There was an interesting discussion on the Yahoo board a few days ago concerning what settings give what results for Dometic 3 way frigs. As it turned out, I think, what we had been told by the dealer, had others tell us, and what made sense to me, all were wrong. The dealer had told us the frig, when on auto, would do AC as first choice, gas as second choice, and DC as third choice, all without any input from the operator. Other folks said the same. We didn't have our 3 way long enough to figure out exactly how it all worked because we quickly decided the off level issue made it desirable to go to the compressor frig.
As it was described on Yahoo, there is an on/off button that turns on the frig, and is on the left. Next is a DC button with indicator light. If it is on when the power switch is on the frig runs on DC, and will NOT switch to AC or gas by itself. If the DC is on, you get DC with no other possibilities. If the power is on, the DC off, then you get to chose auto or gas mode with the third button column. Gas setting you get gas all the time, auto it will use gas unless AC is available.
This all came up in a discussion about things that could try to light a flame while you filling the van with gasoline. One poster said that when you are on DC, as many are while driving, the burner will never try to light, which is correct, and a good thing. Another poster described the operations of the controls, which was spot on. What he said he does is run with the DC on when going down the road, and in auto mode all the time. That way when he stops to camp or in a parking lot for a while, he just turns off the DC, and he automatically goes to gas. Makes sense.
But--what I know some folks do is to ALWAYS shut off the DC on the frig whenever they stop, including for gas. Their goal (maybe misguided) is to save their batteries, as they have heard the horror stories about how quick the frig kills batteries on DC. If they did that, while they had the third button on auto or gas (the only settings, no off), the frig would try to light, right when you don't want it to at the gas station. Maybe I am still misunderstanding, but it sounds like it would be pretty easy to mess up. My thought would be that the DC would disable the auto and gas modes until you reactivated them by pushing the button, not all by itself. You are right there anyway pushing the DC off button, so it would be no big deal and would eliminate the potential problems.
What say you folks that use the 3 way all the time, like we don't!
As it was described on Yahoo, there is an on/off button that turns on the frig, and is on the left. Next is a DC button with indicator light. If it is on when the power switch is on the frig runs on DC, and will NOT switch to AC or gas by itself. If the DC is on, you get DC with no other possibilities. If the power is on, the DC off, then you get to chose auto or gas mode with the third button column. Gas setting you get gas all the time, auto it will use gas unless AC is available.
This all came up in a discussion about things that could try to light a flame while you filling the van with gasoline. One poster said that when you are on DC, as many are while driving, the burner will never try to light, which is correct, and a good thing. Another poster described the operations of the controls, which was spot on. What he said he does is run with the DC on when going down the road, and in auto mode all the time. That way when he stops to camp or in a parking lot for a while, he just turns off the DC, and he automatically goes to gas. Makes sense.
But--what I know some folks do is to ALWAYS shut off the DC on the frig whenever they stop, including for gas. Their goal (maybe misguided) is to save their batteries, as they have heard the horror stories about how quick the frig kills batteries on DC. If they did that, while they had the third button on auto or gas (the only settings, no off), the frig would try to light, right when you don't want it to at the gas station. Maybe I am still misunderstanding, but it sounds like it would be pretty easy to mess up. My thought would be that the DC would disable the auto and gas modes until you reactivated them by pushing the button, not all by itself. You are right there anyway pushing the DC off button, so it would be no big deal and would eliminate the potential problems.
What say you folks that use the 3 way all the time, like we don't!