Soft Start installed in air conditioners

[Mark Askew]

Hi All,
    Does anyone have any information on how Soft Start for air conditioners works. Would like to run both airs on a 30 amp service. Do you need to install on both air conditioners or is one sufficient. Any information would be appreciated as I have talked to a few people on this, most have been on Toy Haulers with Three air conditioners. Thanks in advance

[Bill Lampkin]

Soft starts work like the name implies, i.e. they allow the A/C to 'soft start' by reducing the in-rush or start up current during A/C start. Start up current may be 30 or more amps, but running amps are in the 12-14 amps range. Both A/C units would have to be retrofitted, unless you only wanted to use one using a 30 amp shore connection. But one A/C will work fine on 30a shore power, so the only reason to use soft starts would be to run two A/C on a 30a circuit.

[Eric Maclean]

Mark
As Bill pointed out you can run one A/C unit on a 30 amp service if you want to run both you will need soft starts on both to avoid the inrush current of the compressors from maxing out your 30 amp breaker when the compressors cycle on and off.

Some rocks will install a soft start on one A/C unit in order to be able to run it on a 20 amp service .
And others use the soft start to be able to operate one unit of a smaller gen set  in the 2000 to 2500 watt range.


Hope this helps
Eric