Trace inverter wanted

[Bill1170]

Does anyone either have a used trace sw2512mc inverter or know where I might purchase one. Twice I have tried to run one ac on this inverter and it has caused a problem, I wont do this again ,will run the genertor when ac is needed.
Bill Cleverdon

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Very interesting. You are the second person who has posed this situation in 1 week.

I had a POG'er on the phone with an 02 Royal XL11 with the exact same condition. That bus was built with 2 2500 watt inverters.

Is the inverter showing other bad symptoms or are you hoping to get it working as designed.

The 02 had prevo drivers air only and the coach side was set up to run 1 roof air off inverter.

This fellow wanted to increase the size of the inverter carrying the a/c to get it to preform as designed.

Unfortunately there is no way drivers air and 1 a/c will sufficiently cool that bus on a hot day.

Royal IMO has 2 design flaws here first the 2500 watt inverter is not big enough to run an a/c with any other loads and additionally 15000btu is insufficient to cool things adequately either.

No good Mr. Royal.

The good thing is you have roof air, run the gen it will be wey cheeper than the alternative and do a better job.

I know I did not specifically answer your question just thought you might want to know.

[Bill1170]

Thanks Joe, The first time it happened I had just had the bus about 1 month,June of 08, and the inverter would not let me even use the generator for that side of the bus. Buddy Gregg said there was no way the AC caused the problem. After about another 10 months and talking to other owners who had had no trouble I tried it again. Now I can use the gen or shore power with no problem but the inverter wont give the 120 volts. Buddy Gregg in Knoxville is looking for parts but after about a month no luck.
When I do get it repaired the gen will be on when the AC is. I still would like to hav a spare if I could find one. Bill

[ajducote]

Bill,

I have a 1999 Royale and have had some experience with the A/C running on the inverter. Is you inverter fried / cooked / broken? Or is it just blowing the large DC fuse between the batteries and the inverter? When I 1st used my bus the A/C would run from the inverter. At some point in time when I tried to use the inverter to run the A/C it would blow the DC fuse and shutdown all 120 Volt AC circuits that ran throught that inverter. I replaced the fuse and all was well again. Now if I need more then the dash air to cool the bus, I run the generator and all the roof airs.

[Larry W]

Bill
A good starting point might be to check the amp draw on the center A/C while plugged into shore power. The center A/C may have a problem causing it to have a big amp draw to start. Also if one will select the a fan speed in place of the auto the fan will start before the compressor starts which will lower the starting amps. Some Royale owners have installed 400 amp fuses in place of the 350 to help slove the fuse problem. We came home from a trip yesterday will the out side temp at 90. We used the dash air and the center A/C to be cool.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

I would be very careful about increasing the amps on any circuit breaker.

That is not to say doing that is always a bad thing, especially if the one installed was under rated for the job. But if a 350 amp circuit breaker keeps tripping, that is a lot of current draw and I would want to be certain there is not something wrong that could cause a fire before replacing it.

A typical air conditioner does pull a lot of amps on startup, but these are momentary loads, and they quickly settle down to around 13 amps at 120 Volts, or about 130 amps at 12 volts. A circuit breaker should handle the high starting loads without tripping.

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Larry please correct any wrong assumptions on my part if I have made any.

You too have a Royal with only Dash air and with only the 1 center a/c running with it how does it do when it gets really hot?

[Larry W]

Joe
When it is really hot we have to run the gen. to stay cool. We try to stay away from the places that are really hot. We grew up in the mountains of Colorado and lived in Alaksa for 30 years. We are not hot weather folks.

[Bill1170]

Thanks for all the helpful comments. The fuse is not blowing so that is not the problem. The first time I had trouble I think the board was damaged and in talking to Wayne Clapp with Buddy Gregg in Knoxville he thinks that may be the problem this time, why he is having trouble finding one I dont know.
I did try running the center or the front AC and it made no difference, both ran for a while but during my last trip the AC quit andthe inverter was found to be putting out only about 85 volts.
Dan Jourdan with Royal Phenix told me in his opinion using the inverters to run the AC was putting pressure on the batteries by continually charging and discharging them so he said in the long run use the gen.

[Jeff Bayley]

Bill- Follow this link below. This says it's a PS series and your model number has sw in front of it so it may or may not be the same or compatiable. Maybe you can call trace to find out if it is or not and (probabley most important) if it will communicate with the remote without issue. An easy search technique for Craig's list is to got to a search engine (I think 95% use Google now like me) and put what your looking for and include the word "craigslist" (one word, no spaces). So I searched for you using this "sw2512mc craigslist". It let me to a San Francisco listing that was expired. That's ok. Go to San Franciso C.List and search (within Craigslist SF) for the item again in C.List search box. The person might have not sold it and relisted it again,but the link we are seeing in the search results is the old expired ad. I already did that and it was not on C.List SF again. But this is a solid search technique I came up with.

So then used the following string and took out the specific model.

"2512 trace craigslist"

I found this.

http://lasvegas.craigslist.org/ele/1237722584.html

You might try it again by just putting "Trace Inverter Craigslist". You can't always count on the seller putting the complete model number.

Try Ebay also if you want.

now-I also modified my Royal to let me run two of my roof airs (one on each inverter). I have a 275 amp house battery alternator/generator. So it puts out ample enough power to recharge what the ACs are taking out, mainly if you're on the highway. But I still had a problem with blowing that large "J" class to use that has been referenced here in this thread. But my buses and 98 may think yours is a 2003. I did call one of the few people at Monaco that was in the Royal division and he tell me that they had increased the size of that fuse to 350 amps instead of the 300 amp one that they put them on the street with. So I changed mine to 350 amps but occasionally it would still blow. When I was in Monaco's hometown up in Elkhart, IN I tracked down a place listed below. I found a guy there named Tom Barton who is familiar enough to help. He supplied me with the new type uses which are only $10 apiece instead of 40 or $50 apiece for the J. class fuses. They also require a new style holder which is very inexpensive. Those J. class holders and fuses were extremely difficult to access. There was enough cable length for me to simply relocate them closer to the front of the battery bay in case they blew and needed to be changed. I know you said this is a problem, that maybe someone else reading this can benefit from it. I still have the old-style holders and spare J. class fuses, but I've only left those in place as a backup. I have the new style holder's mounted right next to the old-style holders since they're the same size and style regarding how the cables Bolt up to the studs of the holders. I'm including the information below for anyone who may want to get the new style in the new fuses but I believe the new style fuses only go up to 300 amps. I've had pretty good luck using the 300 amp ones. One thing that helps is to toggle the roof air off once in a while to give the fuse a chance to cool down if you find that they keep blowing. I mainly use it if someone is sleeping in the back bedroom and I want to run that one roof AC back there without running the generator.

Burnstines Distributing Corp.
22365 Elkhart East Blvd.
Elkhart, IN 46514
(574) 266-7676
(800) 776-6728

Your best bet is to ask for Tom Barton and tell him that you want the same style fuse holders that he helped a Prevost RV owner with a couple of years ago and don't know exactly what you're talking about because I talk to him about twice a year. I'm sorry I don't remember the style but if someone's interested enough, e-mail me and I can take a picture of what I've done there and send it to you.

[Bruce Harris]

Does it need to be a 2500W? I have a 2000W Trace in the box that I took out of a 2008 Dynomax sitting in my garage?