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Post Info TOPIC: aircon question


Senior Member

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aircon question


Hi. I the following is copied from a caravan website.    

"Hi, Ive got a Honda gennie that wont run our air con for more than 40min before the overload cuts it off. I have a friend with the same van, air con and generator and theirs runs with no problems. Any ideas?            Richard When an a/c unit switches from refrigeration to fan, gas pressure sits in the head of the a/c unit, and if the a/c unit tries to cycle back to refrigeration with gas pressure still in the head, it can need up to 6,000 watts to successfully kick the a/c unit back in. You want to prevent the a/c unit from cycling turn the thermostat on the a/c unit as low as possible, that way the a/c unit will just continue to run without cycling in and out. Michael Medaris"

Does this make sense?. I would have thought the lower you set the temp the more the fan will run?   Joe.

 



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Chief one feather

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Yes sort of makes sense but I'm just a old Indian.

A couple of things to try. 1 make sure the' Echo' switch on Genny is OFF. 2 If you have a 240v hot water heater, make sure that is turned OFF.

I have a Ibis 3 Aircon in the aluminium tent and works no problem with my Honda 20i Genny. 



-- Edited by Dougwe on Friday 23rd of February 2018 10:36:15 PM

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Guru

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The aircon would have to be set to "the lowest temperature" to stop it cycling. The lead between the generator & van may play a part also. To avoid voltage drop, the lead shoul be as short as practicle & get an electrician to make the lead from 2.5 sq mm cable. Cheers Pete

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Senior Member

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From your first sentence, you say it is running for 40mins before it cuts out on overload,

I would suggest that the generator is NOT set in Eco mode.

If possible, i would get a clip on amp meter and check the current draw, this will confirm what the current is, this will confirm if the AC is drawing too much current or the Generator overload is cutting out at the wrong current.

Short cycling is a different issue.

 

 



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Guru

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Farmhat wrote:

Hi. I the following is copied from a caravan website.    

"Hi, Ive got a Honda gennie that wont run our air con for more than 40min before the overload cuts it off. I have a friend with the same van, air con and generator and theirs runs with no problems. Any ideas?            Richard When an a/c unit switches from refrigeration to fan, gas pressure sits in the head of the a/c unit, and if the a/c unit tries to cycle back to refrigeration with gas pressure still in the head, it can need up to 6,000 watts to successfully kick the a/c unit back in. You want to prevent the a/c unit from cycling turn the thermostat on the a/c unit as low as possible, that way the a/c unit will just continue to run without cycling in and out. Michael Medaris"

Does this make sense?. I would have thought the lower you set the temp the more the fan will run?   Joe.

 


 Yes ,it does.

But one would need to determine WHEN the generator actually trips 

Does it trip while the air con  compressor [not fan] is  running or when the compressor tries to restart.



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Guru

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The other thing to check is the generator temp. A Honda 2.0i is only rated to 1600w continuous, the alternator section may be over heating and this is causing the cut out.
Some air cond. units have been modified with a soft start up option, this dumps the compressor head pressure at the end of each cycle so the compressor does not start up under load.
As mentioned already, the cable is critical, we have had a few people who have not been able to run their Ibus 3 from a Honda 2.0i generator yet it runs fine from a Projecta IP2000 inverter powered from the battery. They got around the problem by using a 50 amp charger feeding into the battery when required and solar most of the time, that way the generator wasn't required all the time

T1 Terry

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Senior Member

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Thanks all for your responses. I should have worded  my post a bit better i think. The query isn't about me but just something I saw online and it didn't make sense to me. I assume by them having the aircon set at the coldest, it might not reach that low temp, so it continues running flat out, there fore not getting to the cut in and out scenario that causes the problem.

joe



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Senior Member

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correct....if the AC has not been designed or selected correctly and therefore "undersize" the AC will continue to run without achieving the set point temperature.



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