Dometic RMDX21 Fridge – Mods and Repairs
In our 2017 Essential Exceed Caravan we a standard Dometic RMDX21 3 way manual switching fridge/freezer. Very happy with it, though it has had a few issues over the last year, all so far solvable!
Beeping for no reason
Some of the parks we have stayed at the fridge will start beeping for no apparent reason. Obviously check the door is closed to start.
However after a while we realised it’s a power problem. The RMDx21 appears to be quite sensitive to mains voltage and the beeping in our case was from low mains voltage. Unfortunately it doesn’t tell you this anywhere, even the manual.
At the last site it was doing this it was while the aircon or even just the toaster was running, other sites it would just do it randomly all day.
The quick and simple fix was to switch over to gas until we moved to the next site.
Slow running Drain:
Firstly the drain was running slowly and dribbling down inside the back wall of the fridge. A quick check and yep, the drain hose was a little blocked with green algae (not unusual). A trick I learnt from our last fridge, grab a length of old whipper snipper line – this one is shaped like a star with 5 edges. Feed it down the drain tube and it pushed a lot of stuff out with it. Now fold in half (this one is quite thin), push it through again and then twist it around. I stuck it in the drill and ran that on a low speed for 20 seconds. Then pull the line through from the bottom and gently pour some warm water down the drain to flush out the last bits.
Click the image for an enlarged view
Over flowing drain tank:
Next issue, in very humid climate, the drain tank at the rear was not evaporating fast enough with the heat from the system (maybe we open the fridge too often?) and the tank had over flowed a couple of times. The tank should have some water in it so the drain hose is below the water the level, this stops warm air flowing up the drain hose into the fridge. So my mod was to add a short drain hose to the drain tank that runs from the upper side of the tank to the tube holder in the vent frame. Now if it gets more than 3/4 full it overflows to the outside and not all over the ply floor under the fridge.
The green hose used is a little bit of left over fuel line that came with the diesel heater. Hole is just slightly smaller than the tube so its a force fit. The heatshrink on the bottom is just to stop it flexing and keeps it in the holder better.
Click the image for an enlarged view
Freezer door jammed:
When running on gas, the condensation that builds up around the door locks can then freeze and jam the locks in place. This is why whenever you arrive at site you should disengage the locks, especially on the freezer door. On 240v power this is not an issue as the frame heater keeps the ice melted. On our particular fridge there may be a little more play in the hinge than others, because when the lock jammed up I was able to lift the latch end of the door about 3mm which was enough to lift it over the latch!
If you can not do this, you can use a hairdryer (if you have one) on the side of the door where the latch is to melt the ice. You can also turn on the Cabinet Warmer (read the instructions!) however this uses a fair amount of battery so you don’t want to run it too long when not on power.
Door Latch not holding
We arrived at site today to find the contents of one shelf all over the floor… That shelf had the glass jars like beetroot, tomato salsa, mustard, pickles etc. So it took about an hour to clean up the mess of food and glass, that thanks to the rather rough South Australia roads had ended up covering most of the floor.
Mess cleaned, now to work out why. Turns out the latch was not latching, felt like a spring was broken. First pic I am holding the latch down, second I have let it go and you can see its lifted up.
So we pulled it off and pulled it apart. Pretty easy really, peel the white sticker off the latch, undo the two screws and take it apart.
Once removed, on the back is the catch holding it together, prying gently with a small screwdriver to pop it apart, and yep, spring in two pieces. I tried to stretch the larger part of the broken spring, but as soon as I lifted the latch the spring was compressed back to being too short. Pulled apart a pen and used the spring out of that. Opened up one end to fit on the latch the stretched it a bit to wrap around in there. Seems to be working well for now, might try to find a proper fitting replacement if it starts to loosen again.
When refitting the latch, just make sure the lever goes under the rod coming down from the button. It’s not spring loaded, so will have dropped down below the latch. You need to insert it at an angle to get it under that rod, the when in position screw it in and refit the white cover.
Power issues:
Some of you may remember last year I accidentally turned off the main battery battery switch momentarily, but when it switched back on the fridge did not power up. Long story short – 24 hours later with the fuse removed it finally turned back on and I put tape over the switch to never turn it off again! I was thanking my lucky stars thinking the main control board was borderline terminal.
Anyway, fast forward 6 months and the fridge is now turning off randomly while driving and running on the car battery. The car power only runs the element in the fridge, the main computer is powered from the van batteries. So I check all wiring assuming a bad connection, and yes the main power leads (push on spade type connectors) are not very firm at all. So a quick squeeze with the pliers to increase the pressure and job fixed or so I thought. Next drive upon arrival the fridge was off again. It got to the point that closing the door firmly or moving stuff around in the fridge to hard would shut it down.
I played with the wiring and fiddled for ages with it turning off all the time but just not able to work out exactly what wire was causing it. Then when looking at the wiring closely (couldn’t find a wiring diagram) I realised the thermal circuit breaker on the flue is actually inline with the incoming power to the fridge control board, so if it failed, no power to the fridge at all. Close inspection found it was in a bad way with the terminals rusted and the rivets holding the terminals rusted as well, resulting in the terminals being quite loose. As a temporary fix I have pulled the connectors towards each other under pressure with some Velcro to stop them moving until I can buy a new one (currently in Lichfield National Park – not too many refrigeration repair centres around here!). UPDATE: Tried everywhere and ended up back at my favourites Everything Caravans… A new one is on its way.
UPDATE: replacement arrived, this is the old one after removal, you can see why power dropped out over bumps!
Stopping the bugs!
Our previous van’s fridge stopped working on gas at one stage so I had to take it down to get looked at. Turned out the lovely QLD mud wasps had decided to make a nest inside the flue system blocking the airflow. Time and $$ later I decided to put fly screen mesh over the vent to prevent this. Just normal fly screen, not midge screen as I didn’t want to reduce the airflow too much. I placed the fly screen over the back then dobs of hot glue to hold it in place. Working well. I did not do the same on the top vent as ours is a roof mounted upper vent and the screw holes had been filled with silicone so was too hard to remove in the time I had. Working on the premise that the wasps are too lazy to fly all the way down the bottom to make a nest!
Lost the vent cover!
Well not us, but on our travels over the last year I have seen plenty that have lost the standard Dometic outside fridge vent cover. Ours is missing half of one of the lugs that hold the front in place and with it fitted over the ribbed aluminium it was always half popping off. Was thinking of a few options then saw what Bob had done and copied (Travelling Oz Our Way). Simply remove a middle screw from each end of the vent frame, drill a matching hole in the vent cover, refit the cover, put in the screw. Very simple and that vent cover is not going anywhere.
Auto shut off on car battery:
Our power feed from the car for the fridge is run directly to the car battery via a 50 amp auto resetting circuit breaker. I separated this from the 12pin trailer connector so I could unplug it when we stop for lunch somewhere to avoid running the car battery flat (the fridge draws around 13 to 14 amps continuously). Since I keep forgetting to unplug and was worried I was going to be stuck somewhere, I decided the easy way out was to install a VSR or Voltage Sensitive Relay. I picked up a 50amp KickAss branded one and installed it behind the fridge, plenty of room. Simply cut the main 12v fed from the car, put a ring connector on the cut ends and bolt them on to the VSR. A small black wire off to the negative connection and works like a charm. Once it detects over 13.2v for more than 15 seconds it turns on, when it detects less than 12.8v for more than 15 seconds it turns off.
Defrosting:
The fridge seems to defrost itself fairly well when on 240v, but the freezer ices up and needs cleaning out once every 2 to 3 months depending on the humidity. Once the freezer ices up too much it stops keeping things cool. A quick job assuming you have a hairdryer on hand. Empty the freezer, remove the shelf, place a plastic tray under the fins and a towel to soak up the water, hairdryer on low fan high heat and aim at the first fin at anywhere you can see the aluminium. If you cant see any, pick the part with the least ice. Once that’s been in the heat for around 10 seconds the sheet of ice will simply pull towards you and off the fin. Repeat for all fins, stopping to clean up the ice and water as you go along. Takes no more than about 10 minutes and the ice cream hasn’t even had a chance to start melting!
That’s it for this post, any other great ideas you have for these fridges let me know and I will add them in!
That is awesome thank you 😊
Hey Dave, me again. I too am having issue with the fridge turning off while travelling, I had dent remove the feed from the 12 pin to it own Anderson until yesterday, but am curious with what I have found. The thermal circuit breaker is ok on my van, but when I measure the voltage at the fridge, with the fridge off I get 14.3, but once I turn the fridge on I only get 12.9volts. your photo “remove these frame screws” shows the feed at the top which is what I am talking about, how can the voltage drop, I would have thought the feed voltage was the feed voltage. I am really confused, any ideas Dave? thanks George.
Hey George, that sort of voltage drop is pretty normal, the draw from a three way fridge is quite high when running on 12v for cooling, around 14 amps or so. At that current the voltage will drop along the length of the wire from the car battery to the van fridge, which is quite a log cable run. The 14.3v will be with no load looking back at the car battery, 12.9 when the fridge is running is quite normal and an acceptable level. Only way to improve that is to run heavier cables, however this drop won’t be causing any issues. Even dropping further will only reduce the cooling efficiency (which isnt great to start with on 12v for a 3 way fridge), but it wont cause it shut off. Worst case is the red light will be flashing if it drops too low. Is your fridge still shutting off? The only thing that will cause it to shut off is the thinner power wire that runs through that thermal circuit breaker – thats the power in to the controller board. If it loses power it will switch off. Mine also had poor connections on the spade terminals, at the back of the fridge, I notice that later models have changed over to screw terminals. Cheers, Dave.
Hi Ho Dave, I very much appreciated it mate, I will look further and test this weekend, I will take for a run as I haven’t been able to get more than 20 minutes with shut dow using the 12 pin plug, so with the fridge now connected Cars Red Anderson plug, I hope this help. thanks again, awesome support. regards George
Hi Dave, I like some of your ideas / recommendations, with the fridge vent has the lugs broken, it has about 6 screws holding it in,
I have also fitted a cabin air filter to the inside of the vent to prevent dust getting into the van and past the fridge.
Regards
Mark
Hey Mark, thanks for the comment! The vent on our fridge has about 6 or so screws holding the frame in place, the the vent cover itself was only the lugs on one end and sliding clips on the other. So when the lugs half broke there wasn’t much holding it in at all! I do like the cabin filter idea too – I used to work on Mobile Phone towers many moons ago and they had a filter material in the door vents to stop dust – a fibrous mat about 20mm thick – would have been perfect for that!
Cheers, Dave.
Hi Dave, we have the RMDX21 fridge and works well on Gas for about 5 hrs. Then stops. Pilot light still lit, nothing flashing that there’s an error.. any ideas on what might cause this? I have cleaned the burner and got all dust/dirt out which helped the flame come back to blue, but cant seem to figure out why it won’t keep cold on gas? Thanks in advance
Hey John, the fact that you have a nice blue pilot light that stays alight indicates all the gas functions are OK. I had an earlier model fridge that had the flu blocked by mud wasps that was stopping the system working properly – ever since I always put a fly wire screen on the vents.. Not sure if that will allow the flame to keep running or not though but worth checking.
With no error light or beeps that would indicate all systems are operational (generally), then there are only really a few possibilities – one is the van not level enough (if on an angle the coolant doesnt flow properly); another is if the fridge is stacked in a way that is now allowing convection airflow – there must be space for air to flow in the bottom shelf area, up past the cooling fins and out the top and back down the front, make sure there is a gap between foods and the fins, foods and the door as well; another to make sure top and bottom outside vents are allowing airflow; and finally check that the fins on the outside back of fridge are clear (have had spider webs filling them at on stage that filled with dust and pretty much stopped air flow).
It could be the thermostat, though generally that will set an alarm and also cause a similar issue on 240v
As a first or last resort, try holding down the triangle with ! in the middle of it for 10 seconds or so if you haven’t already, thats the Gas reset.
Its a bizarre one with no error lights or beeps and the pilot staying alight thats for sure! Please let us know what is was when you finally find it too!
Good luck, Cheers, Dave.
Hi Dave, we are currently free camping on the beautiful Murray and having power issues with our RMDX25. It was running through the inverter but when we tried to run it on gas…we kept get an error message. We did a quick google search and thought the ignition point/starter might have dust in it (nice dry and dusty roads in…) we disconnected a wire to get the cover off and experienced a little spark. Now we have no power at all. Not inverter, 12volt or gas. I think we’ve blown a fuse but I can’t seem to locate it at the back/bottom of the fridge… could you point me in the right direction or have any ideas on what the issue could be, please? I’ve since read that we could have tried a reset first…
Thanks in advance Paoli
Hey Paoli,
How do you go? The fuse for the fridge generally won’t be at the back of the fridge, usually up with the rest of the fuses for the van, where ever that is on yours. Ours has a BMPro system with a dozen fuses in it, our old little Jayco had a other brand with 6 fuses. Generally the fuses are in the controller or as close to it as possible.
Cheers, Dave.
Thanks for your info on fridge I have the same van and exactly same problem with drain
After reading your post went hunting and found drain tube was not installed properly and curled up behind fridge
Anyway Found if installed it as per photo and installed overflow as well
Thanks Graeme
Thanks for the feedback Graeme, good to know it helped someone!
Cheers, Dave.
Just wondering if this forum is still open?
Need help with a fridge with no spark….
Hello, yes I am still here, unfortuantley thats a tough one and could be a few different things. First to check is can you hear it sparking to try and ignite? If not, check the 12v connection is working correctly – the 12v runs the controller and the spark. If thats OK, check the wiring to the igniter and make sure its OK, if all that is OK it may be the igniter itself, not very common but can happen. If you can hear it sparking but its not igniting, check the gas is flowing and the tap below/near fridge is on, if it is, carefully remoe the flue cover and covers over the ignitor area and give it a blow out with compressed air. They are open to the fresh air so do regularly get clogged with dirt, mine previousely had the flu blocked with a mud wasp nest…
If all that is no go, jump onto the Caravan and Camping face book group and try asking there.
Hope you get it sorted! Cheers, Dave.
Hey Dave, we have a RMDX 21 refrigerator that will not turn off you can turn the 240 power off but fridge stays on beeping running on 12 volt battery power. I have held the button for about five minutes and it still will not turn off.
Hey Richard, our van has a 12v master switch to turn off all 12v to any appliance. Switching that off shuts down our fridge. I haven’t actually tried turning it off from the button on the front! However, if yours won’t turn off but everything else about it is working OK, to me that indicates the button itself may have a problem, so if you shut it down by disconnecting 12v power my concern is it may not turn back on. Definitely only try when finished camping as you may need to get it fixed before it turns back on again. Of course it may also fire back up as soon as you connect power again. Not really possible to say without testing. Good luck!
12 volt master switch doesn’t turn the fridge off. Thanks. Cheers Richard.
Hey Richard, thats very odd, the fridge is supposed to be under the master switch. Someone has wired it direct to the battery which is not a good thing. Just went and checked mine and the on/off button on the fridge itself is ‘hold for 2 seconds’ to switch off, ‘push momentarily’ to switch on. Master switch shut it off completely but turning the master back on turned the fridge straight back on without having to press the button. I think yours needs to be disconnected from the 12v to try a reboot of the controller (might be able to pull the fuse?), then maybe look look at wiring it in through the 12V master switch.
Hi Dave,
We have a 2017 franklin with the same fridge. Dometic rmdx21. The door latch has been playing up for some time but we have been out in western Qld so unable to fix as yet. Today arriving back in Toowoomba and hooking up to 15 phase power the blue light is flashing and the beeping every 2 minutes indicating that the door isn’t closed properly (normally anyway). Have tried putting it onto gas and still doing exactly the same thing. I can’t even get the fridge to turn off. Any ideas on what it would be.
Hi Janet, that’s very similar to the issue we last had where the latch wasn’t working properly. Open the door and see if the latch will push down, as in, is it lifted up slightly. That was the spring broken in ours and as the latch wasn’t down it doesn’t push the switch to tell the fridge the door is closed.
Will try that now and see if it works tge beeping is doing my head in.
Cheers.
Hi Dave
Well I think that has worked. The spring was broken so have replaced that and all seems to be working and the beeping has stopped. Cannot thank you enough and hubby says if we see you on the road we owe you a beer.
Cheers Janet.
Hi Dave
No spoke too soon back to flashing and beeping
Make sure the catch is all the way down, as in when the door is open it doesnt push down any further. that is what the broken spring did to ours. I tried a few different small springs until I settled on one from a pen! Also try pushing the catch in the frame with your finger (the one the door latch presses) to make sure it clicks and the beeping stops. Good luck, nothing worse that a beeping fridge 🙂
Hi Dave
The button for 220 volt is broken,is the button for 12 volt or is it for 220 volt??
kv. Einar
Hey Einar, I am not sure I follow your question? The control buttons on the front of the fridge are all connected to the fridge controller that is powered by the 12v. So if the batteries are dead and you have no 12v power, you cant switch the fridge on at all, using mains or gas. First you need the 12v to be on and working to power up the controller, then you can select 220v. Not sure if that helps? Cheers, Dave.
Hi Dave rmdx21 It ran out of gas last night so I got up and changed gas bottle. Then lit gas stove to get the gas though. Tryed to light to light and it just beeps at me I have tryed tuning off and on but won’t light Can’t hear the lighter going no error
Hey Dave, Sorry that one sounds a little odd, especially since it was already working and only stoppwed after changing the gas bottle over. However since the gas ran out whle the fridge was running, that means the gas lines all the way to the fridge are empty. It will take a good few minutes to get the gas back through. To reset, press and hold the triangle with the ! in it, this will reset the gas system and start to try again. Hope that helps, or even better hope you already got it working! Cheers, Dave.
Have a rmdx25. Bought second hand no manuals supplied. Fridge works great on 240. And batteries while traveling. Can not get the gas to stay on. It will work on gas till we close the main door. We have figured that the problem is the nMain fridge lock. As soon as we shut the door and the lock pushes in place gas cuts out. Flashing red beeping. The freezer door does not have the silver plate in the lock space. The main fridge door has a silver bit that pushes in when door closes. Is this a gas safety cut off thing. Got us baffled.
Hey Jenice, thanks for the message, I hope you can get it sorted asap! A few things I can think of. Firstly, the silver piece in the door latch is just to operate the microswitch that controls the interier light and the door open warning. It should have no effect on the gas at all. First thing to try is press and hold the triangle with exclamation mark in it to reset the gas system. If no go and other gas appliances are working OK, check the gas tap to the fridge hasn’t been bumped off or low, still no luck it’s most likely a build up of dust or insects in the gas burner system. Turn off the gas to the fridge first before cleaning – this link gives a good run through on cleaning it out – https://help.leisurevans.com/en/articles/1520918-cleaning-your-dometic-gas-burner. Mine had a mudwasp nest in it… I put the flyscreen over the vent to stop this happening and after 3 years on the road full time it worked well! Good luck!
PS, this is a link to a PDF of the manual: https://www.caravansplus.com.au/pdf/RMDX-manual.pdf?srsltid=AfmBOop-IT2Z2UfnXcfKJRO2d5cqO5NGMy0tqTvm7md7QZFW2tQH3rsk
Hoping for some insight please!
Dometic RMDX25 Fridge Problem.
Only one blue light is on (the left one).
What could be the issue please?
I feel that the fridge isn’t as cold as it probably could be…
Hey Sarah, Sorry I only just saw the message – did you have any luck? Just trying to understand the indicator, the far left light (circle with a | through the middle) is the power button. Press and hold for 3 seconds to turn on or off. When on it will be lit, when off it will be off. If that is the only light on then there is definitely an issue. Firstly try holding it down for 3 seconds to turn off, then hold down for 3 seconds to turn back on. If no change, try pressing the Auto, AC or Gas buttons to manually select a mode (it might be set to Auton for example and the auton light is not working??). If still no go try hold down the triangle with exclamation mark (reset) for 3 seconds. If still no change you have bigger issues! Only thing I could suggest next would be to turn off the 12v power to the fridge for 10 minutes to let it fully reset – our van had a main 12v power switch to turn off all devices (for storage).
Thanks Dave – a huge portion of my message somehow has disappeared into the ether, so im potty – that’s why it hasn’t made sense.
Haven’t really made any headway thus far, but think haven’t least worked out the ‘blue light’ issue.
I feel like the fridge door also isnt pulling in as tight as it should, but have come to the conclusion I’m just going to have to try and source someone at a bigger town when in the road.
Thanks anyways 🙂
🌻🚍🐢
We have the rmdx21 in our van, fridge is freezing up, think it might be the thermistor have you had to change one, if so are they easy
Hey Melinda, I haven’t had any issues like that and honestly I haven’t come across anyone yet with that problem either! Check the thermistor is firmly against the cooling fin is about the only thing I can think of first.