1st time boondocking and could not get our AC to work

We did our 1st time boondocking trip this last weekend with our 2008 fleetwood mallard and sadly we could not get our A/C to work. My husband is now convinced we need a new generator where as I think maybe there may be some other options. We have a 13,500 BTU A/C. and a Champion 3400 starting watts/3100 running watts. We tested the unit at home after doing the generator break in, on the 1st attempt we overloaded the generator, I did some reading and took a different approach, 1st just turning on the fan for about 15 min then switching over to the AC on the thermostat. This seemed to do the trick and I was confident we had nailed it..not so much. I am hoping you good folks could maybe give some guidance maybe some suggestions. We were able to get it to come on once this weekend and it seemed that when the compressor kicked in this was when the overload would happen.or if it didnt overload it sure dogged out..
If I started out with the fan on only sometimes when I kicked it to AC the generator would overload,fan would stop, If I could get the system to take the change over to the A/C with the thermostat set higher if I lowered the thermostat most times it overloaded the generator.
Here is where I think we may have made some mistakes..
1) we did have our battery disconnect switched to ON- do you think it was directing power to try to charge the deep cells- I was under the impression this should be set to ON even when connected to shore power/gen power. Our the deep cells were reading full(ish) hard to tell as our meter only goes in quarter settings not % but I just watched a youtube stating this may have pulled power from the generator lowering the available wattage??
2) I was running fridge on 100% propane so I don't think that would have pulled a draw
3) we were using an 30 amp extension cord direct from our TT cord- when we tried at home we were connected direct into the TT/Gen and still got a overload
4) we were at 5,000 plus feet... I know this lowers a generators output(i am guessing about 15%) .. however we are at sea level at home and still had overload issues.
I am thinking we may need to install some sort of Hard Start Capacitor..
Thoughts??

Seeking Advice

39 Replies

philh
Explorer III
Aug 06, 2019
badsix wrote:
i'm not sure what it is your asking but I did replace my capacitor and installed the delay kit, mine works fine now. 3500 w AC with a 3500 w gen. it wouldn't start before, but after reading here I could have had my charging system on.
Jay D.

You are very unlikely to start your AC off of a 2200 watt generator. In fact if you couldn't start it off of a 3500 watt generator, you had something wrong with the AC system... which you fixed. The softstart allows us to use mucho smaller generator to start the AC system.
badsix
Explorer
Aug 05, 2019
philh wrote:
badsix wrote:
before anyone pays 300.00 + for one of these check out this guy on eBay. APPLIANCEANDAIR sellers name. I have one of these it works fine. I asked an industrial electrician were I worked about these. he said sure I can build one, the parts will come to less than 20.00. its just a couple relays and a timer delay. it starts the fan then a few seconds the compressor comes on, timer is adjustable.
Jay D.

You put a replacement capacitor on your AC system and will run off a 2200 watt generator?

i'm not sure what it is your asking but I did replace my capacitor and installed the delay kit, mine works fine now. 3500 w AC with a 3500 w gen. it wouldn't start before, but after reading here I could have had my charging system on.
Jay D.
melloftus
Explorer
Aug 05, 2019
opnspaces wrote:
Glad to hear you got it working. I would say if it acts up when camping the I would turn the charger off and see what happens.

As far as your key, hopefully you were able to get the broken part of the key out? Look at the key, if it's a standard CH751 it is a very common key and you can get one cut at any locksmith.

Yeah it seemed once I got the compressor to kick over we are golden and if I dont keep it on auto we should be fine.. as for the key it is the standard CH751 sadly half the key is in the lock.. hubby is going to drill it out and I ordered a replacement off amazon. Just thankful it happened at home and not at the dump station last weekend cause its the same place we keep our stinky slinky... It may have been the last straw for the husband..lol.. A/C didnt work, I broke a drawer the last day we have to to fix now, had trouble putting the awning back in and breaking the key off on the way home may have pushed him over the edge. Oh the joys of owning a TT/RV.
opnspaces
Navigator III
Aug 04, 2019
Glad to hear you got it working. I would say if it acts up when camping the I would turn the charger off and see what happens.

As far as your key, hopefully you were able to get the broken part of the key out? Look at the key, if it's a standard CH751 it is a very common key and you can get one cut at any locksmith.
melloftus
Explorer
Aug 04, 2019
philh wrote:
badsix wrote:
before anyone pays 300.00 + for one of these check out this guy on eBay. APPLIANCEANDAIR sellers name. I have one of these it works fine. I asked an industrial electrician were I worked about these. he said sure I can build one, the parts will come to less than 20.00. its just a couple relays and a timer delay. it starts the fan then a few seconds the compre comes on, timer is adjustable.
Jay D.

You put a replacement capacitor on your AC system and will run off a 2200 watt generator?

No just changed how I started the AC- I know the batteries were not full when I was attempting to use the AC when camping. I had the switch to on and I suspect that the batteries were trying to charge... we also had a RV extension cord connected when we were up there but I couldn’t connect it today cause I broke the key off to the storage it is kept in.. the real test will be when we are up that high camping again
philh
Explorer III
Aug 04, 2019
badsix wrote:
before anyone pays 300.00 + for one of these check out this guy on eBay. APPLIANCEANDAIR sellers name. I have one of these it works fine. I asked an industrial electrician were I worked about these. he said sure I can build one, the parts will come to less than 20.00. its just a couple relays and a timer delay. it starts the fan then a few seconds the compressor comes on, timer is adjustable.
Jay D.

You put a replacement capacitor on your AC system and will run off a 2200 watt generator?
melloftus
Explorer
Aug 04, 2019
Success.. Or so I think..
1)Genny on for about 5 min - Plug in direct to trailer
2) Turn battery connect to off
3) A/C on ( Fan either low or High) NOT auto so the compressor doesn't cycle
4) Turn battery connect back on - not a blip on the genney when I did this
Tried this multiple times .. AC always kicks on..Ran it for about 45 min, nice and cool
I was going to try to run it with the extension cable that looks like our TT cord just longer to see if that aided to our issues when we were camping but alas I broke my key off in the lock to that storage compartment..opps perhaps another time
Thanks all for all your wisdom and advice
melloftus
Explorer
Aug 04, 2019
opnspaces wrote:
It's not a CARB issue, but rather it's an air fuel ratio issue and will affect all engines.

Our vehicles have sensors and computers to adjust for changes in altitude, a simple carburetor does not. Your carburetor was jetted at the factory to mix air and fuel in a certain ratio to run at sea level. As you go up in altitude the air is thinner and therefore the ratio gets out of whack (too much fuel not enough air) and robs the engine of power. Running the engine this way doesn't necessarily damage it, but it will have less power.

By removing the sea level jet and replacing it with the appropriate high altitude jet you bring the ratio back into balance and restore the power.

On the flip side, when you come back down to sea level the mixture will be too lean (too much air not enough fuel). Running lean is very bad, especially in an air cooled engine like a generator. You need to swap the jet out with the sea level jet or you will burn up the engine.

If I could only ever run one jet in my generator it would be the sea level jet as installed by the factory. I can deal with diminished power in the rare times I'm at altitude. But I don't ever want to take a chance on putting a high altitude jet in and then forgetting about it and running the generator back at sea level.

Well that is good to know.. I will take the hit on the power when we are up in the hills camping .. Since we are in N.CA and it is "fire season" we have been already advised that we could be without power for several days this season at a moments noticed, I would much rather have the generator configured for our home emergency use at all times.
time2roll
Nomad
Aug 04, 2019
Yes it would appear the water heat is propane only as generally it would have a separate breaker.

I recommend turning the two 15 amp breakers off to start the air conditioner to disable the converter. Once started you can turn these back on.
badsix
Explorer
Aug 04, 2019
SoundGuy wrote:
melloftus wrote:
I am thinking we may need to install some sort of Hard Start Capacitor.. Thoughts??

I wouldn't waste the time or $$ installing a hard start cap which will only result in a marginal improvement vs installing a Micro-Air Easy Start soft starter kit on your A/C. Quite a few forum members now own an Easy Start and report excellent results.

before anyone pays 300.00 + for one of these check out this guy on eBay. APPLIANCEANDAIR sellers name. I have one of these it works fine. I asked an industrial electrician were I worked about these. he said sure I can build one, the parts will come to less than 20.00. its just a couple relays and a timer delay. it starts the fan then a few seconds the compressor comes on, timer is adjustable.
Jay D.

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1st time boondocking and could not get our AC to work

39 Replies

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