EasyStart Knowledge Bank
What does EasyStart do and how does it work?
Consider how a regular compressor starts. When power is first applied to the motor it creates a magnetic field that presses against a rotor. The rotor is connected to the compressor and these components have mass so it takes time and energy to get up to speed.
Compressor motors are connected in a way that lets them draw as much energy as needed to get up to speed quickly. Because of this design the motors draw a huge current surge when they start.
On every motor plate there is a specification called LRA. This stands for Locked Rotor Amps and is the maximum current the motor can draw according to the manufacturer. During a start you can expect your compressor to draw this current from the supply.
RV rooftop 16 KBTU compressors are rated around 50 to 60 amps LRA. A typical 2000 watt inverter generator is rated at 2000 watts peak which is about 16.7 amps at 120 volts AC. There is no way will the generator start a load that draws four to five times its peak rating!
The solution is to reduce the peak LRA so we created EasyStart. EasyStart is designed to connect directly to the compressor motor and reduce the power surge that occurs on start. It does this by controlling the power supplied to the windings of the motor on each AC cycle. EasyStart gradually increases this power until the compressor is running.
This increases the time it takes the motor to get up to speed and creates a very smooth start that reduces the peak current by 50 to 70%. An RV rooftop 16 KBTU, 120 volt compressor can now start with under 20 amps of current.