Air Conditioner Amps At Startup

[bill777x]

Greetings, I've been in the camping game for over 10 years but I don't do a lot of posting. Ran into an issue I thought I'd run by the group and see if someone else has had the same.

We spend at least a dozen weekends and a couple full weeks camping each year so we use our camper a lot in my opinion. We were in Branson for 6 days the week before last and everything worked as usual, no issues. Couple days ago while at home my Hughes 30 amp surge guard shut down the power to the camper and it said the error was an overcurrent draw. We leave the ac on 80-85 this time of year so I'm guessing it didn't like the draw when it started one time and shut down. The Watchdog has never done this in the 2 years I've owned it.

I'm paranoid about power draw as I've had a couple melted plugs before and after the last time I bought the Hughes so it did what its supposed to, I guess. The thing is I have the correct 30 Amp service on the side of my shop and I've never had the Hughes trip before, home or anywhere. I opened the app on my phone and watched the amp draw when the ac kicks on which I've never done before. I saw it spike to 60 amps when the compressor kicked in but it was half a second at most. It settles at 16-17 amps and runs fine after that and it didn't trip off then either.

Start capacitor going out, normal operation? I don't know.... Voltage at home is 120-125 depending on the day and that's way better than some of the sketchy power I've seen at campgrounds.

It's a Coleman Mach 15k BTU unit and it is 10 years old now but I've never had this issue with this or any of the other 3 campers I've owned. I guess after all that (sorry) is the 60 amp startup something to be concerned with or was it just a fluke? Hasn't done it since that time either so....?

Thanks in advance for any insight or opinion.