I'm planning on adding a 12 volt air conditioning system to my new rig to run on sunny days and maybe an hour or two at night. What is considered the current state of art for power consumption to output now in 2018? I have heard that the Earthcruiser guys use the Arctic Breeze systems which retail for over $4k. I would be curious about what options other folks have explored for 12 volt AC and their experiences?
2018 12 Volt Air Conditioning Systems
- Thread starter erstwild
- Start date
LeishaShannon
Adventurer
House hold systems via inverter are still the most efficient by a factor of 2 or 3. It's the difference between workable and ridiculous.
Mitsubishi SRK20ZSXA-W is the new version of ours - COP of 6 , you get 2KW (7000 BTU) of cooling for just 310 Watts of electrical input. (And because its has a variable speed compressor it'll use as little as 150W once the camper is cool)
The "Arctic Breeze" costs 4 times as much and uses twice the power...
We can run ours 24/7 in 45c outback weather on solar alone. Start with the most efficient AC possible, insulate the crap out of the camper, install your solar panels with a large air gap so you're always "in the shade" and you'll be able to run AC without a noisy generator.
No problems after 3 years full time on ( and off ) the road on our 4WD camper.
Mitsubishi SRK20ZSXA-W is the new version of ours - COP of 6 , you get 2KW (7000 BTU) of cooling for just 310 Watts of electrical input. (And because its has a variable speed compressor it'll use as little as 150W once the camper is cool)
The "Arctic Breeze" costs 4 times as much and uses twice the power...
We can run ours 24/7 in 45c outback weather on solar alone. Start with the most efficient AC possible, insulate the crap out of the camper, install your solar panels with a large air gap so you're always "in the shade" and you'll be able to run AC without a noisy generator.
No problems after 3 years full time on ( and off ) the road on our 4WD camper.
chet6.7
Explorer
How much of an air gap is needed? Thanks.
Hillbilly Heaven
Explorer
Also since hot air rises leave a space between panels.
tanuki.himself
Active member
has anyone come up with a way of neatly mounting domestic split units on a small truck camper, eg both units flat on the roof/ceiling? can the external compressor/condenser be flat mounted? they do seem to offer so much more capacity for much less money than things like the Dometic roof mounts....
LeishaShannon
Adventurer
I stuck ours on the front , custom aluminium "Z" bracket spreads the load over the roof/edge.
You can also see the gap under the solar panels , its ~120mm from the roof to the glass. White blocks half way along each panel provide additional support for the glass (the panels are ~1.5m long)
Oka 374
Member
As Verkstand said they are designed to be mounted vertically but I've seen them modified to lay horizontally under a caravan with great success. The bloke that did it was a refridgeration mechanic so knew what needed to be modified for it to work but from memory other than rotating the compressor and the plumbing to suit there wasn't much else.