Elkmont refrig - 2-way or 3-way?

[cochise]

We received a red binder with most user manuals in it, including the TM Owners manual. But on when I got to page 23 under "refrigerator" I sat up. They state that it is a 3-way design, so I went on to page 24. Halfway down under "Start Up: DC operation it states that the refrigerator is made to operate on 12 VDC while the vehicle is in transit. That is only true in as far as 12 VDC is used for the controls and is used when the refrigerator in using the LP gas mode, but ALSO when it runs in 120 VAC mode. This was verified by NORCOLD. They say it would take too much current to run something that big on 12 VDC. Which makes sense. So it seem TM is a bit over optimistic or have no clue what they are really dealing with.

[Wavery]

Originally Posted by cochise

We received a red binder with most user manuals in it, including the TM Owners manual. But on when I got to page 23 under "refrigerator" I sat up. They state that it is a 3-way design, so I went on to page 24. Halfway down under "Start Up: DC operation it states that the refrigerator is made to operate on 12 VDC while the vehicle is in transit. That is only true in as far as 12 VDC is used for the controls and is used when the refrigerator in using the LP gas mode, but ALSO when it runs in 120 VAC mode. This was verified by NORCOLD. They say it would take too much current to run something that big on 12 VDC. Which makes sense. So it seem TM is a bit over optimistic or have no clue what they are really dealing with.

I don't know who or why someone at Norcold would make a comment like that but that person is sorely mistaken. Our TM fridge works quite well off of 12V. I have seen huge 12V fridges on boats. The TM fridge is dinky @ 2 cu ft. I had an 11cu ft fridge on my sailboat and it was 12V. It was also very efficient.

Having said that, it does draw a lot of current on 12V and it's not something that you would want to do while dry camping. Most people here tow with there fridge on 12V.

[cochise]

Originally Posted by harveyrv

I don't know who or why someone at Norcold would make a comment like that but that person is sorely mistaken. Our TM fridge works quite well off of 12V. I have seen huge 12V fridges on boats. The TM fridge is dinky @ 2 cu ft. I had an 11cu ft fridge on my sailboat and it was 12V. It was also very efficient.

Having said that, it does draw a lot of current on 12V and it's not something that you would want to do while dry camping. Most people here tow with there fridge on 12V.

I am referring to the full size refrigerator with FREEZER that comes with the Elkmont not the much smaller fridge in the folding trailer, they are only half the size of ours. And the info I got was based on the model number and serial number. Perhaps TM uses the same manual for all their trailers. And my fridge does NOT have a selector switch for 12 VDC as indicated in the manual, only "AUTO or GAS".

Cochise,
There are numerous errors in the Elkmont manual. This is one of them. The seem to have hurriedly cut-and-paste from one of the other models.

A couple more examples:
“Small switch located in the overhead vent controls the wall lamps”

Under winterization: “Open the high-pressure cold-water drain valve (low point valve under trailer near freshwater tank), to drain the hot water tank”

[Wavery]

Originally Posted by cochise

I am referring to the full size refrigerator with FREEZER that comes with the Elkmont not the much smaller fridge in the folding trailer, they are only half the size of ours. And the info I got was based on the model number and serial number. Perhaps TM uses the same manual for all their trailers. And my fridge does NOT have a selector switch for 12 VDC as indicated in the manual, only "AUTO or GAS".

OOOOOOPS!!!!

I forgot that we were talking about the Elkmont here...... DUHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

We had a similar control in the Norcold refrigerator we had in a previous trailer. Auto would default to 110, but use 12v if 110 was not available, like when traveling. If we wanted gas, we switched from auto to gas. Don't know if that is the way your Norcold works.

The Norcold in the Elkmont is only a 2-way refrigerator (120VAC and propane). It does not use 12VDC to cool the frig/freezer. However it does use 12VDC to ignite the propane, run the thermostat, indicators and so on. We leave ours in Auto mode, and when we disconnect the 120VAC line, we check to ensure that the Propane indicator light comes on. It does, and the frig/freezer seems to work as designed.

Are you sure??? If so, that would force you to use propane when traveling. This is not a good idea at all (although I know many people do it) and is illegal in some places. Maybe because it is a full sized refrigerator? Personally I would have little use for a 2-way. In thinking about it, the one in our previous trailer may have been a Dometic, at any rate it was 3-way.

Yes the Elkmont only runs on Gas or 110. We used Gas for driving. I know some states will not allow gas if going through tunnels. But if you don't use gas you might have a real mess after a day long drive to the next campsite.

On our '09 Elkmont, the fridge uses 12 VDC when traveling. The Norcold owner's manual is not very clear about this. If you have your owner's manual look at the falult codes (probably on page 11). The first fault code is no "on" light. The meaning is DC voltage is unavailable or fridge is OFF. I am not sure about using 12 VDC while not hooked up to shore power and gas turned off. That happened to me last week in a campground and I got a confusing fault code. I checked fuses, etc. and found that the shore power cable had pulled out of the power post. In any event, if only DC is available, the batteries would not last long.