My son came over today and we installed the Penguin II this morning. It took a little longer than I thought it might, and I had a little scare when it wouldn't work. That's when I found out it was only 61 degrees and having the thermostat set to 68 wasn't going to test it.
I rented a 12' material lift for $78 and that made the install a breeze. Picked it up on Friday and got it for Friday, Saturday and Sunday for the price of one day. It's light weight, fits in the back of the truck and goes in the garage.
I did all the prep work before my son arrived this morning. I turned off the AC circuit breaker and pulled the fuse for the AC low voltage signal.
Next I pried the front off the old four button thermostat and removed it. Then I tried to use a Forstner bit to hog out most of the large hole you need for the large protrusion on the back of the CCC thermostat. That came to a halt almost immediately as I hit a screw embedded in the plywood. That necessitated a change of strategy and I used a hammer and chisel to enlarge the hole.
After the woodwork, I disconnected all the wiring going up to the top of the unit from the opening under the unit. This included the two pair telephone cable for the thermostat, two 12 volt wires and A/C power cables. There were lots of unused wires coming from the top of the AC including another 2 pair phone cable for a multizone install (mine is single zone), a temp sensor, furnace wiring, and some I can't identify. Then I removed the four bolts holding the unit down. Finally I removed the condensate drain. That was difficult as the hose was hard and brittle after 21 years.
We used the lift to lower the old unit to the ground and bring up the new unit which we lifted into place. After that, it was a matter of connecting the new wiring which was hanging under the new unit. It included A/C cable and new 120 VAC junction box, and a bunch of optional wires that I didn't need. I connected the two pair telephone cable, 12 volt wires and A/C wires. Since this was a single zone installation that's all I needed. I also didn't need to set any dip switches so I never took the shroud off of the new unit.
Dometic included a new junction box.
The only wiring besides the A/C that I needed to make the unit functional. The blue stripe is 12 VDC from the coach and red is to the Penguin. You can see the black ground and modular phone jack behind.
Testing out the unit consisted of resetting the thermostat by turning it off and holding down two buttons to let it learn its configuration. It displays INIT while its initializing. Once you see the available zones, on the display, you are good to go.
I'm going to have to remove the unit to install the condensate drains when they are finally back in stock, but its going to be 95 next week so summer is coming and we want to use the Dynasty now!
Linear Mode
