Mdk0420
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Re: AC tripping generator
JBarca wrote: Mdk, You are welcome, and it sounds like you have everything up and going Great! Now to your T-stat and what kind you have Mdk0420 wrote: Great stuff! That's exactly what I'm looking at lol. I had the 2 capacitor setup. I do not have a digital display like yours. Just a few switches that change from on, auto for fan control, temp control and a setting for cool, off and heat. Opps...:S. OK, let's try this again. The T-stat shown in this picture is the cream-colored rectangular-shaped bottom device that says, "Duo-Therm by Domitic". This vintage is the analog-style T stat that works with the analog control box. This control box requires a separate 12 VDC source run to the control box to operate the controls. The camper 12-volt DC system provides this. The 120 VAC is fed to that box, but it only powers the motors on the roof unit. The digital display above the T-stat with the word (Acu-rite) is a 2, AAA battery-operated remote thermometer. I have the remote sensor inside the fridge to tell what temp the fridge is doing without opening the door. It is 34.7 F inside the refrigerator. The 70.4 F is the ambient temp in the room. This display has nothing to do with the AC unit or the furnace. LOL.... sorry about that; it just came along in the pic. I hunted down a pic of the vintage before the analog control T-stat. This is called the "Bi-metal" system. This pic shows the T-stat that works with the Bi-metal control box. This bi-metal control box only had 120 VAC come to the control box up in the ceiling. An onboard transformer created the control voltage to work with the T-stat and power the control board to turn the relays on and off to control the roof unit. This system has no short cycle protection; you are supposed to wait and not fiddle with the on/off buttons or the temp slider. In automatic, the system takes care of itself. The two vintages of the system cannot interchange T stat or control boxes. They are specific to the technology of the time. OK, now curious as I am "into" the Sunline brand of camper, what T stat is in your 2003 model year camper? And you know what month and year it was manufactured? This info is in the binder manual or the VIN tag on the front left outside of the camper if you can still read the tag. The model years rolled mid-year, sort of like the car industry. Have a good campout, John I have the first duo therm one. I will try to see if I can find the manufacture date.1.1KViews0likes0CommentsRe: AC tripping generator
Great stuff! That's exactly what I'm looking at lol. I had the 2 capacitor setup. I do not have a digital display like yours. Just a few switches that change from on, auto for fan control, temp control and a setting for cool, off and heat. I got the soft start done correctly and everything is working smoothly now. I now am drawing between 13.5-16amps on the tests I did with a voltage drop only down to 114v. The surge is much lighter now. Even tested it while running the microwave and it still started up. The other plus on the soft starter is that the micro air that you recommended has a built in 3 minute cycle period so it cannot short cycle my AC anymore either. If I try it just gets an error and then clears after 3 minutes and starts up again (was trying to force a short cycle but doesn't work so the 16amp draw was all I was able to get now). Note that this was without the battery installed still but because the surge is less, there's still a possibility that the battery being hooked up would help keep the control unit functioning since it would have a good 12v connection. When the surge hits I wouldn't be surprised if it dropped down to under 10v on the DC side. Unfortunately I already had things apart before testing the battery theory but now that my voltage drops aren't crazy that isn't something I can test without hooking all the old start components back up lol. Thank you for the recommendation on the soft starter! Worked great and in the end it seems to of solved all of my issues.1.1KViews0likes0CommentsRe: AC tripping generator
JBarca wrote: Bobbo wrote: The thermostat SHOULD prevent short cycling. Assuming Mdk4020 is still on his original older Dometic control board, and T stat from 2002/2003, he might still be on the older bi-metal controls T stats. The mechanical and bi-metal T-stats were not smart enough to create a timing function to prevent short cycling. The older analog T stat may also have had the issue. Even a new non-ducted AC with mechanical controls has the short-cycle ability issue. When the electronic T stats came to be, many of them had the compressor timer to prevent short cycling. The AC unit is original from what I can tell. I did not look into the thermostat however the unit is dated for 2002. I know for sure that I can short cycle it manually just by flipping it to off and then back to cold. I don't know if there is any logic for when the AC shuts off automatically though. I'm not familiar with these systems at all.1.1KViews0likes0CommentsRe: Soft Start Install Issues
pianotuna wrote: Mdk0420 I preferred my autoformer to the MicroAir. I could reliably start the 13500 btu Dometic on my Yamaha Sieb inverter generator. It does have 500 watts of extra boost. I went off of a recommendation from another user here. Seems like a pretty solid soft starter. Hopefully it works great since it was over $300 :X but if it solves my issue that is better than a new AC unit lol1.8KViews0likes0CommentsRe: Soft Start Install Issues
bgum wrote: Micro air soft start claims to provide excellent help via phone so why are you guessing about how to install. Call them as you are clearly confused. I submitted a question to them via their website. I was able to find the correct installation for my specific unit after some research though. They still did not get back to me but it is the weekend after all, however I need this figured out this weekend as I leave Thursday and won't have much time doing the weekday to solve the issue.1.8KViews0likes0CommentsRe: Soft Start Install Issues
Galvanizd wrote: Did you get your ac to operate properly on shore power? From your other post, you were having problems with the generator tripping. Might want to get your ac operating properly before installing your soft start. That would include re installing your 12 volt battery to your rv. The ac will not work properly unless both shore power AND the 12 volt battery are connected. Can't imagine the the soft start will work any better until the ac unit is working properly I'll be checking some things tomorrow. The generator can start it about 90% of the time. Ac shore power always starts it the problem is I don't have good AC power st my garage because of a bad wiring job. The AC was fine anytime I was plugged into a camping spots AC though. The issue is the huge surge that my generator is seeing. I'm still not entirely sure if it's the generator or the AC having issues but all the details are in that post about what I've been test8ng. The hope is that the soft start will lessen the surge draw so my generator can start it. From what the one person was saying it seems that dometic just has high drawing ACs. His one post showed a 37amp draw. I get 28-30amp draw when successful but a 48amp draw when it fails.1.8KViews0likes0CommentsRe: Soft Start Install Issues
Well I feel really silly. After looking at my image some more I was so baffled at have double connection to the (S) terminal on the compressor. I looked up some manuals from Micro-Airs website and long and behold... https://pasteboard.co/muahNFRxR0uK.jpg Guess that solves my soft start issues. They have is much different than the manual they sent me though with the wire splicing and such. It seemed like a manual that tried to explain different types of AC units so I thought it was their all in one manual. But this photo of their wiring diagram specifically for the dometic duo therm series shows its different. Orange wire still went into HERM so thats good. I think their "Blue" line is their white wire (I used grey lol). This seems to be functionally the same, however its backwards and I wonder if that would cause any issues... Essentially my brown wire is connected to a common terminal of the capacitor while my white wire is connected to RUN. This diagram shows brown wire connected to run and white wire connected to common. I will reverse my installation just incase lol. And last but certainly not least, the black wire was definitely wrong. When I noticed I had 2 wires on S that just didn't seem right to me. Crazy enough, I actually did tie into the black wire originally but I did that AFTER the O/L protection, this shows to do it before. I'm wondering if that is a normally open circuit so it never gets power after the O/L which is why I didn't get the power I needed when connecting the two black wires... I will splice it the way they are showing it here because I think that might be the case. It doesn't seem like this should damage anything though from what I'm looking at... So hopefully I didn't damage anything lol. Just looks like I ran a double capacitor on the S cycle and nothing on the R cycle so it wasn't able to keep going and tripped. I bought it on amazon so there was no selections for the model I was installing it on or anything. I guess I just got a generic soft start installation manual. Shame on me for not looking into a more specific manual. But maybe someone else could use this in the future when googling "Micro Air Soft Start Not Working On Dometic AC Unit" lol1.8KViews0likes0CommentsRe: Soft Start Install Issues
I found the instruction manual for this setup. Still don't see a "Contactor" like the instructions mention so I am feeling a little more positive that the terminals on top of the compressor is the contactor. Here is how I have everything wired up now Image wasn't loading for me so here is the link instead. Hope this is allowed: https://pasteboard.co/z8R9C0WkOh8d.jpg Moderator edit to fix image for posting.1.8KViews0likes0CommentsRe: AC tripping generator
I got my soft start but I am having install issues. If you have any insight there, here is the link: https://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/30394528/p/1.cfm It did not solve my issue but its quite possible I got wiring messed up or I'm not doing something correctly. Now the soft start trips with a "Stall" error instead of my generator tripping lol. I did not run any additional metering tests because it was getting late. I hooked the soft start on, gave it a few runs to try it and it just made my problems worse for the time being because now instead of a chance the generator trips, the soft start has the "Stall" error 100% of the time. As far as the short cycling goes I'm not sure what protections are on this unit. I did get the model number to it though. It is a Dometic Duo Therm 59516.331 AC unit. It is 13.5k BTUs. Not a very big unit. Whenever I short cycle I do it on purpose shutting down the unit then starting it back up after about 15-30 seconds. Also note that I did NOT test the 12v battery theory yet. That could still very well be an issue of it forcing a short cycle if the inverter is cutting the thermostat on and off. This will be another thing I test out this weekend. Trips in a week so gotta figure it all out by then lol1.1KViews0likes0Comments
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