Air Conditioner Groom

[DaveVA78Chieftain]

Camping season is upon us and one of the get ready chores for many people is to make sure the air conditioner is ready to go.  It's not real hard to do and since many of them have been chugging along for 30+ years you need to do a little more to them than the new fangled ones.  After setting for a few years, my compressor did not want to start.  What I found was the leads connected to the start/run capacitors, the delay relay, and the compressor had all corroded.  On mine the compartment where the components are located was not designed to be sealed therefore ripe for corrosion issues.  The common lead connector at the run capacitor from the compressor was so corroded it was loose, brittle and broke apart.  So, out came the dremel tool and I cleaned up all the connections.  I also cleaned up the evaporator/condensor coils, the squirrel cage blower, and used compressed air to blow all the accumulated junk out of the unit.   The unit now works fine.  Not bad for a 35 year old air conditioner.

If your AC seems to be struggling to start and you know the shore power/generator voltage is good, then a good cleaning may be in order.
If you are trying to run your AC on a smaller generator and it either will not start or is real hard to start then you may need to invest in a hard start capacitor kit.  Be sure to look around on the net because you can pick them up for little as $15 (amazon.com).  Some places want to scalp you $150 for the same kit (SPP6).

Dave

[DaveVA78Chieftain]

Not only was a good cleaning in order I have also had to replace the 35 year old run and start capacitors.  If they fail the unit will not run.  The stuff inside them breaks down and the cases start to bellow out.
Here is a diagram with component values of the Coleman Series 6700 Series Mach 1 EL (and delux) version.

Dave



Link page: http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll120/BaileyDave/RV%20Electric/ColemanWiringDiagram.jpg

[ibdilbert01]

I popped an SPP6 in mine a few years back as my air conditioner was hard to start on inverter power, it took care of my issue.