1st time boondocking and could not get our AC to work

[melloftus]

We did our 1st time boondocking trip this last weekend with our 2008 fleetwood mallard and sadly we could not get our A/C to work. My husband is now convinced we need a new generator where as I think maybe there may be some other options. We have a 13,500 BTU A/C. and a Champion 3400 starting watts/3100 running watts. We tested the unit at home after doing the generator break in, on the 1st attempt we overloaded the generator, I did some reading and took a different approach, 1st just turning on the fan for about 15 min then switching over to the AC on the thermostat. This seemed to do the trick and I was confident we had nailed it..not so much. I am hoping you good folks could maybe give some guidance maybe some suggestions. We were able to get it to come on once this weekend and it seemed that when the compressor kicked in this was when the overload would happen.or if it didnt overload it sure dogged out..
If I started out with the fan on only sometimes when I kicked it to AC the generator would overload,fan would stop, If I could get the system to take the change over to the A/C with the thermostat set higher if I lowered the thermostat most times it overloaded the generator.
Here is where I think we may have made some mistakes..
1) we did have our battery disconnect switched to ON- do you think it was directing power to try to charge the deep cells- I was under the impression this should be set to ON even when connected to shore power/gen power. Our the deep cells were reading full(ish) hard to tell as our meter only goes in quarter settings not % but I just watched a youtube stating this may have pulled power from the generator lowering the available wattage??
2) I was running fridge on 100% propane so I don't think that would have pulled a draw
3) we were using an 30 amp extension cord direct from our TT cord- when we tried at home we were connected direct into the TT/Gen and still got a overload
4) we were at 5,000 plus feet... I know this lowers a generators output(i am guessing about 15%) .. however we are at sea level at home and still had overload issues.
I am thinking we may need to install some sort of Hard Start Capacitor..
Thoughts??

[philh]

badsix wrote:
i'm not sure what it is your asking but I did replace my capacitor and installed the delay kit, mine works fine now. 3500 w AC with a 3500 w gen. it wouldn't start before, but after reading here I could have had my charging system on.
Jay D.

You are very unlikely to start your AC off of a 2200 watt generator. In fact if you couldn't start it off of a 3500 watt generator, you had something wrong with the AC system... which you fixed. The softstart allows us to use mucho smaller generator to start the AC system.

[badsix]

philh wrote:

badsix wrote:
before anyone pays 300.00 + for one of these check out this guy on eBay. APPLIANCEANDAIR sellers name. I have one of these it works fine. I asked an industrial electrician were I worked about these. he said sure I can build one, the parts will come to less than 20.00. its just a couple relays and a timer delay. it starts the fan then a few seconds the compressor comes on, timer is adjustable.
Jay D.

You put a replacement capacitor on your AC system and will run off a 2200 watt generator?

i'm not sure what it is your asking but I did replace my capacitor and installed the delay kit, mine works fine now. 3500 w AC with a 3500 w gen. it wouldn't start before, but after reading here I could have had my charging system on.
Jay D.

[melloftus]

opnspaces wrote:
Glad to hear you got it working. I would say if it acts up when camping the I would turn the charger off and see what happens.

As far as your key, hopefully you were able to get the broken part of the key out? Look at the key, if it's a standard CH751 it is a very common key and you can get one cut at any locksmith.

Yeah it seemed once I got the compressor to kick over we are golden and if I dont keep it on auto we should be fine.. as for the key it is the standard CH751 sadly half the key is in the lock.. hubby is going to drill it out and I ordered a replacement off amazon. Just thankful it happened at home and not at the dump station last weekend cause its the same place we keep our stinky slinky... It may have been the last straw for the husband..lol.. A/C didnt work, I broke a drawer the last day we have to to fix now, had trouble putting the awning back in and breaking the key off on the way home may have pushed him over the edge. Oh the joys of owning a TT/RV.

[opnspaces]

Glad to hear you got it working. I would say if it acts up when camping the I would turn the charger off and see what happens.

As far as your key, hopefully you were able to get the broken part of the key out? Look at the key, if it's a standard CH751 it is a very common key and you can get one cut at any locksmith.

[melloftus]

philh wrote:

badsix wrote:
before anyone pays 300.00 + for one of these check out this guy on eBay. APPLIANCEANDAIR sellers name. I have one of these it works fine. I asked an industrial electrician were I worked about these. he said sure I can build one, the parts will come to less than 20.00. its just a couple relays and a timer delay. it starts the fan then a few seconds the compre comes on, timer is adjustable.
Jay D.

You put a replacement capacitor on your AC system and will run off a 2200 watt generator?

No just changed how I started the AC- I know the batteries were not full when I was attempting to use the AC when camping. I had the switch to on and I suspect that the batteries were trying to charge... we also had a RV extension cord connected when we were up there but I couldn’t connect it today cause I broke the key off to the storage it is kept in.. the real test will be when we are up that high camping again

[philh]

badsix wrote:
before anyone pays 300.00 + for one of these check out this guy on eBay. APPLIANCEANDAIR sellers name. I have one of these it works fine. I asked an industrial electrician were I worked about these. he said sure I can build one, the parts will come to less than 20.00. its just a couple relays and a timer delay. it starts the fan then a few seconds the compressor comes on, timer is adjustable.
Jay D.

You put a replacement capacitor on your AC system and will run off a 2200 watt generator?

[melloftus]

Success.. Or so I think..
1)Genny on for about 5 min - Plug in direct to trailer
2) Turn battery connect to off
3) A/C on ( Fan either low or High) NOT auto so the compressor doesn't cycle
4) Turn battery connect back on - not a blip on the genney when I did this
Tried this multiple times .. AC always kicks on..Ran it for about 45 min, nice and cool
I was going to try to run it with the extension cable that looks like our TT cord just longer to see if that aided to our issues when we were camping but alas I broke my key off in the lock to that storage compartment..opps perhaps another time
Thanks all for all your wisdom and advice

[melloftus]

opnspaces wrote:
It's not a CARB issue, but rather it's an air fuel ratio issue and will affect all engines.

Our vehicles have sensors and computers to adjust for changes in altitude, a simple carburetor does not. Your carburetor was jetted at the factory to mix air and fuel in a certain ratio to run at sea level. As you go up in altitude the air is thinner and therefore the ratio gets out of whack (too much fuel not enough air) and robs the engine of power. Running the engine this way doesn't necessarily damage it, but it will have less power.

By removing the sea level jet and replacing it with the appropriate high altitude jet you bring the ratio back into balance and restore the power.

On the flip side, when you come back down to sea level the mixture will be too lean (too much air not enough fuel). Running lean is very bad, especially in an air cooled engine like a generator. You need to swap the jet out with the sea level jet or you will burn up the engine.

If I could only ever run one jet in my generator it would be the sea level jet as installed by the factory. I can deal with diminished power in the rare times I'm at altitude. But I don't ever want to take a chance on putting a high altitude jet in and then forgetting about it and running the generator back at sea level.

Well that is good to know.. I will take the hit on the power when we are up in the hills camping .. Since we are in N.CA and it is "fire season" we have been already advised that we could be without power for several days this season at a moments noticed, I would much rather have the generator configured for our home emergency use at all times.

[time2roll]

Yes it would appear the water heat is propane only as generally it would have a separate breaker.

I recommend turning the two 15 amp breakers off to start the air conditioner to disable the converter. Once started you can turn these back on.

[badsix]

SoundGuy wrote:

melloftus wrote:
I am thinking we may need to install some sort of Hard Start Capacitor.. Thoughts??

I wouldn't waste the time or $$ installing a hard start cap which will only result in a marginal improvement vs installing a Micro-Air Easy Start soft starter kit on your A/C. Quite a few forum members now own an Easy Start and report excellent results.

before anyone pays 300.00 + for one of these check out this guy on eBay. APPLIANCEANDAIR sellers name. I have one of these it works fine. I asked an industrial electrician were I worked about these. he said sure I can build one, the parts will come to less than 20.00. its just a couple relays and a timer delay. it starts the fan then a few seconds the compressor comes on, timer is adjustable.
Jay D.

[opnspaces]

It's not a CARB issue, but rather it's an air fuel ratio issue and will affect all engines.

Our vehicles have sensors and computers to adjust for changes in altitude, a simple carburetor does not. Your carburetor was jetted at the factory to mix air and fuel in a certain ratio to run at sea level. As you go up in altitude the air is thinner and therefore the ratio gets out of whack (too much fuel not enough air) and robs the engine of power. Running the engine this way doesn't necessarily damage it, but it will have less power.

By removing the sea level jet and replacing it with the appropriate high altitude jet you bring the ratio back into balance and restore the power.

On the flip side, when you come back down to sea level the mixture will be too lean (too much air not enough fuel). Running lean is very bad, especially in an air cooled engine like a generator. You need to swap the jet out with the sea level jet or you will burn up the engine.

If I could only ever run one jet in my generator it would be the sea level jet as installed by the factory. I can deal with diminished power in the rare times I'm at altitude. But I don't ever want to take a chance on putting a high altitude jet in and then forgetting about it and running the generator back at sea level.

[melloftus]

aguablanco wrote:
Above 5000' my Champion, which is carbureted, has issues. Called Champion and they sent me a new jet that is needed for use at altitude. Installed it this year and no problems so far even at 7000'.
RichH

Yes I am in CA so this maybe something I may have to do as everything sold has to be CARB

[melloftus]

https://www.icloud.com/photos/#0UhCo-vKh6GMC4LClrwSEKTRw

Hi All,
Thank you so much for all your replies! Ok so I posted a link above to show you all what I am working with.. I hope it works as I tried to follow some of the directions and my laptop keeps flagging the links as "naughty sites" shhssh I am at work :@)
1 Picture is of said "extension cord" just wanted to clarify its not a regular extension cord but one for 30 Amp- I will say we had issues with the A/C kicking on just connected from the TT to to the Genny
2- The orange dial is the battery on off switch- I think some people mentioned trying to start the AC with it off cause maybe it was trying to charge my batteries as well?
3 - I took a picture of the controls I have for water pump/hot water heater and fridge/ AC. From what I know about our TT- Hot water is 100% propane- even when we camped with 100% hook up we still had to flip the switch to get the hot water heater to turn on.. The fridge I wanna say I am fairly certain I had it on propane and not auto.. man I read and re read that manual before we left.. even had my husband read it..from what I gathered if the light next to the Auto was lite it would chose its preferred power - I had this off..
Someone mentioned not having the A/C fan on auto.. I actually took a pick when we were camping- I had it set to cool low.. kid kindof worked till I touched the thermostat
Last I have added pictures of my convertor/fuse box.. someone mentioned cutting the breakers off.. all but the A/C? Looks like I have MAIN - A/C - Gen purpose - gen purpose - microwave
when we tried to run this up on the hill I had all lights off,but the battery switch on...
I am going to try some combos of things this weekend..
boy I hope you all can see the pics on my link

[wa8yxm]

THere is a device. called both a Hard Start kit and a soft start kit.

IT is installed in the Air Conditioner Upper unit.. about 25-50 dollars

May do the trick.