Up next in 10
Dometic RTX 2000 Not Cooling | Part 3
519 views
May 3, 2025
NEW! DIY Camper Van Conversion Course Launches October 1st 2024! Don't Miss Out! :https://vanbuilderhq.com/camper-van-conversion-blueprint/ Don't forget to check out Odyssey Custom Vans latest build currently For Sale here: https://www.odysseycustomvans.com/ Whenever you’re ready, there are 2 ways we can help you: 1. If you need a vetted parts list, download our → FREE DIY Van Build Cheatsheet to help you save time and money on Van Parts and Gear: CLICK HERE: https://vanbuilderhq.com/ 2. If you want to get Done-For-You Van Build help, book a → FREE Consultation with my Calendly Link: CLICK HERE: https://calendly.com/odysseycustomvans/intro-call
View Video Transcript
0:00
w
0:06
[Music]
0:52
hey guys welcome back to the channel today we are trouble shooting the domatic RTX 2000 rooftop AC unit and uh
0:59
we just kind of making our way down the checklist um a little bit update with the whole warranty thing
1:05
so good news so far I've got
1:11
um my dealer account set up with doedic so I'm now a dealer I can have access to
1:16
that whole network um one thing maybe this is like personal life advice but
1:22
I've been to a bunch of uh trade shows in the past two years or three years doing you know the whole uh van Builder
1:28
HQ the videos that you guys watch online I've met uh I don't know 20 30
1:34
different vendors companies and businesses and uh a couple of them I've kept close and networked with them but
1:41
others you know I just hadn't gotten back to it well um I had been with the representative uh of doedic and you know
1:49
he was show me new products and stuff like that but I didn't finish taking that next step of setting my account up
1:55
and stuff like that so that's kind of like last year um so what I'm understanding about the business right
2:00
now and uh being able to support the stuff that you build um yeah if there's
2:07
opportunities to go ahead and get into different segments of the industry whether it's warranty repair selling
2:13
products um and this would be anybody out there that's maybe doing the van thing building their own Vans or
2:21
whatever that network access you have to parts and replacement parts um is is
2:27
essentially it's essential um what I found is if you are um you know doing
2:34
DIY and you have the unit uh by no means are any of these units bad that's not what this video is
2:40
about what it's about is understand that when you buy any product there's inherently like a onee warranty so
2:47
doesn't matter if you do uh the rooftop AC you got a second alternator you've
2:52
got batteries um understand that it's just
2:58
Parts sometimes something weird might fail you might have to replace it if
3:03
you're within the warranty um that process is probably going to be slower
3:09
to get it replaced or repaired under warranty at no cost to you so you get
3:15
this big timeline so you're going to have to wait a long time to go through everything it's pretty much normal with
3:20
any product you buy doesn't have to be van stuff but you have that long wait period to get it
3:28
handled under warranty at no cost then there's the other side to where you can just go out and buy something new
3:36
and just move on so you kind of have to weigh these two things um but just to
3:41
show you guys some background from what I'm working with
3:47
is um if you have uh when you're building Vans this is
3:55
kind of something it might be obvious but it's inherent to kind of have these support systems in the
4:00
background um I was actually considering replacing the unit uh just to kind of
4:06
move on and do all that but here's the thing the
4:11
unit when you if you guys watch the live streams and me installing and doing the build you're cutting the roof out you're
4:17
sealing it you got the plate you got the foam you got the spacer and so everything is kind of sandwiched nice
4:23
and neat the install is nice and clean on the inside you've got like the custom aluminum rails we did the Marine
4:31
adhesive just to make sure nothing vibrated and it's a perfect install um
4:38
so getting back to the point of this video we're going to be troubleshooting these two fans back
4:44
here and kind of full circle from where I
4:49
kicked off this video I found that it's just a fan there's nothing else wrong with the unit
4:55
everything's working fine I've tested everything with a multimeter and uh so something that I thought was going to be
5:02
a really big deal and I was going to have to just get a whole new unit replace it and then on the business side
5:08
figure out how to do you know warranty stuff like that in the future everything's kind of really lined up so
5:13
Domenic's been really helpful we've been emailing back and forth the last couple days on stuff they wanted to see me
5:20
capture with photos or you kind writing up a diagnosis so that's all been good
5:27
now that I have the dealer account everything's even more smoother because if this uh fan for example was not
5:34
replaced under warranty um I would simply as a business just buy a new fan um at my cost and
5:42
then I would just install it so that seems to be the right way to do it um it
5:49
is taking some time you know if it were me I would just go online buy the fan
5:54
replace it and move on tomorrow but uh
6:00
this process is important I I guess because you want to keep everything in line so even if I wanted to get the fan
6:08
um I still can't get the fan without approval even if it's not a warranty
6:14
repair so the warranty process I have to submit a form for the warranty process to get it
6:21
at no cost and then on the other side if it was outside of warranty and I still
6:26
needed the part I would still need to f of form to get the part so I don't know I'm
6:34
sure there's a bigger reason for all this but um if you're out there and you do get in this situation I understand
6:40
that it can be frustrating with the um on on the other side of the whole the
6:46
van thing so you get your van built everything's in there but then when you get to the side where you need to fix things um so just uh you
6:55
know it's going to be timec consuming inconvenient but um you know this is uh this is kind of
7:03
behind the scenes I thought I thought it would be cool to give you my thoughts on that so that's where we're at um the
7:11
last thing that was asked for me before this whole warranty thing gets uh uh
7:17
approved or whatever the next steps are this afternoon when I email them back is they requested a photo or a short video
7:27
testing showing them how I'm t testing this uh so it's interesting because um
7:35
you guys know you watch me on YouTube I'm live I have this whole entire live stream rig I've got a camera you know
7:42
I've got a shop I've got a test bench and um I'm just curious how someone else
7:47
would do this um in the same entire in the same instance so there was uh
7:55
probably three years ago there was a Renegy component um the Dual DC todc mppt solar
8:01
charge controller that failed on me and I did go through the whole entire process it took a month to get that
8:09
resolved but again I I got I had communication I had
8:15
emails there was somebody there there's a process it's just it takes a long time
8:21
so this one's much quicker I've only been working on this for about a solid week and so compared to a month a solid
8:28
week it's pretty pretty good but yeah I thought it'd be interesting for you guys
8:33
to see behind the scenes of you know this whole entire process it's it's I'm very curious on how this all plays out
8:42
um if it plays out to where I get this under warranty they sent me a new one I
8:47
pop the new one in I put everything back together and I take this uh vanan back down to uh Brian and Robin um I've
8:54
actually got way more confidence in Dometic products because not only can I
9:00
build a van put their products in the van I have access to all the repair
9:05
parts all the troubleshooting communication and just I feel really good about promoting them you know
9:11
giving you guys links whenever we do set up uh like the e-commerce and stuff like
9:17
that um so yeah so my confidence is now up here
9:23
if this goes through the way I'm thinking so this is the last step to do before they're going to give me an
9:29
answer on what's the next route to do this um and uh yeah we're going to hop on to
9:36
the table over here and we're going to get to the the main point of the
9:42
video so now starts the troubleshooting um once again this might
9:51
not be in your wheelhouse you might not feel comfortable doing this
9:56
uh and uh so I will be honest this is actually this looks intimidating but
10:02
this is really this is really simple um very straightforward so what we have
10:08
here these are the two uh cooling fans and what they do is they they uh
10:17
take air in and blow it across the uh condenser coil so there's two things in
10:24
the van um if I goof it's only because I'm mixing up the evapor Ator and
10:29
condenser words but I think uh the internet will fix me on this with the comments but these two there's two Banks
10:37
of condenser coils to my understanding this is what blows air across them and
10:44
removes that heat in the middle here you've got the evaporator so that
10:49
evaporator is what is uh taking that uh
10:56
the compressor is compressing the liquid and is going through through an expansion valve so the compressor heats
11:04
up it gets really hot and that hot refrigerant goes through these condenser
11:10
coils the heat is removed by these fans and then it comes through and uh goes
11:17
through an expansion valve and that uh
11:23
pressure I believe it's the pressure drop dramatically reduces the
11:29
refrigerant temperature and that's how you get the cooling effect of an air conditioner unit same thing works in your house so that evaporator inside
11:38
here uh that's going to be nice and cold and then on the inside a second fan is
11:44
going to blow across that into your van and it's going to cool the air inside so
11:50
this is separate from the fan on the inside they're completely separated by foam walls sealed up and so this one is
11:57
recycling that uh the warm air in your van taking it passing it through blowing
12:03
it out through the vents and it does that continuous cycle while on the outside of your van these fans are taking that the heat so the work that
12:12
the compressor did it's taking that heat away and the whole process
12:19
continues so this is the driver's side this is the one where visually when I
12:24
inspected it this one was bad it just it wasn't working and I watched a bunch of
12:29
stuff on the internet and I was like oh okay this Fan's not working because the
12:35
unit itself the unit is cooling
12:40
um let me change let me change this back there we
12:48
go this is a better talk man it's so far
12:55
away all right let me pull this in
13:00
there we go so this these two fans
13:09
um when I did a visual inspection of the unit turned it on this fan wasn't
13:15
working this van was working and on the inside of the van it was cooling because
13:22
but I was only getting 50% of the effectiveness of these fans so one was just taken it was only working at
13:29
50% so it was cold but it wasn't air conditioning cold like it should
13:36
be all right so fast forward what I did is I took this fan out I tested this
13:42
fan and when I took it out you do have to cut two zip ties um I'll change the
13:50
camera back you cut two zip ties off and then you
13:55
get you pull off some foam and then there's this little tacky material um and then you've pull this
14:03
wire through and then this whole entire fan can come off so this is the bottom this is the
14:09
top and that's the way it works same thing over here that's how
14:14
this one over here Works um trying to get these the camera lined
14:24
up there we go cuz we're going to power these on here in a second
14:31
so that was a visual the inside measured everything it's fine now when I took these fans out the plug that powers them
14:39
I made up a little harness here as you guys can see now this harness uh is for putting power into the
14:47
fan and then when I went on top of the van what I did is I took a
14:53
multimeter and I uh tested the pin out here to see if I got
15:00
24 volts even though it's a 12vt fan it runs these fans up top at 24
15:08
volts um I'm not sure that's cuz the wiring uh it's it's fine that it's 24
15:14
but you do need to take the red and the blue and where those two go in do not
15:21
short this or you'll be sorry because if you short it from this plug up top it's
15:28
going to blow the fuse on the circuit board and then you're really in a mess because you'll have to replace that
15:33
board I don't know how much that is um so you test these
15:39
two uh make sure you got 24 volts coming from the source that this plugs into and
15:45
then you can kind of move on from there so this is all you need just a multimeter up top you're looking for 24
15:51
volts when you get down here on the bench what you're looking for is um
16:00
move this over a little bit so when you get down on the bench what you're looking for is a power
16:07
supply now technically you could use two 12vt batteries
16:12
um that you create 24 volts with but it's not exactly 24 volts so I wanted to
16:18
I wanted to be exact so I picked this up from Micro Center in Charlotte I think it was like 80 or 90
16:25
bucks um for me I'm going to use this a lot in the shop cuz what I can do is I can dial in the voltage I can change
16:31
them from 24 12 8 you know whatever I want um so I can do all that and what I
16:40
do is I made the pigtail and so now we're actually going to do the
16:49
testing yeah Rod so I I'd say they can be done DIY the the problem is
16:56
you're uh am my at my experience I'm going to I'm documenting this whole process but I
17:02
believe that you as a
17:07
consumer uh they do I think they do a onetime
17:14
like Goodwill exchange on the warrantied part
17:21
um it it seems like you can get this I don't I don't know that answer yet I'm G I will ask them that question if you can
17:27
do this DIY or you have to be a dealer to get the part and all this good stuff
17:32
technically you don't because when I went into it before I got my number assigned to me for my
17:38
business they were just going to do this and then maybe future stuff they were not going to be able to help out with um
17:44
I don't know if that's true I'll find out um but the the way that I found out how to
17:51
do this was actually not through dedic I went
17:56
online and I watched a YouTube video as we all
18:01
do and so this one is uh Devon steel Devon steel it's called domatic RTX 2000
18:08
condenser fan problem fuse fixed he did at doedic official that's
18:16
kind of funny um I don't think his experience was positive but I I just
18:22
it's just give or take I'm not sure um things change people in companies change things move around so so you know what
18:30
are you going to do anyway this video uh feel free to play this
18:37
um I'm going to copy it I'm G put it in the
18:43
chat so this video is uh what he did is he did the pinouts of this to create a
18:51
harness so on the right side you got a red wire that is positive going in blue
18:57
is going to be your ground so you're negative purple is Heath con
19:03
it the pulse width modulation PW lime I think that's correct um pretty
19:10
much that is the line that's going to modulate this fan speed ramping up or down so going from low to high depending
19:18
on how much cooling capacity the compressor is creating work for the uh
19:25
that condenser coil or heat exchanger or whatever and then white one the white is he's
19:31
calling the common or chassis ground so that is the apparently the ground of the unit itself um which I'm not sure how
19:40
that works because technically the negative is going to share that but I guess the white has to do with the
19:47
grounding of the unit and the black has to do with the grounding of the motor
19:52
maybe they're separated that way somehow um anyway this has been very
19:58
helpful this is the map that I'm using this is the video that I'll make and send the little short video I'll make
20:05
and send to uh doedic let's hop over here on the workbench and let me show you my
20:11
troubleshooting setup we got the two fans we got a power
20:16
supply this is the same thing that you use for like working on computers and stuff like that
20:23
um we got two leads coming out we got negative and positive this positive lead
20:29
um a lot of people I know won't do this but you need to fuse this
20:36
um you know just for as a precaution so uh this wire right here
20:47
coming in um this wire and this wire they're the same wire I just got this looped
20:53
around so this is one this is one one wire right here
20:59
um so this is the bad one I'm going to show you the good one first just to show you that this one does power on I'm
21:05
going to be careful to not short out the good fan that I have and to make this more complicated where I got to do two
21:11
of them but if we look here um we got the
21:17
same thing uh I'll zoom in just for a moment and show you how I got this going
21:25
on let's see hold on there here we
21:31
go so what I've done right here is I've
21:36
got a couple wires I've got this is my power wire so this power wire is coming
21:43
from the uh power supply so we got 24 volts supplied here the second one is
21:50
the ground the third one it's red but this
21:56
is the one that I'm going to link
22:01
momentarily I'm going to link it momentarily to this alligator clip right here and
22:08
when I link it momentarily it's going to turn the fan
22:14
on um and then this last one is the
22:19
chassis uh the chassis ground or that's what's he that's what he's calling it I don't know the technical term it's
22:25
essentially the grounding of the frame of the dtic unit apparent apparently and if you guys see here this is uh I'll
22:33
move it back over this right here what I have in my hand is the white chassis uh the dtic unit itself and then
22:40
the black is the ground for uh the battery essentially so the black is the
22:47
is the negative for this unit uh is this right here that's
22:53
negative okay so make sure when you're making these
22:59
little pinouts here don't I've got black electrical tape CU
23:04
I do not want to short right here we've got a easy way to short these two
23:10
because they power's here ground's here it's easy to short it if you goof and
23:17
you short you're going to mess the fan up that's the good fan
23:25
and I hope you got it on video so you know that that's the one you
23:30
messed up um that you messed it up and not the circuit board all right so that's on we've got
23:37
uh we're going to zoom back out can the power supply be used for the
23:45
RTX bench test no no it can't uh this
23:51
this box you see rod these are little baby wires that are 22 gauge there's not
23:57
enough current this this box um the max current of this box
24:06
is uh hold on I think it's like uh 10 amps I think this box can only put out
24:13
10 amps remember there's an 80 amp fuse to run the domatic unit that's a ton eight
24:19
times more power so technically you need eight of these boxes to turn on the do medic but
24:27
remember this is 24 volts the dedic is 12 volts that can get confusing these fans on the circuit
24:34
board have been converted to 24 volts to run the unit and compressor is 12 volts
24:44
so I know that's confusing but um something to to learn
24:50
about okay so let's take our pwm here um
24:57
now one thing I noticed is is when I I'm going turn the power supply
25:04
off and uh they're mowing the yard next door so hopefully that's not coming
25:09
through in the mic um so when I turn this back
25:19
on it's almost like this fan like initialized or something the first time I did it so it's not doing it again but
25:26
I just I thought that was interesting so we're going to take this and let's go
25:32
ahead and take this this is the purple wire coming through the connector and then now we're going from the purple
25:39
wire to the red and this one is going to turn the fan
25:46
on we hold it down and then you see we've got like
25:54
a and we're going to take it off because we're just providing it power there's no
26:00
circuitry to monitor how high of an RPM we're we're running this fan up to so I
26:07
just run it up and then let go just to be safe because if I keep this connected it's just going to go go go go go
26:13
there's nothing to modulate the power so look this fan works just like it did on
26:19
top of the van and you know good to go we're going to turn the power supply
26:26
off um we're going to take these wires out and then we're going to hop over here to this side and then we're going
26:31
to do the same thing so we're just going to take our white uh
26:37
ground or the dienic unit ground we're going to take our red
26:47
pwm and then we're going to take our
26:53
black negative and then carefully carefully
26:59
we're going to take our red power in and I've got this I've
27:04
got tons of tape on here because I do not want to it's so close to be able to Arc with the negative so just be very
27:13
careful okay we got that set up so now we're
27:18
just going to double check that nothing is messing up one thing that he noticed was when
27:27
he so there's a little little baby spark like when I connected this to
27:33
this um this one is bigger which show tells me that there's there's a short so
27:40
if I do
27:49
this so it's not doing it anymore
27:55
um okay that noise is this unit so now I'm going to do the same
28:01
thing I'm going to touch that make sure I'm not hitting anything over here so
28:06
I'm going to take this and I'm going to touch and see I've got
28:15
nothing so nothing's happening so this fan I'm holding it on
28:22
there so nothing's happening so maybe if I move the fan
28:28
nope so in my warranty report where I told them what I did I told them that
28:35
this was shorted and I knew that in I guess like the first five minutes but uh
28:42
apparently this is the process we got to go through to to get a warranty claim process
28:48
which again I'm sure there's a reason it's just in inconvenient as much time
28:54
as it takes all right so if you guys are wondering what shops do behind the scenes and why things take
29:00
long this is why it's sometimes a it's a process but
29:07
sometimes it might be a silly process so anyway so I'm going to take all this
29:13
uh actually I'm going to keep this taped up I forgot that I got to record a video for
29:19
them all right I'm going to come over to and check out the chat see what question
29:25
you guys have and then I'm going to make a I'm going to cut the video off send a little
29:32
cell phone video to doedic and then I should be closer to
29:40
moving on from this thing
30:03
all right so Rod was asking about the power supply so we talked about that this power supply is not enough
30:10
to cut the unit on you need a lot of current to do that
30:15
um uh other than that that's pretty much it so while I got you guys attention I
30:23
wanted to uh let you guys know about our new d y van course that's coming
30:30
out you can go on Van Builder HQ link is in the description below um but the DIY
30:35
camper van conversion course that I'm designing is called the camper van conversion blueprint so throughout the shop working
30:42
on everything I have been putting together this to help you guys DIY build
30:49
your own van launches October 1st right now you can pre-order it save some money
30:54
before launch date um where the price is going to go up but what is going to be in this
31:01
course is we're going to go through all these uh little modules to uh get you in the mindset of
31:09
preparing to do your own DIY build first thing we're going to talk about is getting started checking out Vans um or
31:16
just understanding the basics of uh like planning your budget uh what you're going to do when
31:24
you get your van that sort of thing um when you figure out what van you want
31:29
after you've worked on your budget and you know what you're want to do or where you want to go I'll help you uh choose
31:35
your van then there's design and layout so we'll talk about a couple layouts
31:40
that work really well stuff that I've seen it shows um what I think you know works well or
31:48
what might work well in your situation um offgrade power system
31:53
design how to size a power system that works for you with your
31:58
components fresh and gray water storage how that works where tanks go how much
32:04
water you need how they're going to be used insulation and sound dampening to
32:09
really increase the comfort of your van um not only driving noise but when
32:14
you're at a campground in the winter time make it nice warm and cozy inside uh exterior upgrades that's
32:21
always fun that is going to be going over a lot of rooftop stuff roof rack solar panels rooftop AC see um all that
32:30
and then finalizing your build you know what do you need to get in your van uh
32:36
like accoutrements to whether it's uh dishes or storage or storage bags or how
32:43
you're going to put your bikes in there um taking your first trip you know making sure everything in your van is
32:49
you know legal road legal you're not overweight um we'll be talking about all that stuff and then finally we'll end it
32:56
with uh giving you access to our private online community and this is essentially
33:01
a forum and I'll be in the Forum asking questions uh other like-minded
33:07
individuals in the van space so DIY diyers asking questions and um
33:15
essentially a big Community to where you guys can talk with each other get some help and then I'll kind of chime in
33:21
every now and then and help out with some more detailed questions um but that's the course so
33:29
there going to be more modules in that course uh so we'll be adding some more stuff
33:36
other than that Nova come here trying to do an
33:44
ad anyway you can pre-order today and save um before the price goes up on
33:50
October 1st and love to hear your feedback if there's something in the course that you
33:56
didn't see that I just explained put that in the comments um we had a subscriber talk about Cabinetry so we're
34:03
going to be talking about kitchen Galley fabrication uh we'll pretty much do a deep dive on John and Susan's Kitchen
34:10
galy I was really happy with the way that turned out um the overhead cabinets
34:16
I've kind of got a couple of ideas on what I think is better than a cabinet itself uh I built a small cabinet in my
34:23
personal van it's a low roof so it's nice and compact um there's some thoughts behind how I did that one and
34:30
then in John and Susan's build we did soft storage uh but we did it in uh like
34:37
little Ikea boxes that slipped in and locked into place and I kind of think that's the best of both worlds so we'll
34:44
be doing deep Dives talking about that and there'll also be some bonus footage um that you've never
34:51
seen in this course so get excited pre-order is right now you can purchase
34:58
it right now at the discounted price and then on October 1st it'll go up to full
35:04
price and uh that'll be the launch date so get in early save some
35:09
money and uh hope you guys enjoy last but not least before we end the stream we'll talk about the DIY van build CH
35:17
cheat sheet um this has been on the channel for a long time this cheat sheet is essentially an Excel sheet that I
35:23
created with all the parts that I ordered from Amazon over the past 3 years and it's basically just a big
35:28
organized list of all the bolts nuts screws fuses um you know PEX a crimpers uh
35:37
tools that I use water pumps stuff like that it's on this list there's over 250
35:42
curated items on this list um we've got a bunch more that we're adding in the next couple
35:48
weeks and um yeah all you got to do is put your name and email address it'll be sent right to your inbox and I think
35:55
it'll really help you out on your DIY van build build um if anything just to get a couple ideas on what you could use
36:02
or might use in your build that would fit you uh and kind of where you're going what you want to do so Link in the
36:10
description to both of these I'm going to link the
36:15
uh let's see here I'm going to put the DIY vanu course in
36:24
here and then the next one we're going to be doing the uh this is the uh camper
36:41
van camper van conversion
36:52
blueprint all right check that out guys um
36:59
all right we're going to uh get back to work we're going to finalize this last
37:05
request from doedic and then the next thing that you guys will know will be a video talking about the next steps of this process
37:12
um and uh all that good stuff um something exciting so there's a van
37:19
that's coming in um for a uh rooftop AC
37:25
replacement um and it's G to be really cool it's a
37:31
surprise I'm gonna surprise you guys when this this van comes in uh I didn't build this van but this van is uh local
37:39
van in North Carolina and it's going to be coming in for some uh AC uh warranty
37:45
work which is and the timing couldn't be better because uh we're working on this
37:50
AC we're kind of like an AC repair mode um I guess it's I don't know into of Summer maybe they has to do something to
37:57
do with it but down here uh on my right hand side we have a nomatic cooling X3
38:04
rooftop AC unit so that's the big guy um
38:10
so we'll be swapping that out uh we're going to freshen up some electrical we're going to do some testing put some
38:15
new connectors on there uh get them all set up and out the door um So the plan
38:21
is it's going to come in tomorrow afternoon and then we'll just lay out what parts I need that sort of thing and
38:28
then as soon as the parts come in we'll get to actually sh the process of removing the old one putting the new one
38:33
in and uh should be very straightforward um unless there's you kind any quirks
38:39
that sort of thing but uh look forward to that in next week's live stream and
38:45
um all right that's all I got I'm G to get back to it and uh thank you guys so much for watching make sure you guys are
38:51
subscribed to the channel hit that like button share this video to anybody that needs to troubleshoot fans or something
38:56
like this in the the van um to get more comfortable with that if you have that issue and uh other than that I'll see
39:03
you guys in the next live stream [Music]