Recent Trip To Thousand Trails - Idyllwild

Here are a few photos taken around our site during our last visit to Thousand Trails - Idyllwild.

And a few more from the town of Idyllwild:

Awsome Carvings!

Norcold Retrofit Details

Norcold retrofit details. [6-page pdf document]

This is the retrofit "black box" [Temperature Monitoring Control] which has been posted by others as failing repeatedly.

This link will take you to the Norcold "Recall Letter"

Norcoldrecall letter [10E-049]

This link will take you to a post on RV Talk Forum by Kenneth at Grandview Trailer Sales which provides clarifications on applicability that some may find helpful.

Further clarification on “applicability’

This link will take you to a website containing photos of fires started by a failed RV refrigeration unit.

http://www.rvrefrigeration.com/recalls.asp

For those who have an RV which has been retrofitted and now have a non-operational Norcold refrigerator due to no display/power at the refrigerator control panel, a likely cause is failure of the "black box" [photo above].  If inspection of the refrigeration boiler assembly [see Norcold Retrofit Details link above] does not indicate symptoms of an overheat condition such as the smell of leaking ammonia, operation of the refrigerator can be restored by removing the +12 DC IN and +12 DC OUT leads from the "black box" and jumpering the leads together.  Then check for Power and normal display functionality at the refrigerator control panel.  If the display is normal, then provide AC power from your inverter, power "genny" or "shore power" hookup and turn on the refrigerator in AC Mode.  This proceedure will keep the unit in operation until a replacement "black box" can be obtained and installed.

I have now suffered two "black box" failures.  The first was "dead on installation" of the retrofit.  The installing technician failed to verify the refrigeration actually worked after he completed the retrofit installation.  The second failure occured fifteen months later for no apparent reason.  Fortunately, the above jumper proceedure kept us operational while on the road in transit and at our vacation destination.  We are about to install the third "black box" and strongly considering a halon fire extinguisher system, as others have done, as additional insurance.

Drive Safely!