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Mbiallas's avatar
Mbiallas
Explorer
Oct 11, 2015

A/C issue

I just picked up a second hand Jayco travel trailer and am having some issues with both the fridge and ac. The fridge can wait but the ac is a must in South GA.

Here is the problem. We are running the unit on a generator and sometimes it all works perfectly. We started it up Friday and everything was fine. Today we start the generator up and run the fan only for a couple minutes. When we turn the ac setting to ac (as opposed to fan only) the fan clicks off and nothing happens. The Breakers are not thrown on the generator or in the camper. Also the fuses seem to be intact.

Any help offered would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for helping out a Newby.

Matt
  • Is the thermostat set low enough. say like 70 degrees if it 80 degrees inside? Do you have a GFI that may have tripped the AC fan and circuit board are 12 volt the compressor is 120 volt So you need to make sure you have 120 at AC
  • It just came back on. I checked the trailer Breakers and none were tripped. I went ahead and turned them all off and back on. Viola. The ac is on now. Any idea what that means so I can correct the issue before it happens again?
  • Not uncommon for the AC to have a 2 to 3 minute time delay to protect the compressor from restarting with high internal pressure. You indicated you had the fan running and then turned the unit to cool. Everything shut down for 2-3 minutes. This is the built in time delay controlled by the thermostat. All is ok.
  • Thanks so much for the info. Will start another thread for the fridge.
  • wa8yxm's avatar
    wa8yxm
    Explorer III
    Note often A/C's are marginal on a Generator.. CLEANING is the key to keeping it working. Epically the condenser coils, they get clogged and heat builds and the thing starts drawing more current.. Had that happen to mine here twice so far.
  • Check with someone who knows to see if maybe upgrading/replacing your starter cap will help reduce the load on the generator.
  • The fact that it is both the fridge and ac pretty much points to a low voltage issue.

    Both the fridge and ac need DC power to run the thermostats.

    Both will come on with AC power/gen but won't stay on.

    Do you have a battery in the TT? Is it charged?

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