Air Conditioning Options?

[boblynch]

I've been looking at various air conditioner options for an expedition camper. I would like to reduce my overall height by moving the AC to an interior mounted or rear-mounted unit.

One option I found was the 8500 BTU Dometic HB2500 underbench unit
(http://www.waeco.com/en/396_2382.php).

Another option would be to use the 2500 BTU Little Guy Trailers form Carlyle's Alaskan build (http://expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9502&page=6).

What do you guys think? Does anyone have any other ideas or opinions?

Bob

 

[Lynn]

I don't know much about much, but I did stop by the Sportsmobile shop here in Austin a few weeks ago, and the guy told me that they were testing out an A/C unit that was mounted under the body of an E-350.

Sorry, I didn't ask for details, but if you can call 'em up it might give you a third mounting option.

Also, have you looked into big-rig APUs? I'm just starting to look into 'em, and they are pricey, but if you consider that some incorporate a generator and A/C, the price is a little more reasonable.

By the way, you need to edit your post. The Waeco link doesn't work because the final parenthesis is part of the url link. Does that make sense? If you click the link you get a German 404 error page, but looking at the address bar, you see that it's trying to including that final parenthesis in the address.

 

[boblynch]

Thanks Lynn. Let me know if you get any more info on the Sportsmobile unit.

 

[Rockcrawler]

I don't know what model it is off hand, but I know that a few FWC users have installed them into the small rear window of the camper. I went with an evaporative cooler to use in ours, but seeing that you are in NC, that probably is not a viable option.

Stan or Tom at Four Wheel Camper can probably tell you which unit they have used before.

Kyle

 

[oldcj5guy]

Depends on the cash you are looking to spend, but you might lok into the 12v units for semis. The new no idle laws have sparked a pretty good growth in that market and a good unit is around a grand and falling

 

[Carlyle]

I let you know more about the unit I have in the future as I test it more, but so far I have to say that it meets our needs nicely. You can run the unit while driving down the road to keep the camper cool. The alternator on the truck keeps the batteries topped off and will run the unit nicely. Because it is only 2500 btu, you need to turn it on early. It's not like a 12000 btu roof unit that will freeze you out in ten minutes. The only thing I may do to it in the future is change the motor out to a DC unit to reduce draw slightly. At this point though the solar system will produce more than enough juice for it on a sunny day without eating up the battery bank. Yes, I can run it without a generator...

 

[kellymoe]

I let you know more about the unit I have in the future as I test it more, but so far I have to say that it meets our needs nicely. You can run the unit while driving down the road to keep the camper cool. The alternator on the truck keeps the batteries topped off and will run the unit nicely. Because it is only 2500 btu, you need to turn it on early. It's not like a 12000 btu roof unit that will freeze you out in ten minutes. The only thing I may do to it in the future is change the motor out to a DC unit to reduce draw slightly. At this point though the solar system will produce more than enough juice for it on a sunny day without eating up the battery bank. Yes, I can run it without a generator...

Do you just run it through a inverter while driving? I have been looking for something for my crewcab and this looks like it might work. Looks pretty good.

 

[Carlyle]

Yes

 

[oldcj5guy]

Details on the unit are in order.

Who makes it, price, where to find it???

 

[boblynch]

Details on the unit are in order.

Who makes it, price, where to find it???

The list of vendors Carl used is on the last page of his build thread (http://expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9502&page=16) . There is also a discussion there about the merits of this AC unit.

 

[mhiscox]

I'm pleased to see a thread on alternatives to roof ACs. I avoided roof air on my Sprinter expedition camper, as much as anything because I'd run out of roof space. Additionally, "window" units are often lighter, quieter and more energy efficient than roof units, so there are reasons to think about them even if you have roof space.

I started out with a 7800 BTU Panasonic unit, but had to switch that to a 5500 BTU Sharp unit to make everything work well.

This Sharp unit draws 5-6 amps of AC, so it's an easy load for my 2.8KW outback inverter, and with my truck's 200 amp alternator, running it while driving still leaves plenty for other loads and battery recharging. And given my battery bank, it can even run a little while off DC. All in all, I'm happy with this "do over" installation.

I have an album of pictures and captions that describes the alternatives I tried and the construction of the current system at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mhiscox01/SprinterAirConditionerExperiments.

The album might be worth looking at if you want to try to adapt a window unit.

Mike Hiscox
'77/'95 416 DoKa Expedition Camper
2005 mid/tall 2500 Sprinter Expedition Camper

 

[dhackney]

I invested a lot of research to source a 12VDC air conditioner in an effort to keep our rig entirely 12VDC.

In the end our camper came with a stock 120VAC air conditioner so we used a 120VAC genset.

I've got a list of air conditioner manufacturers, etc. on our build resources page here:
http://www.hackneys.com/mitsu/index-resources.htm

Scroll down, it's about 2/3rds of the way down the page.

Glacier Bay makes a very good, high effeciency 12VDC A/C unit but they didn't have their non-marine, vechicle model ready by the time we needed one.

 

[boblynch]

Mike, nice to see I'm not the only one that is willing to make a mess to get to a workable solution.

Doug, thanks for the resource list. Really enjoy your trip posts.

Bob

 

[Carlyle]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who is interested in this subject. Now I just need to find a 12 volt motor for my 2500 btu unit to make it more efficient. Any ideas?

 

[dhackney]

Now I just need to find a 12 volt motor for my 2500 btu unit to make it more efficient. Any ideas?

Not much beyond things you've probably already researched:
1. check the RPM of the AC motor
2. check the HP of the AC motor
3. check the shaft diameter and keyway size of the AC motor
4. check with Grainger or another general purpose industrial parts supplier for a suitable DC replacement motor

If it is a very low HP application a fan motor from a Dometic furnace might work.

Sorry I can't offer anything beyond the glaringly obvious.