Why You Need a Soft Start for Your RV Air Conditioner
Living in Texas, one of our most important priorities of RV life is the ability to run the air conditioner no matter where we are or what power source we have available.
Your RV air conditioner is designed to be powered from a 30 or 50 amp power source. This is because compressor motors are connected in a way that lets them draw as much power as required to get up to speed quickly. And now with our Airstream Globetrotter in our RV collection, the two rooftop airs require 50amp service to be used simultaneously.
Because of this design, compressor motors require a massive current surge when they start that is too much to handle for a 15 or 20 amp breaker or the RV’s inverter, but there is a solution.
A Soft Start will reduce the power surge that occurs on startup, thus I’m able to run the rooftop air from most any source, including a household 15/20 amp plug as well as my Lithionics battery system. Or we can run both AC units at the same time on the Airstream on 30amp service. This gives us the freedom to know we can keep the RV cool for us and our dogs.
Having a Soft Start ensures these pups stay cool
Our Recommendations
Soft Starts have always required hard wiring into your roof top air. For DIYers, this is usually no big deal, but for those who may be intimidated, or don’t want to add third party modifications to their air conditioner now have the SoftStartUP. This external device provides the same benefits as a hard wired soft start, but does it at the power pole with many more benefits thrown in. GAME CHANGING RV SOLUTION!
Hard Wired Soft Starts
If you prefer to install a soft start for an always available and never think about it solution, we use and recommend both SoftStartRV & MicroAir products.
It regulates the start-up voltage of the compressor/motor intelligently to effectively reduce the inrush and surge current while starting-up, thus consuming much less power from on-site AC power supply system – yet it still provides full startup torque for compressors and motors.
SoftStartRV effectively limits the inrush current and so improves the stability of the power supply and reduces transient voltage drops that may affect or break down other loads. This eliminates the need for excessive power supply which results in reduced equipment costs, investment in power supply capacity, charge meter, circuit breaker, and power wireline capacity, and it extends the service life of the motor or compressor.