Luxury Coach Lifestyles - View Single Post - Looking for Newell Coach Basement Air Conditioning Replacement

RussWhite · 04-01-2012, 05:02 PM

Hi Bill,

Me again.....

I also have probably the same A/C units as you do on my #530. If you put your question to Newell I expect that will say sure - we will be happy to intsall roof top units for you. That is an option, but the price was way too high for me to consider.

I fulltime and use the A/Cs most of the time. By now I am very familiar with them and the thermostats. My background is as an electrical engineer so most of the stuff comes very easily to me. These are my opinions......

The electrical control portion of the A/Cs is poorly designed. The connectors and relays, and even the lands on the circuit board are marginal at best. But, that stuff is all easily fixed, at least for me. I replaced the connectors, replayed the relays and keep spares, and beefed up the lands where necessary and all units run perfectly now. I have not had a unit freeze up, but should that happen I think I would just pull in out and have a residential A/C service comes and hopefully find the refrigerant leak, repair, and gas up correctly.

Now the thermostat from SCS can be replaced, but I bed you will not find one with the fan options of the original. The fan speed options are kind of importnat as to how the dual A/C units are designed. The SCS is a two stage thermostat and the second stage is activated when the actual temperature is 2 degrees ( I think ) from setpoint. Upon second stage activation, the units starts the second compressor and both evaporator and circulating fan go to high speed if fan AUTO is selected. But, if you select LOW fan speed it effectively eliminates the second stage and you use only the first stage compressor and normal speeds on both fans. This can be a handly feature when managing your power usage. I personally would hate to give that up with any of the replacement thermostats I have seen suggested. I keep a spare thermostat just in case, but I will strive to keep the SCS ones working. I was fortunate to receive great documentation with the coach for the air conditioners and have both wiring and schematic diagrams which are very helpful. One down side of the configuration is it can be difficult to know if both compressors are working correctly. I have a very accurate digital power monitoring system that I can watch to see if the amps increase the appropriate amount when stage two is energized. When I received the coach only one of each pair of compressors was even coming on. When the entire system is working as designed I am very satisfied with the level of cooling.

All this to say - you may want to consider trying to get the bugs out of your existing systems.

04-01-2012, 05:02 PM	#2
RussWhite Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 346	Hi Bill, Me again..... I also have probably the same A/C units as you do on my #530. If you put your question to Newell I expect that will say sure - we will be happy to intsall roof top units for you. That is an option, but the price was way too high for me to consider. I fulltime and use the A/Cs most of the time. By now I am very familiar with them and the thermostats. My background is as an electrical engineer so most of the stuff comes very easily to me. These are my opinions...... The electrical control portion of the A/Cs is poorly designed. The connectors and relays, and even the lands on the circuit board are marginal at best. But, that stuff is all easily fixed, at least for me. I replaced the connectors, replayed the relays and keep spares, and beefed up the lands where necessary and all units run perfectly now. I have not had a unit freeze up, but should that happen I think I would just pull in out and have a residential A/C service comes and hopefully find the refrigerant leak, repair, and gas up correctly. Now the thermostat from SCS can be replaced, but I bed you will not find one with the fan options of the original. The fan speed options are kind of importnat as to how the dual A/C units are designed. The SCS is a two stage thermostat and the second stage is activated when the actual temperature is 2 degrees ( I think ) from setpoint. Upon second stage activation, the units starts the second compressor and both evaporator and circulating fan go to high speed if fan AUTO is selected. But, if you select LOW fan speed it effectively eliminates the second stage and you use only the first stage compressor and normal speeds on both fans. This can be a handly feature when managing your power usage. I personally would hate to give that up with any of the replacement thermostats I have seen suggested. I keep a spare thermostat just in case, but I will strive to keep the SCS ones working. I was fortunate to receive great documentation with the coach for the air conditioners and have both wiring and schematic diagrams which are very helpful. One down side of the configuration is it can be difficult to know if both compressors are working correctly. I have a very accurate digital power monitoring system that I can watch to see if the amps increase the appropriate amount when stage two is energized. When I received the coach only one of each pair of compressors was even coming on. When the entire system is working as designed I am very satisfied with the level of cooling. All this to say - you may want to consider trying to get the bugs out of your existing systems.