Norcold PolarMax LO DC error message

[Mean-Jean]

Recently took delivery of 3760 Big Horn and on our first trip to our seasonal site we found the lo dc error message on the display screen of the polar max 2118. That Monday called the dealer and I completed some troubleshooting for them since we lived 4 hours away. Found that only one battery was installed, however, it was fully charged and the converter/charger was working properly. Also checked the voltage at the dc control box on the back of the fridge was only 11.8 volts. Dealer had me add a another group 27 battery wired in parallel and for that weekend all worked well.

The next weekend the error message was back intermittently, So I checked battery voltage 13.1v, checked the charger 13.6v and at the fridge control box 13.1 so it seems all the voltages are good. Has anyone else run across this problem and if so what was the fix? Thanx

 

[danemayer]

Hi Mean-Jean,

If you're reading 13.1 V at the back of the fridge, with the black lead touching the RV ground somewhere, I would hazard a guess that you have a loose ground connection somewhere. Could be on the fridge itself, or where it connects to 12V from the fuse box - might have some wirenuts on the back side of the fridge where this connection is made.

Try running the water heater on 12V/Propane. If it operates correctly, your problem is probably local to the fridge. If it's intermittent, or fails, you may have a general grounding problem. In that case, you'll probably have to check near the batteries to find where the negative terminal is grounded. Sometimes that's behind the rear wall of the pass through storage.

 

[Mean-Jean]

Hi Danemayer...Thanks for your response. I'm starting to think the problem is with the DC control module. I tried your inputs before. Hot water tank runs fine on propane and DC, and the voltage reading I got direct off the positive and negative leads connected to the dc control module. The only other thing I can think of is if the Intelipower converter charger feeds the fridge when it changes to it's float mode maybe it goes to low and trips the fridge and displays the error message. I'll tinker some more this weekend. Thanks again, Jean

 

[danemayer]

the Intelipower converter charger feeds the fridge when it changes to it's float mode maybe it goes to low and trips the fridge

Jean,

Even if the Power Converter quit altogether, you should still get adequate voltage from the battery for a while at least.

If you read good voltage at the + and - inputs to the board, and the refrigerator displayed a low voltage msg, I agree with you that it may be the board.