B190 Enthusiasts

So it got into the 90s here in Alaska and I decided to try out the a/c in the van. Plugged it in the my 110 house power and it fired right up. After 10 minutes this awful screeching/grinding noise started coming out periodically and it then stopped working. And won’t start back up. What did I destroy?

Turns out it tripped the circuit breaker. An easy fix, but then another question arises—how ‘big’a circuit does the van have to be on to keep this from happening?

I would guess you would need at least a mostly dedicated 15A circuit.

Yeah, I hope you weren't plugged in via a light extension cord. The voltage drop could kill the compressor.

But I don't think that's what happened here - sounds to me like the motor's bearings failed, or the fan came off the motor, something like that. Have to get up to the roof, pull the cover off, and start checking it.

con5 wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 24, 2021 11:19 am

I would guess you would need at least a mostly dedicated 15A circuit.

I tend to trip 15amp circuits, unless it is a VERY short wiring run.

This is usually solved by connecting with a 20amp circuit (typically identified by a slightly different looking outlet)

We actually ran our A/C last weekend connected to a random outdoor outlet by a long skinny extension cord (yes Texas in June is plenty hot). The A/C worked OK but you could tell it was because randomly on some cycles the compressor would not kick on at first and then it would try again with success after about 30 seconds. I would not recommend running it like this for an extended period of time.