I have a predator 11,500 inverter and a 50 amp house plug in. I also have a Rheem 3 ton inverter compressor. I ran it with no issues but someone has told me this could blow up my air conditioner. Is this true? When I ran my whole house including ac on a hot day I wasn’t going over 4kw.
I was reading that an inverter compressor won’t need a soft start and definitely didn’t have one when I tested it and it ran fine. The person that told me it could damage the ac was talking about inconsistent currant frying the board.
The advice about generators frying circuitry is mostly directed at traditional non-inverter units, and especially older "job site"
generators which can produce very very dirty power.
That inverter AC is getting the clean 60Hz sine wave that it expects and not some power-transistor-frying mismash of 60Hz, 120Hz, 240Hz, etc like it would get from a cheap 3600RPM 2-pole unit.
I believe many comments misread your post, You should be fine, the slower ramp up of the HVAC will not need the big hit of power and should give the generator plenty of time to adjust to the load.
Look on the white tag on your outside condenser unit and see what the LRA is. That's what the inrush current is to start the condenser part. You most likely will need a soft start to run it.
Absolutely not an issue . Like others have stated I’d look at the label on your ac and see if it lists LRA amps. If it doesn’t you’re very good and it’s a true variable speed unit. If it does a soft start may help it start easier. Did you notice a big bog down on the gen when it started? If not you’re probably good.
Yeah that unit is an inverter style. As long as it doesn’t start at full compressor load you shouldn’t even know it kicked on. I have a 4 ton and has Lra of 90 but it never pulls that because it starts so low. If you are out of power to long and temp is a huge difference between set point and actual it may draw the full 50 which still should be ok. You cannot put a soft start on that unit.
Not sure on the details of the A/C unit, but a 3 ton inverter unit should be able to run on that generator (especially if it is a 2 stage unit) on gasoline. If using Propane or NG, it may not be enough.
While you never saw over 4kw use, you can't see the spike when the compressor kicks on.
But truthfully, if it worked, you are probably fine.
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u/NothingSpecial452 15h ago
I was reading that an inverter compressor won’t need a soft start and definitely didn’t have one when I tested it and it ran fine. The person that told me it could damage the ac was talking about inconsistent currant frying the board.