Air Conditioner Thermostat question

[pcbrewer]

We just bought a Jay Feather Sport 165 and took it out for the first time. It was not really hot or cold outside so we put the unit on low cool and at the lowest thermostat setting. It got so cold in there during the night I had to get up and turn it off. It acts like the thermostat is not turning off. Also I noticed it was not blowing cold air off when I turned it off. It may have froze up. Any suggestions would be helpful. I think I will go ahead and clean the coils just in case...thanks

[rick danger]

Originally Posted by pcbrewer

so we put the unit on low cool and at the lowest thermostat setting.

Maybe you should have just set it at the temp. you wanted. Like 72 or something.

[norty1]

It likely froze up. Keep practicing.

[nwminnesota]

I made a mod to my a/c unit as well as my heater. I was sick of those dial settings. You really don't know what temp you are setting it at. I got this idea from someone else on the forum

[muelldawg]

I have been advised ,by AC repair people, to always run our AC on full (blower) power to prevent the "freeze up". The thermostat can be set to your convenience.

[tugboat95]

Recent experience on mine did the same thing. Froze up every night. On other threads on here the consensus seems to be run the fan on high all the time ESPECIALLY in high humidity areas like Florida. Got to have that air movement across the coils. When it's not froze up mine will run me out of there it's so cold. I like it that way. Just grab another blanket and go back to sleep.

[pcbrewer]

Ok, what I did was turn the blower on high and turned the thermostat to the warmest position and it still froze us out of the camper. It is like a meat locker in there. It is like it make no difference what setting the thermostat is on....it is just cold!

[Iraqvet05]

Do you have the analog or digital thermostat?

[pcbrewer]

Iraqvet05, it is just a turn knob with blue that goes from small to big so I guess it is analog.

[TexasRT]

It could be improper air flow (dirty filter). There is usually a sensor on the unit to prevent freeze ups, a lot of times the sensor is not mounted in the correct spot in the unit.

[Iraqvet05]

I don't know the controls of that model. If it's a wall mounted mechanical (mercury) based thermostat, many people have been upgrading them to digital models. The mechanical thermostats sometimes have a 3-5 temp swing. A digital thermostat is much better at sensing the temp.

[spoon059]

OP, I would guess you have a crappy analog thermostat. My 2015 thermostat lets the temps swing 5 degrees lower or higher than you think you have it set at. That means if you set it at 72, it could get down to 67 before it turns off and up to 77 before it turns on.


I bought a simple digital thermostat to replace the analog. Its sitting on my counter as we speak, waiting for time next weekend to install. You will be a lot happier with a better thermostat. As others said, run your fan on high to prevent it freezing up as much.

[pcbrewer]

Ok, but whatever thermostat we have, if we put in on the coldest setting for a while and the cabin gets cold, then we turn it down to a warmer setting you would think you would hear the compressor cut off. We do not hear anything, in fact, it is like it does not matter what you have it on it is going to be like a meat locker in there.

[ddrueckh]

Maybe remove the cover from the thermostat and unscrew it from the wall. Make sure all of the wires are connected properly. If they are and it still doesn't work, it sounds like it needs to be replaced. If you replace it, I would get a digital one as mentioned above. I replaced mine with the Coleman digital thermostat. It is a little pricy, but it was a direct replacement wire for wire. Took 10 minutes to swap out and now I can keep the temp to within a degree or two. Good luck. Let us know what you find/do.

[chucknbob]

I have a 165 and I have the same thing. I don't believe it actually functions like a thermostat like what is in a house, it works more like what is in a car, it just controls the temperature of the air coming out of the vents, it doesn't regulate the temperature in the cabin.

Good luck finding a happy medium. Remember we have the smallest possible camper, and these units are fairly universal, so they are designed to cool a camper much larger than ours.

[North of 49°]

I haven't had the chance to look at the thermostat on our trailer, but on our old hybrid I managed to adjust the thermostat's anticipator and get a little less "swing" out of the temperatures. I just wonder if these ones have the same feature.

Heat Anticipator Adjustment

Just a thought.

[bucko]

For those who have a hybrid camper with an A/C unit and no thermostat at all, there's a nice write-up on this site in how to add one. It involves installing a simple relay to "trigger" on/off the power to the A/C by the fuse panel. Simply put, the new thermostat you install will detect the desired temp, and operate this relay to turn on or turn off the A/C unit. It does require some running of wire, so finding locations to hide the wire, and getting it run from an installed thermostat location to your fuse box area will be needed.

[pcbrewer]

chucknbob, I think your response best matches what is going on with our camper. It makes sense since this is a very small camper with a large air conditioner.

[Tommyboy57]

Make sure your turning the dial the right way. Towards the red. I have not had trouble with mine. I keep it closer to colder than warmer but we live in Florida. How you liking your 165? We did our maiden voyage in ours last month. Ours is a 2011 model. Everything works great and we really like the layout.

[scfood]

.Anyone have a link to the relay trigger themostat mod ? I have searched and can't find it