Carver Owners Forum

Good day all,
I have a 97' 355AC and yesterday our salon and V berth air conditioner stopped working. What I mean by that is that the water pump and compressor stopped running. The fan on the AC unit will interestingly will run. I know the water pump works because it works for the aft cabin airconditioner. Also when the aft cabin AC unit runs, theres good water flow out of hte boat and the sea strainer is clean.

Does any one have any experience troubleshooting these systems? It's a Marine Air, VRP16K, 16,000btu unit. I'm reasonably handy, but AC is not my forte. Any guidance or troublshooting assistance would be appreciated. Wondering if maybe caps failed?

Cheers!

John

Perhaps the controller/thermostat for that area if you hae a separate one...reset it and check.

Do you have GOOD water flow out BOTH ports when the water pump is running? The 16kBTU unit would (probably) require more flow than your aft unit (which I'm just guessing is a 12kBTU unit).

On some units there is a reset switch right on the unit, and it's for a high-pressure fault. Once it's tripped you need to manually reset it to get the compressor working again (after you've found and resolved what was the cause of the high pressure condition!).

km1125 wrote:Do you have GOOD water flow out BOTH ports when the water pump is running? The 16kBTU unit would (probably) require more flow than your aft unit (which I'm just guessing is a 12kBTU unit).

On some units there is a reset switch right on the unit, and it's for a high-pressure fault. Once it's tripped you need to manually reset it to get the compressor working again (after you've found and resolved what was the cause of the high pressure condition!).

I've got great flow out of both ports when the aft cabin unit runs. Any idea where the reset switch "may" be? Is it actually on the unit itself or in one of hte control panels?

Have you cycled the ac electrical power to the unit? I.e. turn of the breaker to the ac unit itself for a few seconds and then power it back up. Have you a copy of the owners manual for it.?

This should be it if you dont...https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... jYmh66oAZu

g36 wrote:Source of the post This should be it if you dont...https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... jYmh66oAZu

If that's the right manual, then his unit does not have the manual reset. It will automatically reset once it cools down.

So, I've got he original O&M manuals and wiring diagram, I'll do some isolating, and cap. test. Just hoping the compressor isnt locked up....

This is hte specific unit.

When you've done any of the other checks and the compressor still isn't turning on, then you might want to check the "klixon" breaker on the top of the compressor. It's a temperature-sensitive breaker and normally resets itself but they can go bad. You can do a continuity check on it MAKING SURE THE AC POWER HAS BEEN DISCONNECTED FIRST. It's located under (usually) a small plastic cap that snaps on top of the compressor.

It's this thing in the circuit...