Refer Madness

[Joel Ashley]

Okay, I've done my share of schpiel about the ice maker in my 2 door Dometic fridge, telling others here how to properly deal with the thing, and recently tried to tie it in on other threads with my problems with the TV coming on by itself and my ignition acting up.

Yesterday the TV suddenly went off.  The Alladin indicated a ground or some such malady briefly, then went back to normal shore power readout.  The A/V breaker in the bathroom was tripped, and I could not get it to stay on.  I pulled the plug on everything in the dash overhead, but the breaker still wouldn't stay up.  Finally, knowing the ice maker is first inline on that circuit, I went outside, opened the fridge access panel, pulled the ice maker plug, went back and flipped up the breaker where it dutifully (and mercifully) stayed.  I plugged everything else back in with no problem.

There was some jam up of ice cubes, which I cleared and emptied the excess of, but still the breaker would cut out if the ice maker was plugged in.  I should know this (where to look) but this friggin N.W. Nebraska heat day aft day has fried my brain I reckon (no wonder S.D., CO, and now NE and WY are on fire all around us);  Will a simple defrost/manual removal of frost around the ice maker do the trick to free up the motor, which I presume is stuck and overloaded, or are there other things I should be looking at?  Whatever it was threw the main power control temporarily awry, since the Alladin reported the fault, and then the reset.

I note the power cord goes up through the condenser tubes, which get warm, so could the cord melt through up there somewhere... It's hard to see all the way up there even with a flashlight.  And I'm wondering if a fault in the ice maker could have been affecting the TV issue a couple weeks back.  I noticed that even though I unplugged the cord coming from the back of the TV (black 2 prong cord with white stripe), the TV still came on!  Obviously power to the TV must be coming through another cord, and God and Monaco only knows what the white-striped cord is for.

Lastly, if as I suspect, the ignition 12volt device that locks out the TV is in the first-in-circuit outlet box that the ice maker (by itself) plugs into, could all my problems be emanating from that one darned box and device?

Joel

[Joel Ashley]

A complete manual defrost with scraper, hair dryer, and towel seems to have resolved the issue.  There was ice jammed even behind the back panel where the probe rod goes.  Gotta remember to lift the bail the night before hitting the road, as if there's freshly dispensed water in the tray, it will splash around and freeze where it shouldn't be.  I also had an overfilled tray of cubes, some frozen hard to the tray wall.  Though hard to believe it causes the cycle motor to get jammed solid, I suspect that's what causes the circuit breaker to trip.

Joel

[Robert Mathis]

Joel, I had the same problem with my coach in the Keys this summer. It turned out that it wasn't the icemaker itself, but moisture in the outlet causing the arc fault breaker to trip. The problem actually corrected itself on the way home, but i had an electrician come look at it and he cleaned the connections, replaced the arc-fault breaker and replaced the cheap outlet in the refer bay with a weather resistant box and outlet. My symtoms were a little different in that my breaker would not stay connected even with the icemaker unplugged, but you might want to have an electrician check your circuit.

[Joel Ashley]

Thanks Robert.  I reckon I feel better knowing I'm not the only one with the issue.  Perhaps my breaker is OK, and the extraordinary high temps and humidity are messing up the outlet box.  But I noted some blocks of annealed ice cubes and a displaced plastic finger guide in the (overfilled) icebox the last time, which points to a jammed motor that can overheat.  I'll have the outlet box checked out;  it's the one with the red and white heavy 12v wires leading to it, which may be the ignition link that cuts off that circuit.

Joel