Open door alarm on Norcold N10 Refrig

We haven’t used our Cameo in a while, and now that finally we have some time to take a trip for the Thanksgiving holidays, I went to the place we have the coach stored to make some preparations. After I had turned on the refrig for a couple of minutes (Norcold 10 cu. ft model), it started to signal the open door alarm. But, the fridge and freezer doors both were firmly closed, and the alarm will not stop alerting. Turning the refrig off and on resets the circuit, but it just starts alarming again after a couple of minutes. Looking at the doors, I can’t even figure out how the refrig senses whether they are open or closed. I couldn’t find a switch anywhere along the edges of the unit, and the doors themselves don’t appear to have any electrical connection that would run back to the control panel. Any assistance you can provide on this issue would be greatly appreciated.

We had a problem like this on a motor home years ago and the fix was to add two plastic washers under the hinges of the door. I don’t recall, but either the top of bottom hinge can be removed and you can take the door off to add the thin plastic slims. It solved the problem for us–good luck.

In googling for this issue, I also saw this fix described. A couple of years back the door hinges on the original door broke and I had to put on a new door, and I put several washers on at that time to get a better alignment for latching. It’s been working fine ever since, until today.

Anyway, can you explain why this fix is effective? Sounds like something is misaligned. Where is the sensor, and can I defeat it?

We were traveling at the time and I found that if I held the door in that the alarm would stop until I open it again. I called our dealer at the time and they told me what they would do to fix it which was the washers. It worked and I never asked why. A couple of years later we traded it in on another RV and it was still working at the time.

I found online a service manual for the N6/N8 series. Not exactly the same unit, but I’d guess the controls are similar. It looks like there is a magnetic sensor in the control panel, and there is a magnet in the door frame such that when you open the door it breaks the circuit. So I guess that the shim fix closes the gap between the sensor and the magnet in the door frame so that the sensor can tell that the door is closed. So maybe the shim fix would work, or it could be that the sensor has gone bad. Is there anybody that can confirm that I’m on the right track?

Tried the shim fix, but it did not work for me (although the door latches a bit better now, small consolation). I also passed a magnet underneath the optical control panel, and the alarm did not stop alerting. I ordered a new control panel, hopefully that will fix the issue. Expensive fix for what is essentially a nuisance problem.

Replacing the control panel assembly fixed the problem. If you close the door slowly, you can hear the switch engage and the light turn off even before the door is fully closed. It was easy to replace the assembly, just costly.