RV FEATURE
It is important to have your air-conditioner serviced and cleaned regularly to ensure it runs at peak efficiency.
Setting a slightly higher temperature means your generator doesn’ t need to work as hard to cool your caravan down.
BUT WAIT, THERE’ S MORE
This is not the end of the issues you will need to deal with. When an electrical motor turns on, it draws a much larger, temporary current than the normal operating current. This causes the motor to use a lot more power than it would once it’ s up and running. This is called the start-up load or in-rush current, and though it lasts for a short period of time, it can be as much as 10 times the normal operating current.
For the Truma Aventa, this startup load is listed as 28A or 6720W! Admittedly, this is for a very brief 150 milliseconds, but that can be enough to trip the over-current protection of many generators, even ones with a higher capacity than the Honda.
The Dometic Ibis has a‘ soft start’ feature that gradually increases the power output, avoiding a sudden surge that might trip the generator’ s overload protections.
Another issue to consider is the continuous operating hours of the generator, and this is a specification that is often hard to find. In the case of the Honda EU22i, generally considered the best quality generator on the market, this is just three hours at the continuous rated output. Run it for longer periods of time, and you risk damaging or shortening the life of the generator.
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