Marine Air AC

[River Cruiser]

Anyone every install a hard start capacitor on their AC unit? I've read that on home units these help significantly on compressor start-up. The reason i'am thinking of installing one is my Westerbeke is out to be rebuilt or replaced. I tried my Honda EU2000 but it wouldn't start either unit a 12,000 & a 16,000, it would run one unit on my previous boat with no trouble. Any advice on this problem from the electrical elite is much appreciated

[a64pilot]

Many of us have, it helped mine some, but not as much as I would have liked. It spreads the initial start up hit over a few seconds, so instead of a 1 sec spike that maxes the analog amp meter, it now hits about 30 amps of so for a 2 sec duration.
Still a Honda EU 2000 will not start my Webasto 16K, however it will easily my 6,000 BTU Webasto in eco mode.

There is an expensive soft start fix, I think by one of the major manufacturers that is reputed to work, but so have only seen videos, not tried it myself.

Maybe Dometic?

[transmitterdan]

Supco makes a hard start unit that is designed for voltages from about 100V to 240V. Amazon sells them for <$20.00 I think.

http://www.supco.com/web/supco_live/products/SPP6.html

The principal upon which they work is sound. The marketing material is complete BS so don't bother reading it. You have to try it to see if it will really work on your AC unit. They are cheap to try and probably it will work. If not you haven't spent much on the experiment. They will not do any harm unless the unit fails. In that case it will trip the mains breaker every time it tries to start. Removing the hard start unit will put it back right.

However, I think you are pushing an EU2000 to the brink with a 16K BTU AC. The 12K should work just fine.

[River Cruiser]

Thanks for the replies, the 12,000 unit is the one I was hoping to use it on. It cools the berths and I normally cool them down for a couple of hours before I go to bed and then turn off the gen and rely on a couple of 12v fans for comfort during the night. They are cheap enough to take the gamble on it working.

[pesarsten]

Do some more research, there is a hard start kit made by one of the marine ac manufacturers that is supposedly far superior to the cheap generic ones.

[River Cruiser]

I will search for a marine air specific unit.

[witzgall]

Just about every marine ac manufacturer sells soft start kits, they do a very good job of reducing the startup amerage. Here is one by Dometic, Webasto also has theirs. When I was a marine service amanger, we used these sucessfully on several installs with smaller gensets.
https://www.dometic.com/en/se/produc...tarter-_-52048

Another option I have thought about, but not tried, is the use of a hard start capacitor, in conjunction with a inverter that provides power assist. For instance, I have a 30a shore power input, and a Victron Multiplus 3000w inverter. It has a feature called power assist. If I either limit the incoming aperage below 30a, a feature of the Multiplus, or exceed 30a, the inverter can provide an additional 16a of current. This works with the genset as well.

Chris

[dwoodall]

If you haven't already, you mighty want to take a look at this thread http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...-a-106566.html

Doug