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Question for the brain trust. I suspect I have a failing capacitor or some other unit in my main living room AC unit. It is a Dometic 15K, I think a Brisk. As most of you know my rig is far from stock. I am running a Victron Multiplus (original 3kva not the Type 2), and a Progressive Industries Hard Wired 50A EMS.
The symptom is quite strange. In my shop I have a 50A outlet, as well as a bank of 20A. It is my office, so incoming power is three phase, and the voltage is rock solid. With both AC units going plugged into 50A The line is at 119V at the EMS. Unloaded its at 122, so it is not dropping much either. This week I have it plugged in via a dog bone to a 20A outlet, due to where I have it parked. It is mainly to keep my fridges running and batteries topped off, but my wife was over there yesterday and called me to ask if she could run the air. I have run it on the 20A outlets before without much issue (the Victron has PowerAssist, but it usually is not even needed). Just in case I had her video call me, checked my display and set the power assist to 15A (my L2 is not run through the inverter, so I usually understate the current to account for anything over there), and told her it should be fine. She called me back shortly saying the power had come out right after the compressor kicked on, then returned but died whenever the AC tried to start. She was almost done so we left it and I went over today to take a look.
No errors on the EMS or MultiPlus. When set to 15A shore, the fan starts, then when the compressor pulls in the inverter switches to off. I watched the EMS and the voltage stays solid at 120 or so, and no errors or previous errors. In fact the EMS shows power is on the whole time the MultiPlus resets. I did some other testing, unplugged the rig and started the air and it started fine off the inverter. Set the shore power to 50A (so it would not try to assist) and the air started fine.
All I can figure is at a setting of 15A shore power, its detecting the inrush from the AC and trying to assist and failing for some reason? This has never been an issue so far, although its uncommon for me to try to run the AC on 15A. I am surprised I am not getting a inverter overload error, and that it is just shutting down, especially given it can start the air on its own with no shore power connected at all. I am not running an Easy Start, I was going to, but when I did the install I found the inverter ran it fine with nothing so never got one. I am certainly not opposed to installing one, but again I am pretty sure this was never an issue before. Thats what makes me suspect the run capacitor on there? Our AC has a fair bit of use, we semi-full time in it, and we like the rig cool. Any ideas on testing the motor run capacitor or is it a troubleshoot by replacement?
Sorry for the long post, but its a really odd situation. Particularly curious if you have ever seen anything like this in your setup howson
The symptom is quite strange. In my shop I have a 50A outlet, as well as a bank of 20A. It is my office, so incoming power is three phase, and the voltage is rock solid. With both AC units going plugged into 50A The line is at 119V at the EMS. Unloaded its at 122, so it is not dropping much either. This week I have it plugged in via a dog bone to a 20A outlet, due to where I have it parked. It is mainly to keep my fridges running and batteries topped off, but my wife was over there yesterday and called me to ask if she could run the air. I have run it on the 20A outlets before without much issue (the Victron has PowerAssist, but it usually is not even needed). Just in case I had her video call me, checked my display and set the power assist to 15A (my L2 is not run through the inverter, so I usually understate the current to account for anything over there), and told her it should be fine. She called me back shortly saying the power had come out right after the compressor kicked on, then returned but died whenever the AC tried to start. She was almost done so we left it and I went over today to take a look.
No errors on the EMS or MultiPlus. When set to 15A shore, the fan starts, then when the compressor pulls in the inverter switches to off. I watched the EMS and the voltage stays solid at 120 or so, and no errors or previous errors. In fact the EMS shows power is on the whole time the MultiPlus resets. I did some other testing, unplugged the rig and started the air and it started fine off the inverter. Set the shore power to 50A (so it would not try to assist) and the air started fine.
All I can figure is at a setting of 15A shore power, its detecting the inrush from the AC and trying to assist and failing for some reason? This has never been an issue so far, although its uncommon for me to try to run the AC on 15A. I am surprised I am not getting a inverter overload error, and that it is just shutting down, especially given it can start the air on its own with no shore power connected at all. I am not running an Easy Start, I was going to, but when I did the install I found the inverter ran it fine with nothing so never got one. I am certainly not opposed to installing one, but again I am pretty sure this was never an issue before. Thats what makes me suspect the run capacitor on there? Our AC has a fair bit of use, we semi-full time in it, and we like the rig cool. Any ideas on testing the motor run capacitor or is it a troubleshoot by replacement?
Sorry for the long post, but its a really odd situation. Particularly curious if you have ever seen anything like this in your setup howson
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