Camping Fridge – how do you explain this?

[PJ50040]

Recently we purchased a Dometic (Electrolux) 3-way camping fridge through eBay.

Model: RC1600EGP
Type: JCB-1

Had been litle-used, and seemed to work fine for the first week of our camping holiday (under canvas): coped with the sunny weather at start of week (yes, there was some!) and quite happily iced-up when we left it on high for too long, as expected. This was running on gas.

Moved to a different location for a second week and noticed after 2-3 days that it was no longer icey (This time it was running on mains from the site electric hookup.) Suspecting the electric, we tried it on gas. Still no joy.

It had just stopped working! Both gas and electric had been generating heat from the rear grille, and the gas bottle had plenty in, so it wasn’t that the supply was faulty.

On returning home I found a copy of a user manual for a similar fridge. It said “if fridge has not been used for a little while, turn it upside down”. It didn’t say for how long, or what to do after this period…(but I only had a photocopy of 2 pages!)

So, I tried turning it upside down for half an hour, turned it back over and plugged it in…and it worked.

Q1 How on earth does that work then?

Q2 Is there any reason for the original non-working problem? and
Q3 Is there anything we can do to stop it not working in future?

Any help gratefully received.

Puzzled! PJ

[Dales-Electronic]

Re: Camping Fridge – how do you explain this?

Quite simply, your system relies on two chemicals that mix together and seperate as heat is applied. Over a period of time they migrate from where they should be to another place. If you turn the appliance upside down they go back to where they should be. This however does NOT work with a conventional system

[PJ50040]

Re: Camping Fridge – how do you explain this?

Dales-Electronic wrote:Quite simply, your system relies on two chemicals that mix together and seperate as heat is applied. Over a period of time they migrate from where they should be to another place. If you turn the appliance upside down they go back to where they should be. This however does NOT work with a conventional system

Thanks for that.
PJ

[johifo]

PJ50040 wrote:Recently we purchased a Dometic (Electrolux) 3-way camping fridge through eBay.

Model: RC1600EGP
Type: JCB-1

Had been litle-used, and seemed to work fine for the first week of our camping holiday (under canvas): coped with the sunny weather at start of week (yes, there was some!) and quite happily iced-up when we left it on high for too long, as expected. This was running on gas.

Moved to a different location for a second week and noticed after 2-3 days that it was no longer icey (This time it was running on mains from the site electric hookup.) Suspecting the electric, we tried it on gas. Still no joy.

It had just stopped working! Both gas and electric had been generating heat from the rear grille camping refrigerator, and the gas bottle had plenty in, so it wasn’t that the supply was faulty.

On returning home I found a copy of a user manual for a similar fridge. It said “if fridge has not been used for a little while, turn it upside down”. It didn’t say for how long, or what to do after this period…(but I only had a photocopy of 2 pages!)

So, I tried turning it upside down for half an hour, turned it back over and plugged it in…and it worked.

Q1 How on earth does that work then?

Q2 Is there any reason for the original non-working problem? and
Q3 Is there anything we can do to stop it not working in future?

Any help gratefully received.

Puzzled! PJ

Hi, I’m looking for a plug-in 240v camping fridge. Any recommendations? I will be camping with a hookup facility. Not sure what to buy – £100 ish budget. It needs to be small enough to carry in my car, but big enough for food for twp adults. all the ones I’ve seen run off 12v car lighter. This is not an option for me as I would run my battery dead within hours… Any advice welcome. (was told Halfords do such a fridge?)

[electrofix]

you can buy a 12v power supply to plug a 12v fridge in. and then you have the option of keeping it running while your driving

https://www.halfords.com/camping/coolboxes/halfords-coolbox-mains-to-12v-accessory-adaptor-290806.html?cm_mmc=Google+PLA-_-Motoring{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}3ECamping{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}3ECoolboxes-_-Motoring{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}3ECamping{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}3ECoolboxes-_-290806&_$ja=tsid:|cid:17253532456|agid:|tid:|crid:|nw:x|rnd:17109460008941690430|dvc:c|adp:|mt:|loc:1006972&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwKPt-9GYggMVmuDtCh0cFwrhEAQYAyABEgLNc_D_BwE

you would need to check the ratings of your fridge to make sure this unit is suitable

[USER=”125″]don[/USER] have you any experience of these ?

Dave

[don]

We needed a small fridge for our French holiday this year for medications, food and drink.

Having thoroughly researched in car fridges with a mains option we went for the halfords 24 litre model which was small enough to go behind the front seat of the car. Mains option was handy to take fridge into accomodations we were staying in.

A good product which worked very well both in car and out.

Don

[andyjawa]

two chemicals that mix together and seperate as heat is applied = distilled water and ammonia + a small pencil heater = an absorption fridge (or at least a slightly simplified absorption fridge in your case). Electrolux did make some full sized versions which were brilliantly long lived usually all that went up the creek was the heater which was easily replaceable – far to successful for these days of frost free complexity / stupidity.

[Author]

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