I've been reading very confident posts here for many years that voltage droop at startup will damage the air conditioner. On the other hand, some locations in Hawaii REQUIRE that residential air conditioners use a device to limit startup current, and at least one manufacturer says this causes no damage whatsoever. I'm just a spectator here noticing the polar opposite claims. The technical data for the device shows an approximate 30% reduction of maximum inrush current, with the inrush period lengthened from about 0.2 seconds to 3.2 seconds. That's in the same ballpark that my eu2000i took to recover to the operating voltage range with a 13,500 btuh Brisk Air, with 'eco' turned off.
Soft start device web page
