said "2 hours before it starts cooling". I will see how it is about 6pm my time and if it feels like it is starting to cool I will put a gallon jug of water in there and check it in the morning. Somewhere here I have a little thermometer to put in there.

[Yarome]

1 minute ago, Chad Heiser said:

99 volts is way too low to run 120 volt appliances. 

Agreed. On a 15/20amp plug like that your AC is going to eat it up like nobody's business. Other than a couple LED lights I would try to steer clear of anything else until the AC cycles down.

[eddie1261]

5 minutes ago, Chad Heiser said:

Two things.

Your battery was not at 13.46 after only 10 minutes.  That voltage was what was coming off the charger being powered by your shore power plug.

99 volts is way too low to run 120 volt appliances.  You will cause damage to electronic devices over time if you allow them to run on that low voltage.  The voltage drop is a result of your coach pulling too many amps through the outlet your dog bone adapter is plugged into.  You need to turn off some 120 volt appliances when plugged into regular outlets (15 amp) like you are now.

I figured it was something like that, running on 15 amp. The next thing I will do is read those outlets with the generator running. With all the people here as a knowledge base, I'll get it right at some point!!

[Yarome]

3 minutes ago, eddie1261 said:

To be accurate, they said "2 hours before it starts cooling"

THAT's more in line. You realize when you open it up to put in your jug of water all of the cold is going to roll out of your reefer, right. If it were me... I would let it do it's thing overnight, check the temps in the morning and drop in your water jug. After a couple of hours I would then go back and check your water chill level and take another temp reading.

In the long haul you might consider using one of these wireless freezer/fridge type temp gauges. It can come in real handy being able to monitor the temps and be alerted if there is any type of issue.

[eddie1261]

One thing I should make clear here as far as my plugging the RV into my garage's power is that I am not actually doing anything in the RV. It's just plugged in. I may go out there later to get the dog into the thing for another 60-90 minutes as I continue to get her used to being in it, and to test various combinations of the 12v LED lights I put in, maybe watch some TV on a laptop, but not like sleeping in it or anything. Dipping toes in right now!!

[Alie&Jim's Carrilite]

Put something in the fridge.  Bottles of water work well.  The absorption fridges need something- mass -to pull heat from to provide the cooling effect.  

[Kirk W]

1 hour ago, Yarome said:

Agreed. On a 15/20amp plug like that your AC is going to eat it up like nobody's business. Other than a couple LED lights I would try to steer clear of anything else until the AC cycles down.

Modern electrical appliances are designed to work on voltages between 130V down to 108V, or in other words, 120V +/- 10%. It won't harm anything to use lights with low voltages but electric motors will be damaged by it and the longer they are run on poor voltage the more it shortens the life expectancy of the motor. 

1 hour ago, eddie1261 said:

The next thing I will do is read those outlets with the generator running.

You should be able to run the a/c and pretty everything from the generator if it is matched to the RV. The key to what the generator will run is in the size that it is in KW or kilowatts.  If you only have one a/c unit I'd be surprised if it doesn't handle things.

1 hour ago, eddie1261 said:

I will see how it is about 6pm my time and if it feels like it is starting to cool I will put a gallon jug of water in there and check it in the morning.

It usually takes 6 to 8 hours for an RV refrigerator to cool to the set temperature, if it is empty. It is a good plan to pre-cool the refrigerator before loading it and to have everything you put into it already cooled if possible and frozen foods previously frozen, if possible. 

22 minutes ago, Alie&Jim's Carrilite said:

The absorption fridges need something- mass -to pull heat from to provide the cooling effect.  

I have never heard this before? We pre-cool our refrigerator with it empty and have done so for all of our part-time RV experience. It does help if you put things already cold into the refrigerator. Do the newer refrigerators have that in the operator instructions? I'm not saying you are wrong, just that it is new to me.

On your battery issue, I suggest that once you have charged it, remove the negative battery cable and allow it to rest for 1 or 2 hours, then get an accurate voltage reading and record it. Then wait another 24 hours and check the voltage again to see how much it has changed. It should read about 13.5V or so on the first reading and after 24 hours it should still be above 13V and loss should be no more than .5V from the first reading. RVs are well-known for "phantom" loads that deplete a battery more quickly than should happen so the only way to know for sure is to leave the negative cable off for the test. 

 

[Alie&Jim's Carrilite]

Kirk, Not going into how the RV fridges work, but since the fridge removes heat as opposed to providing cold air like a compressor style fridge, if you provide something for it to remove heat from they may not cool faster but you can judge the rate that the temp drops.  When you open the fridge door, all the cooler air spills out.  All the cool or cold objects in the fridge will help restore the air temp in the fridge faster when you close the door.

[eddie1261]

16 minutes ago, Kirk Wood said:

You should be able to run the a/c and pretty everything from the generator if it is matched to the RV. The key to what the generator will run is in the size that it is in KW or kilowatts.  If you only have one a/c unit I'd be surprised if it doesn't handle things.

When I was in there working on stuff, it was hot, so I had the generator (Onan 4000) running. The AC was on and I was using a drill and a small saw and that was all fine. When I was out there before after plugging into my garage, I just wanted to see what worked, so I turned the AC on for like 5 minutes, long enough to take a reading at the outlets while it was running vs when it was off. I would NEVER run my computers or TV on anything less than full power. While boondocking they will obviously be on solar, but I needed to test and see what running on shore power, albeit only a 15 amp circuit, was going to look like. I mainly bought that dogbone to plug in so I could test the fridge and make sure it works. Thus far it looks like it does. I'll know more in the morning.

[Kirk W]

1 minute ago, eddie1261 said:

the generator (Onan 4000) running.

I'll wager that your 4KW generator will supply enough power to run pretty much anything you will need to use. Part of the problem with the outlet in the house is that it is limited to 15a by wire size and then protected by a circuit breaker. When you consider electricity, the voltage is the driving force, like pounds per sq. inch is the driving force for water through a hose. The current in amperes is the volume of electric power, much like the gallons per minute is for a water hose. Since the house has small wire it can't handle the high current draw equipment without the presser or voltage dropping off. Unlike a water system though, and alternating current motor increases in current draw as the voltage drops and that makes the problem of low voltage even worse. 

On the refrigerator, I'll not get into a debate but if you wish to know more of how they actually work, I suggest that you visit  Your RV Refrigerator as a good place to start.  I have been working on them for many years. 

[Yarome]

4 hours ago, Kirk Wood said:

Modern electrical appliances are designed to work on voltages between 130V down to 108V, or in other words, 120V +/- 10%. It won't harm anything to use lights with low voltages but electric motors will be damaged by it and the longer they are run on poor voltage the more it shortens the life expectancy of the motor. 

Agreed. Which is why I suggested using as little as possible. Not for the sake of the lights or such.. but from further taxing his AC motor. If it's already pulling the other outlets (with no load on) down to into the 90's then you know that the AC is "already" struggling on less than ideal current. KWIM?

[eddie1261]

So to update those involved in the conversation of my learning curve, the fridge chilled my 1 gallon water jug just fine, so apparently it works. I still can't find the thermometer to check the temps in there, but it's kind of moot anyway because I don't know that there is a control on a Dometic RV fridge that I can make it colder. At least I didn't see anything like that. I may run up to Big Lots of somewhere I can buy a check thermometer to put in there. Though I suppose I could just go ahead and buy the weather station I will be getting for the RV and use that since it has a remote sensor I can stick in the fridge.

[SWharton]

I am joining this late but there is some control but not with a control like the residential refrigerator. It is with a thermistor. If I recall correctly it should be near the fins. You will need to look up how to move it for temp control. 

[Yarome]

23 hours ago, Yarome said:

In the long haul you might consider using one of these wireless freezer/fridge type temp gauges.

 

1 hour ago, SWharton said:

It is with a thermistor. If I recall correctly it should be near the fins.

SWharton is correct. There is a metal "slide" on one of the fins with a sensor attached that can be moved up or down to alter the temps, but is very limited.

Here are a couple of very worthwhile mods that many use in Dometic and Norcold reefers.

Temp monitoring.. see the previously posted link above.

Improved range and control Thermistor. He also sells them through eBay if you are concerned about purchase protection, but he's been around for years and never heard of an unhappy customer. Listed as a "repair kit", but adds much more functionality and control over a standard fin type thermistor. Extremely easy to install.

Fans to help with with the cooling efficiency, regulate temps throughout your reefer and nearly eliminate frost build up on your fins. Again, very reliable folks and been servicing the RV community for years.

The above mods are "SOP" for any new rig I own.

You may also want to review this rear venting PDF. Proper air circulation and venting is key to efficient cooling and longevity of your cooling unit. There are a number of air circulation mod write-ups around the internet with a little searching. I've never added any additional fans, but I "have" made modifications to my rear vents on a couple of my rigs that were not installed correctly. Cooling units ain't cheap so it's never a bad idea to ensure yours was installed correctly from the get go.

[eddie1261]

Good stuff about the fridge. I will test it with a thermometer and see if it's 38-40. If it is I will leave it alone. Also looked at the links and will capture them when I get back to this later. Have to feed the dog at the moment, AND her daddy. You folks here are the best. I may be able to go on an overnight test run before I get it winterized. Then to focus on selling the casa and hopefully be able to start the journey in spring sometime.

Just a thought... how do I UNwinterize? Just drain everything and refill the holding tank and such?

[Kirk W]

Most Dometic refrigerators do have an adjustment to set the interior colder, but it is typically just a series of numbers, probably from 1 through 9. There is a button to hold down and that number will change, a higher number means a colder setting or lower temperatures. RV refrigerators are subject to the outside temperatures so if the outside is hot then setting must be higher, in cold weather, lower. You will find several videos on Youtube that explain how to use an RV refrigerator and since there are several different types of controls in different models, take a look and you should find one similar to the one that you have. 

45 minutes ago, eddie1261 said:

Just a thought... how do I UNwinterize? Just drain everything and refill the holding tank and such?

It depends on whether or not your water heater has a bypass kit. Those are pretty common and they allow you to winterize the water system while leaving the water heater empty. You just drain the water heater's tank, reposition the valves of the bypass kit and then pump RV antifreeze into the plumbing. To put back in service, drain out the antifreeze, fill with water using the city connection and flush it out well using the faucets and the low point drains. Next, make sure that the drain plug is in the water heater, then align the bypass valves to put the water heater back into the system and then fill it by venting excess air from one of the hot water faucets. 

[eddie1261]

15 hours ago, Kirk Wood said:

It depends on whether or not your water heater has a bypass kit. 

And that harmless sentence right there is why Camping World stinks. They showed me NOTHING about this RV and when I asked questions the answer was usually something close to "This is an older RV and we just took it in on a trade. Unless there are some kind of manuals inside we have no way to know much about this exact RV since it isn't one we carry." I don't know what that thing you mentioned is, I have no idea where to look for it, thus I have no idea if I have one. That means I have to take it to somebody. And guess who that has to be in my area? So I have to now pay them  money to find something out they should have found out before they put it on their lot. I wish I had better options because they are truly horrible.

Sadly where I live they have a captive market and I really didn't have many options. Most of the dealers are not all that interested in the used units when they can focus on those new $250k models that bring in more commission.

If by "bypass kit" you mean a bypass valve (I just wouldn't think of a simple single valve as a "kit"), THAT I can say I have. I have to remove drawers under the sink to get it, but I know where that is.

[avvidclif]

Most auto parts stores will test a battery free. Wally World will I know.

On the AC voltage. Measure the voltage at the plug where the rv is plugged in, it should be 120v, then at an outlet in the rv, also 120v, then turn on the AC and it shouldn't drop more than 3-5v, min 115v. At 99v the ac will be damaged by low voltage. The PI Surge Protector turns off power to the rig when the voltage goes below 105v, which is considered a bare minimum to avoid damage.

[Kirk W]

7 hours ago, eddie1261 said:

I don't know what that thing you mentioned is, I have no idea where to look for it, thus I have no idea if I have one.

If you locate the water heater on the outside of the RV, then find where you can access the rear of it and you can see what you have there. The first picture is of the outside of the water heater. 

            

The second picture is of the bypass kit installed at the rear of an RV water heater. I basically adds a valve to turn off the water supply to the water heater and out of it, and a cross-connect line between the two with a valve in it. 

The other type of bypass uses a single valve at the water inlet that puts water into the tank in one position, and turns it off and sends it into the cross-connect line in the other. At the outlet from the water heater there is now operating valve but just a check valve that allows water to go out but not into the tank. 

[eddie1261]

Ah. Okay Kirk.  I don't have all that. I have a single valve that stops water from reaching the spigot so it can back up and fill the water heater tank, after which I open the valve.

[hutchman]

A battery at 8.6 vdc is dead and will never be recharged in a short period of time.  Here is a link to some battery basics:

https://www.hawkins.co.za/charging_basics.html

A properly charged battery may not hold the charge and need to be replaced.  An improperly charged battery, even if otherwise good, will never work to it's capacity

 

[JimK]

The original premise was about the lack of information for a new RVer.  That is not at all the case.  First my RV came with a manual and an online manual is also available.  It covers all the systems, including electrical, heat, cooling, plumbing.  It details operating and maintenance procedures.  An hour or two reading the manual would provide a wealth of information.  In addition the internet provides additional details for virtually any issue, upgrade or repair.  There are excellent books available which provide detailed information about virtually every type of RV.  Houses are way, way more complex than RVs.  Most of us can gain the knowledge needed to live in a house and to do at least basic maintenance.  Again, living in an RV is much easier.