Air conditioner not working

[steve77]

We have an older Cruisair 16,000 Btu unit - VCP16K. When we lived in Texas it worked great. I did not use it for the past year because 1) we were hauled out, or 2) the weather wasn't that hot. Well, it's a little warm now and we are in a marina, so I'd like the AC.

Turning the unit on, only the fan operates. I checked the terminal strip on the control board and there is no voltage to the seawater pump or the compressor. The little snowflake is illuminated on the remote control panel, so I believe I am in cooling mode.

Any ideas on why the seawater pump and compressor do not start? Again, only the fan runs.

Thanks!

Steve

[four winds]

The a.c. power goes into the control box first. Then relays pass power to the fan, water pump, and compressor.

Could be sticky relays. Give the control box a good open handed smack. See what happens. Seriously, I'm not kidding. Worked for me for a few months before I finally left to live on the hook.

Maybe one day I'll live in a Marina again and actually fix it.

[transmitterdan]

Steve,

When you power on the AC the fan runs all the time. The compressor and water pump only run when the thermostat calls for cooling. So the first step is to get the thermostat set lower than the cabin air temperature. Then wait a bit and see if something happens. If you are sure you have the thermostat set to cool mode and the setting below the cabin temp then probably you need to call someone to look at it.

Inside the control box there are some fuses. Maybe one of this has blown but please be careful in there. There is live AC power that can kill you.

[steve77]

Thought I would follow up on this. A storm was forecast to blow through last night so we closed all ports and hatches. It got pretty warm down below and neither I nor the Admiral slept well.

This put the air conditioner back on the priority list. A little judicious tapping on the outside case of some relays and Hallilujah! The sweet sound of a compressor running. Plenty of water flow from the through-hull, and the cabin is cooling down nicely. AC has been running about an hour now.

Tonight, visions of a cool, restful sleep!

Cheers!

Steve

[SV Bacchus]

Jimmy Buffett has a quote in a song: "It was so simple it plumb evaded me".

Sometimes we forget to check the easy things first! :face palm:

Congrats on getting it fixed!!

[paulajayne]

Stand engineer fix - hit it if all else fails.

Sounds like it was a stuck relay.