Quote:
Originally Posted by roadglide
The generator we used it on a 5 day boondock trip. It runs the 2 AC an refrigerator . The the AC wont cool enough and refrigerator was getting warmer all the lights are normal. Could the RPM on the 5500 be to low causing the generator not to turn fast enough to make the Amps needed?
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If your lights are all LED (most of the newer rigs seem to be), they're 12vdc and don't care about fluctuations in 110/220 vac voltage. Most LED's will work from 4vdc up to 24 or even 32vdc. Not a good indicator of what's going on over on the 110/220vac side of the rig.
My Honda generator senses load and ramps up the RPMs accordingly. I don't know if your Onan does the same. But, if you're running two A/C's plus the fridge on auto where it will run on 110 if available, you're pulling quite a load. If the Onan is at idle, it almost certainly won't produce enough voltage or current and the appliances will behave as you indicated. It needs to run at a high enough RPM to keep up with your needs.
Edit to add: We boondock regularly for two weeks at a time so we use propane as much as possible to conserve battery life and lower the load on the generator when we do run it. The fridge stays on gas regardless of electric source as does the water heater. In the old days, these dual energy fridges ran a lot better and colder on gas anyway. I think they still do, but others may disagree. I'm used to operating this way and plan for the propane consumption. If you're having issues with generator output when you're running two air conditioners, moving the fridge and water heater over to gas only is a good measure.
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