Glad I bought the ole extended warranty

Good information. It's not very often that I try to run everything on the generator. Typically here in Florida we stay at full hookup sites, unless we're at a racetrack somewhere.

I have an Onan 5500 in my 2014 Fuzion 331. I have two 30 amp breakers on my generator. The front A/C is on one and the back A/C and microwave are on the other. The other electrical items are pretty much split up between the two breakers. We tailgate at college football games in our toyhauler, so we are using our generator a lot in September and October.

We are normally very good about turning off the back A/C before we run the microwave. The first year we had the RV my wife ran the microwave and back A/C (and other small items that were plugged in) and it tripped the breaker on the generator. I heard what sounded like a surge before it tripped. Since then that same breaker has tripped very periodically with just the back A/C running. When it happens it is usually after the A/C has been running for a while.....I hear a small surge and then the breaker trips. It isn't consistent and I haven't been able to figure out why it trips.

I went through all kinds of tests to try to determine a pattern, but I haven't found one. I even took it to a Cummins location here in San Antonio to have the generator looked at. I took it to them in July. They ran both A/C's all day and never had an issue with the generator. They even plugged other things in and couldn't get it to trip. If they purposely overloaded the circuit then the breaker tripped as expected. Basically, they couldn't find anything wrong with it. I had them change the spark plugs because they were due, but that didn't change anything.

This past football season we had the same issue with the breaker tripping after the back A/C runs too long. I do plug other things like an LED tv and a satellite receiver in, but those shouldn't draw enough to cause it to trip. I'm going to try to do some more testing in May/June when it gets hotter. Who knows what, if anything, I'll find.

BTW, the Onan generator has a manufacturer's 3-yr warranty. I would get it serviced under that manufacturer's warranty before trying to use the extended warranty. The manufacturer's warranty is "bumper to bumper". If anything is broken, they will fix it for free. You may have to take it to a Cummins service center to get warranty work done.

jshupe wrote:
my Onan 5500 has a 20A and a 30A circuit for a total 50A, and the water heater and an AC shared the 20A side. Whenever the WH kicked on the breaker would trip, so we moved it to the 30A side.

This ^ is good advice and worth checking on a new unit...

jmo

If its a 5500 Onan, they can run 2 a/c,,, but that will put you at close to 3/4 or more of max amp draw the genny can produce.
If your convertor, water heater, microwave, etc, kick on, probably will trip a breaker, as you have seen.

Also, when running 2 ac at the same time on a 5500, best to start 1 up first and set t-stat to max cold <60°(so it won't cycle), then make sure nothing else is running, and do the same for the second ac. Then 1 by one plug in the convertor, turn on water heater, etc, till breaker trips. Then you'll know what you can run simultaneously.

Its not good for the genny commutator and brushes, or the breakers to constantly be tripping and drawing over max amperage. So its good to know what the genny can take, without tripping the breakers, that makes it easier to avoid unnecessary genny wear and tear.

Keep in mind, when an a/c starts the compressor draws lock rotor amperage for a few seconds, that can be many times the normal running amps. So keeping the ac from cycling off/on, from the t-stat when at or close to max amps on the genny will help stop the breaker from tripping from over amperage on ac start up lock rotor amp draw.

If you're a little mechanically minded, take the covers off the ac and install a $10 hard start kit. It will allow the compressor to start faster and draw less amps on start ups. Thus maybe not blowing the breaker or straining your new genny by drawing less amps on start ups...

There are 3 basic types of hard start kits, any of them will help a lot. The best 2 wire hard starts are the 'kick start' kits, but more expensive at $20 or so.
A potential relay and capacitor is the best, but takes more knowledge to get the correct kit and install it.

The simple cheapest $10 hard start is just a 2 wire connection to the run cap in the electric box of the ac unit. Then neatly mounting the cap with the clip or 1 screw somewhere in the ac elec box. Very simple to do...


jmo

bighog01 wrote:
Thanks for all of the great ideas guys. It ended up being the 20A breaker on the generator being tripped. I can't believe I forgot to check that yesterday. I also turned off the outside water heater switch to zero in on the problem. Seems to be fine now. So no extended warranty needed at least for now

The breakers on my generator trip regularly it seems. Not sure why.

Thanks for all of the great ideas guys. It ended up being the 20A breaker on the generator being tripped. I can't believe I forgot to check that yesterday. I also turned off the outside water heater switch to zero in on the problem. Seems to be fine now. So no extended warranty needed at least for now

gbopp wrote:
Keep us updated on the progress of your extended warranty claim.

X2.
Please!

bighog01 wrote:
So it looks like it's going back to Camping World to sit for a few months to be repaired. Any suggestions guys?

My suggestion: find another service provider. With the horror stories posted here about Camping World service, it is not worth the risk.

Keep us updated on the progress of your extended warranty claim.

It would check the date codes on the side of the A/C under the cover. Dometic had a bad run of A/C's and will replace under warranty. They sent a mobile technician to repair ours and 10 days later we had a new unit at no charge. Just call Dometic with your serial number and date code and they will take care of it, your A/C also comes with a 2 year warranty.