[Generator won't run AC]

7 hours ago, jjrbus said:

Welcome to the madness.  I'm not an expert but have a bit of experience with this.  The Coleman and Honda can run a roof air, maybe and not dependably.  I have what I believe is an original 11,000 BTU roof air that my 2000 watt Honda would not run.  I added a hard start capacitor and it ran, the ambient temperature was in the 70's, so not much of a test.  The mighty little Honda will not start and run my AC when the temperature is in the 90's!  Temperature and elevation affect generator and AC performance.

A good question here is does the AC work on shore power? Mine functions well on shore power.

The initial starting of the AC is the hard part referred to as LRA or locked rotor amps.   This is a very brief spike power draw, on mine it is 45 amps! 

You can add a hard start and hope for the best, my personal opinion is it would be a waste of time and money. An "upgrade" to the Honda 2000 would not be an upgrade, it would cost 250 max amps.  (if the Coleman ratings are accurate?) If you keep the roof air and go for a larger generator then the hard start would be a good idea. But it is not a magical cure for your issue.

So your choice's seem to be a newer more efficient AC or a larger generator.The lowest power draw roof air's are the Coleman 11,000 btu power saver and the Advent roof air a newer unit which is starting to get some good reviews and is said to be capable of running on a 2000 watt generator.

There are some cheap disposable 2500 watt generators around, that might work dependably, Harbor freight has one for about $500. Notice I said "might".

Is replacing a 20+ year old AC a bad idea,  is buying a bigger generator a good idea,  maybe leaving the dog home? Tough decisions Might. want to do a web search and see what others have done.  I went to absurd lengths to add a 8000 btu window AC that runs on the 2000 watt Honda, I did it because I could!

 

 

Thanks so much for all your information! I guess I'll just keep on researching what our best option is and check out those two a.c. units. And leaving the dog at home is not an option because we've jumped all in and will be traveling/living in the rig. I misunderstood the specs on the Honda,(never owned a generator, or done any of this before so I'm a bit daft to the whole thing) I was thinking it was 2000 running not the 1600, so it certainly would not be an upgrade! Thank you for pointing that out, we would have felt even more idiotic if we would have bought it.

And yes, the unit runs great on shore power, haven't had a problem with it yet, fingers crossed.

And that's a sweet little set up you got there! Looks great, and like a lot of hard work!

[Generator won't run AC]

Hey everybody! New to this forum and loving all the information on here! My boyfriend and I recently bought an 89' Toyota Dolphin and we've been doing some serious renovations. So our main problem now is that our generator won't run the ac unit (which is a concern for us because we have a long haired hyperactive dog). Anyways, so the thing is it starts up the ac, runs for maybe 5 minutes and then the ac kicks off but the generator continues to run. I've been reading something about a hard start capacitor working but would like to get some opinions/suggestions/what worked for you, anything really! I believe the ac is the original and is 13,500 btu. Our generator is a Coleman powermate with a 1800 running watts and a 2250 max watts, which we are looking to upgrade to the Honda eu2000i.

 

Looking forward to hearing from you guys! Thanks!