Air-conditioner intermittently quits

[Frost]

Hey,

Before I take my rv into a shop (I hate electrical issues) I'm hoping someone might have a suggestion to try first.

My trailer has been experiencing some strange issues. With the AC running, every once in a while it will up and quit. At first I thought it was a breaker as it just stops dead. No blower fan, no AC, no nothing. I check the breakers both in the trailer and where it is plugged into and all fine.

So after standing there with a pointless attempt at tracking down an issue, after a few mins if I turn it back on (blower fan first) it works. Then I won't have a issue for quite some time, then out of the blue one day it will happen again.

One thing I did notice is there used to be a small fan noise coming from the area of the fuses but I haven't heard that fan in quite a while. Could it be there is a fan in there somewhere that has failed and when things get hot, it quits until they cool down again? If so, what would that be that I could look into?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers!

[dbledan]

Originally Posted by Frost

Hey,

Before I take my rv into a shop (I hate electrical issues) I'm hoping someone might have a suggestion to try first.

My trailer has been experiencing some strange issues. With the AC running, every once in a while it will up and quit. At first I thought it was a breaker as it just stops dead. No blower fan, no AC, no nothing. I check the breakers both in the trailer and where it is plugged into and all fine.

So after standing there with a pointless attempt at tracking down an issue, after a few mins if I turn it back on (blower fan first) it works. Then I won't have a issue for quite some time, then out of the blue one day it will happen again.

One thing I did notice is there used to be a small fan noise coming from the area of the fuses but I haven't heard that fan in quite a while. Could it be there is a fan in there somewhere that has failed and when things get hot, it quits until they cool down again? If so, what would that be that I could look into?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers!

Well worth a shot to try and figure out.

The fan you hear down by the fuses is the converter fan. I believe it is unrelated unless all your lights go off as well when your AC has an issue?

For your ac do you have the fan set to auto by chance when running the AC? I also am curious if you have any vents closed?

For mine I have had issues with the compressor freezing up if it does not cycle enough and runs non stop with one of the dump vents closed. There are several remedies for this should it be your problem.

1. Open the dump vent. By far the easiest thing.
2. Manually cycle ac off after 15min but leave the fan on. This will melt any ice.
3. If you take the inside cover off can you see the air return and are they separated all the way out to the cover? Many times the separator will come loose. When it does you are blowing cold air from the vent right back to the AC and it will build up ice on the compressor. Some duct tape to seperate the return air from the vent air and open dump vents prevents this from happening.
4. The other thing that can happen is the thermistor wire to monitor the air temp in the AC come loose and will not provide an accurate reading making the AC think it is cooler than it really is. I believe you cam see this from the bottom but may be incorrect on that.

Hope this helps you!
Happy camping.

[Frost]

Thanks for the response. Come to think of it, I'm not sure if the lights are also failing as well I'll check that the next time.


The AC does have an Auto switch on the thermostat but when the AC fails, even if I switch it to just uses the 'on' fan position it still does not work. That's the part that makes me wonder where the issue is. Regardless of temperature in the unit, the fan 'on' will always work or in this case should always work.

[dbledan]

If other DC items like the lights or slides have issues then perhaps your battery is disconnected or lose and this is why the converter fan is kicking on.

It is possible the battery is going and/or your converter is failing. Less likely but possible. The only reason I say this is because the converter cooling fan is kicking on which means a large draw to it likely to charge the battery or power everything without the battery. The thermostat itself is DC powered as is the Fan.

It is completely possible that these two issues are unrelated and just the AC has a problem which I would think you prove not to be the case if the fan and lights don't work right. You are correct that in the on position for the fan should always run the fan.

If you have a meter what is the voltage at the battery when it fails?

[Frost]

Its hard to trouble shoot because it happens so infrequently. (once in a few weeks) I'm just getting the unit out of storage for the start of the season so I'll have more info in the coming weeks.


I also just realized I had started a thread about this issue a few years ago, I'll continue with that one so I don't have two going.

http://www.forestriverforums.com/for...ng-114303.html

thanks!