INSTALLING A DIGITAL THERMOMETER ON A DOMETIC RV FRIDGE

We recently had to troubleshoot our Dometic 2351 propane fridge, and found that a blown fuse was at least a part of the reason for its failure.  Well, guess what??  Confucius say that an RV fuse that blows for no apparent reason has a good chance of blowing again for no apparent reason.  And for that reason, we decided to proceed with installation of a digital temperature display so that we could keep a much closer eye on the behavior of this little fridge.

When it works, it works very well, but there is no visual cue for when it might be deciding to take the day off.  The only functional indicator we have is whether the Auto light is on.  But as we found out the hard way, just because the Auto light is on does not mean that the fridge is actually working.  And the next time this kind of failure happens, I don't want to find out about it only after all of our food has reached room temperature.  

In many cases, my husband and I are the Makers, the ones inventing work-arounds for whatever predicament faces us.  In this case, most of the headwork was done by Air Forums user Hoonanea, who in this WDYGFYTT post provided excellent instructions for retrofitting a Dometic fridge with this device.

It's a pretty simple process - you just buy the battery-operated temperature meter from Amazon or some other retailer, and install it in the fridge.  The batteries are said to last 2 to 3 years.  

Installation requires carefully cutting a hole in the fridge face plate.  Our fridge is a smaller model than Hoonanea's, so we had only one choice of where to squeeze in the meter, and that was right next to the corner.

Once you get the hole made for the digital unit and install it in the face plate, you just take its line and fish it through to the back of the fridge...

...feeding it through to the fridge interior and attaching it with tiny zip ties to the existing line.  

Now THAT is a sight for happy eyes!!  Like I said above, when this thing decides to work, it works very well (some people complain that their Dometic propane fridge does not get cold enough for their needs, but we haven't had that problem yet).  In a perfect world, I would have preferred to place the unit somewhere other than right up to the corner, where it is more likely to be smacked by a passing suitcase.  But you can see that there was no other available space on this tiny face plate.  

In our refrigerator.  Only in our refrigerator.  Seriously.
:-)