Air Conditioner startup surge reducer?

[Diesel Dan]

I know I've read some discussion of this, but now cannot find it. I just bought a Champion brand 3500/4000 watt generator to run my 15,000btu Carrier air conditioner. The startup surge of the AC unit really boggs the generator down, and actually caused it to shut down on one of my tests. So I recall reading some discussion about a device that somehow softens the startup surge of the AC. Can anyone point me to where I can get my hands on one of these? I saw one website with this product: http://www.dometic.com/enie/Internation ... C-Startup/ which seems to be what I need but it appears to be a european website and the price appears to be 350 british pounds which I think is more than I paid for my generator. So is there something that performs this function, is sold in this country, and is affordable?

[kc_4_jc]

Here is the US version:

http://www.dometic.com/enus/Americas/US ... tup-Surge/

[kc_4_jc]

I have a Tripp Lite Inverter/Charge that can surge up to 6000 Watts. So when my AC kicks on I hear it the inverter kick in act almost as a UPS/line conditioner for the bus. My genny almost never surges now; however I do have 2000 Amp-Hours of batteries behind it. the Inverter/ Charge I use is this one:

http://www.tripplite.com/en/products/mo ... delID=3136

If you shop around you can get it for about $1100. On straight battery power using my equipment as normal I get about 9 hours of run time before the genny kicks in. Great product and great option for the boondoggler.

[Ob1]

I have read about mounting a higher capacity starting capacitor to the compressor motor to reduce the spike at start-up. I dont have any specifics, but I think it should be easy to research and a good bit cheaper!

[Diesel Dan]

Originally Posted by Ob1

I have read about mounting a higher capacity starting capacitor to the compressor motor to reduce the spike at start-up. I dont have any specifics, but I think it should be easy to research and a good bit cheaper!

Okay, now we're on the right track! This is more along the lines of what I was thinking. I'm sure I read something about it here on skoolie.net, but maybe I just didn't use the right search words. I'll keep lookin'...

Edit: Found it! Here we go: http://www.modmyrv.com/2009/05/27/rv-ai ... -capacitor