Soft start capacitors

MNRon wrote:
Should every ac have a soft star cap installed? If so, why don’t they come that way? Is there any downside?
Thanks

From my reading, a lot of these are simply a capacitor that stores a charge to help kick the compressor on so you don't have the huge draw spike you normally do. Helps reduce the impact on both a pedestal that might have a marginal breaker as well as on generators/inverters, so the breaker on =them= won't trip.

Lyle