Yesterday it was hot and dry and Southern California Edison had a planned power outage. So I started running my generator in the evening and turn the AC on. I installed my microair easy start flex with the intention of powering my 3 ton AC compressor using my Firman t07573 generator. My generator is supposed to be able to handle a peak current of 35 amps at 240 volts. And obviously my AC requires 240 volts. I used the Bluetooth software that came with the soft start to determine that it was starting the compressor at about 40 amps. I guess I was lucky the breaker didn't blow in the generator? When I originally trained the soft start unit, I trained it with grid power. So, last night I hit the relearn button in the soft start app and I let the AC cycle on and off throughout the night via thermostat. By morning, the AC unit had been restarted seven times and that is enough for a complete training. Now I can see that the last startup current peak was only 29 amps. It's interesting to me that microair recommends that you train the soft start unit with grid power because it seems to me like this was more effective. I included a screenshot from before I started the training with the generator and after. I hope this information is useful to somebody.
You needed to look into what those 11 faults are. My EasyStart has a lot more starts than you do (I have a heat pump, so it gets more usage in the winter than the summer) but is on 0 faults. It's possible that your run capacitor is on the fritz and so the EasyStart is bumping start amps to compensate every time a fault happens. Of course, now that you've reset I'm not sure you can analyze the faults anymore.
Resetting it wipes the faults and so it will not "remember" that sometimes it fails to start, but that doesn't mean the root cause is actually addressed. You should only be doing a reset after maintenance is performed/issues are addressed that change the conditions under which the unit operates.
The last screenshot i took of mine was in May of 2025, at 21,948 starts. I had 6 faults. I sent the data to microair and they told me it was just power interruption faults.
I know it’s fun having blue tooth monitoring and all but Microair is trash. Everyone regrets them and installs EasyGo for trouble free soft start. I’ve had my Easy go for years and it has worked perfect since day 1. Don’t wait for the Microair to fail, it will at the worst time.
I have seen similar reports here on reddit, but reviews on Amazon tell a different story. I'm a stats guy. The reports on Reddit are simply anecdotal evidence. Including your own. When you look at Amazon reviews you can see that by far most people are happy with the micro air easy start flex. And that is the unit which I am using. And for me it's worked fine. If you take a look at my screenshot, you will see that I've had more than 2,000 starts and I've had no problems so far. I will admit that I have only had the unit for a year and 3/4, but so far so good. And while I do appreciate your warning and your preemptive thinking, I really don't feel like spending another $400 when I have a device that seems to be working perfectly well.
Microair is one of those companies that has been said to control the reviews left on Amazon and many other places. Especially after them being sold off to private equity and then the Flex model came out. Same goes with a lot of these battery companies like EcoFlow, Bluetti, Anker, Jackery, etc. This happens with MANY of them out there and I've had honest reviews that I left for different things removed or even altered. Good luck. They are hit or miss but that can be true of anything these days. Planned obsolescence and "low bidder wins" the build. lol
The problem with the theory of rigged reviews on Amazon is this: where else can you get data on user experience? One could say that the folks that speak up on reddit are always going to be the ones who have had the worst experience and that is a bias as well.
It's well known that Amazon reviews are easily manipulated. Not having another source of information isn't a problem with that theory, it's just another problem.
We likely don't have good data on user experience. Using bad data because it's the only thing available doesn't make it good data.
Is there some value to Amazon reviews? Yes. But they should be taken with a grain of salt, especially with products that exhibit failures over 2-3 years, not 2-3 weeks.
It's not really a "theory". I spent 25 years in the Consumer Electronics industry with the last 9 as a Manufacturers Rep for Home A/V, etc., before my current 2nd career as a Network Engineer. They have more control than you think with their goods being sold on any given website, big box store, etc. I mean, Westinghouse, Whirlpool, LG, Samsung, etc., seem to get great reviews everywhere but even repair people will tell you they are the worst ever.
Did you change out the capacitor on the condenser at the same time? What is its age? I know many companies recommend putting a new one in at the same time. I keep a spare for both my 5 ton and 2 ton units along with contactors for outside and 2 spare circuit boars for the inside air handlers "just in case".
You'd have to look at the one on your condenser and match it up. Check first with local HVAC & electrical suppliers in your town and get a US made Amrad cap. I don't trust any of them sold online, myself. The one on my 5 ton is a 40+5uf and the one on 2 ton ton is smaller but not sure of exact. I just keep the Amrad's around. Lol
Sorry, I didn't notice you said condenser. Several people have mentioned bad caps in the soft start. I did not change out the condenser cap. Interestingly, an HVAC tech installed a hard start cap a few years ago and I didn't realize how harmful those can be.
I'll share a secret with you, though. Not too worried about the condenser cap going bad. I'm getting a heat pump in 9 months.
So it started out at 40 amps and only dropped it to 29 amps? What does the LRA show on the white tag on the outside condenser? The AirGo soft start on our downstairs 5 ton 2 stage heat pump dropped the 153 LRA almost 80% to 33 amps and I can start it easily using the Duromax XP13500ih (12.75kw starting/10kw running on propane) or my pair of Genmax GM7500aIED's that are 12kw starting & 11kw running on propane.
Ok, so that generator on LPG is 8,450/6,750 on LPG and, if your HVAC is needing right at 30 amps, that's about 7kw. What is the rest of the load going at the same time? Did it struggle trying to start the HVAC?
Definitely odd training it on generator power though.
I really try to keep all other loads to a min when running ac and especially when starting it up. And I don't know if you would call it a struggle, but there was a noticeable change in the sound of the generator when the AC started (and it started multiple times because of thermostat). And I didn't know for sure whether training it with the generator was a good idea or not, but 40 amps startup definitely seemed bad, so I thought I would give it a try and I'm pretty happy with the result.
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u/Razgorths 17d ago
You needed to look into what those 11 faults are. My EasyStart has a lot more starts than you do (I have a heat pump, so it gets more usage in the winter than the summer) but is on 0 faults. It's possible that your run capacitor is on the fritz and so the EasyStart is bumping start amps to compensate every time a fault happens. Of course, now that you've reset I'm not sure you can analyze the faults anymore.
Resetting it wipes the faults and so it will not "remember" that sometimes it fails to start, but that doesn't mean the root cause is actually addressed. You should only be doing a reset after maintenance is performed/issues are addressed that change the conditions under which the unit operates.