AC not cooling.

[Kevin Higgins]

I have 2006 beaver patriot thunder. It has three AC heat pump units with three zones the front AC is on one zone with one thermostat. The middle AC unit and the rear AC unit are on one thermostat with two zones. I changed out my front AC unit. First thing I did was get the model number off the unit.I called Dometic to find out what model I needed to swap it out with. They gave me the model number and told me that my five button thermostat would not work unless I changed out the board so I went with the new thermostat. I also went with an AC only because we never use the heat pump option on the old one. I also got the model number for the drain pan and purchased that also. Then I started to research everything online and received conflicting information. I called the gentleman in Oregon that sold the original Equipment to beaver and he made it sound very difficult to swap the unit out. He told me I needed to be an AC technician. That was false information it wasn’t that difficult. It was basically an easy swap out. So I order the unit on Amazon with the drain kit and the new thermostat. When I receive the unit the first thing I looked for was instructions there were none. I called the seller and they told me that’s how it came from Dometic no instructions no hardware. The drain kit did come with instructions so I started with the that. I installed it then I put the unit on the roof and hooked up all the wires the exact same way they were hooked up on the old unit there are two yellow,two blue, one red one black.the two yellow are not used. I hooked up the other four wires. there are two
Telephone cable connections. I only needed one because my Front units is a one zone system for the front of the coach and then hooked up the new thermostat temporarily. Then I hooked up the main power basically the same way the old power on the old unit was hooked up.Everything seem to function properly. I have an aqua hot system and it was not showing up on the thermostat. So at this point I figured I needed some instructions and called Dometic and asked how tight do you tighten the unit down to the roof they told me 40 to 50 foot pounds that did not seem correct. They also told me that that AC unit was equipped with a board that would only work with a five button thermostat. This is the opposite of what they told me the first time when I ordered my equipment. I also asked them for instructions. They emailed them to me. I hooked up the 5 button thermostat it turned on and then after a couple minutes it went blank I’m not sure if I burned it up or not but it clearly did not work. When I receive the instructions finally. I read through them and he was wrong the new unit required the new thermostat and he was wrong about tightening the unit down. it’s 40 to 50 inch pounds. All I had to do to get the furnace to show up was open and the board and flip the switch on the furnace. Everything works fine . The middle ac an the back bedroom AC are on one zone haven’t swapped them out yet but I’m assuming if I do them both it won’t be that big a deal. I hope this helps somebody

[Bill Lampkin]

Kevin, Glad you had good luck, and you found those DIP switches! I took our '05 Patriot to a local shop to replace a non-working A/C. Like you found out, it should be simple, right? Anyway, they couldn't get the new unit to work after two months, so we started travelling and found another shop north of Eugene Or. They found our local shop had run 120v on the aqua hot wires, burned up the aqua hot board and fried the rear AC too! So they replaced both ACs new boards, new tstats. Should be simple, right? I did learn that with two roof ACs, they are not connected by the phone cable; that connection is only needed for three ACs so they can talk to each other. I still have to get to the rear AC and correct a DIP switch setting, but all works!