AC 20amp breaker trips mid day
Just came from Vegas 103 deg with no AC problems. At our new location which is also about 103 deg, the ac compressor would cycle and the fan would stay on with the thermostat on auto. Now it trips th...
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pianotuna wrote:I ran the air conditioner at a bunch of different voltage points until the current draw became fairly stable, in the 10 to 15 minute ballpark. No dispute from me that it can climb for hours. I found this out running the air conditioner from the eu2000i with no issue starting and running it, then having the power draw sneakily climb through the generator's rated load after a while.
road-runner,
I hope you did not operate the unit long at 98 volts.
What happens to the "numbers" after the AC has been running for many hours?
My own "wattage" goes up and up as the ambient temperature gets warmer. It starts at about 1200 and I've seen as high as 1900 watts.
3tons wrote:
But you didn’t say how you are determining the p/f...
True, I didn't say. I read the pf with a kill-a-watt. I also have a scope displaying voltage and current and observed that it confirmed the kill-a-watt result in terms of trend, but can't get a precise value from it. I'm often skeptical of raw theory and rules of thumb, which is why I measure things. One rule of thumb is that induction motor power factor improves as the load is increased, and the air conditioner motor at a lower voltage would seem to be more heavily loaded, leading to an improved power factor. Best way to prove me "wrong" would be to have actual measurements. I'm surely capable of making a mistake, but I do endeavor to be careful and use multiple instruments whenever able to(the kill-a-watt and scope in this case).
