Ideas on A/C and heat

[John61CT]

Just this once LOL try not to let it go to my head

Note that the load output on SCs is often pretty limited.

There are shunt based BMs that will guesstimate bank SoC% pretty well but not cheap.

And cheap chinese wattmeters of various sizes that count coulombs one way or two you can insert at key points using powerpoles for diagnostics.

Rather than sitting watching an ammeter go up and down just come back after 24 hours and see what the average actually was accumulated.

Only way to really get good draw numbers for an accurate energy budget.

Not so necessary if you're a weekender or got a gennie on demand, but if trying for solar only for weeks at a time...

[MickinOz]

My Renogy controller limits load to 20 amps.
Plenty when you only have a 105 AH battery.
This being a thread on air conditioners, I want to put an idea on the table.
Very roughly estimated, the volume of the sleeping area of my teardrop is about 2 x 1.5 x 1 metres = 3 cubic metres, subtracting nothing for the front curved wall.
I firmly believe that one of these https://transcool.info/product/transcoo ... white-ice/ would work very well to cool the space.
These things are the efforts of an Aussie truckie who spent an uncomfortable night in a sleeper cab on the road.
They are about 5 times dearer than the usual Ebay cheapy desktop cooler, but I think these would be a genuine case of get what you pay for. 0.7 to 1.8 amps current draw from low speed to high speed.
Run all night on low without topping up the water.


If set up correctly.

It is an evaporative air conditioner.
To do a decent job, you would have to set it up so it draws in outside air, cools it and pumps it through the room, venting to outside.
So many people seem to recirculate the air from evaporative coolers, making it wetter and wetter until finally you actually get hotter as the extremely humid air wrecks your body's cooling mechanisms.

[Tom&Shelly]

These things are the efforts of an Aussie truckie who spent an uncomfortable night in a sleeper cab on the road.
They are about 5 times dearer than the usual Ebay cheapy desktop cooler, but I think these would be a genuine case of get what you pay for. 0.7 to 1.8 amps current draw from low speed to high speed.
Run all night on low without topping up the water.


If set up correctly.

It is an evaporative air conditioner.
To do a decent job, you would have to set it up so it draws in outside air, cools it and pumps it through the room, venting to outside.
So many people seem to recirculate the air from evaporative coolers, making it wetter and wetter until finally you actually get hotter as the extremely humid air wrecks your body's cooling mechanisms.

I've seen threads/interweb-pages on building "swamp coolers" (evaporative coolers) for small campers. From what I can tell (no personal experience), they will work (on a reasonable amount of battery power) in dry climates like the American Southwest, and, of course, similar climates in Australia.

In homes in Albuquerque, it's almost the only type of air conditioning. They need nearly constant repairs, but are simple enough that the home owner can do it. The built in home models do take air from outside, and the recommendation is to crack a window to keep the moisture comfortable. If I ever build one for our tear, I'll plan to do that part the same way.

That may be in our future if we start camping more in the Southwest, particularly on shoulder seasons or the Summer. For the mid-West and Northeast, where we spend Summers now, it would be way too humid too even consider. (I grew up in Upstate New York and never even heard of evaporative cooling.) So we drag along a "real" air conditioner and are restricted to using it when we camp with shore power (or vice versa).

Since you mention recirculating air through evaporative coolers, my understanding is it only goes so far, and once the moisture content in the space is similar to our mid-West it effectively stops cooling. However, we have a friend with a portable model, and she uses it in her apartment and claims it works that way just fine. She doesn't understand thermodynamics, you see, so it works for her.

Tom

[Patrio]

I'm in WV, lol.

Pretty much find an outlet, bring a genny, or don't plan on sleeping.

80 degrees at night and 80% humidity means basting in your own sweat.

You can get by if you can move a LOT of air, but then if you can do that, you probably have power to run AC anyway.

I just use a window unit. Specifically designed mine with that in mind.

[MickinOz]

She doesn't understand thermodynamics, you see, so it works for her.

Tom

Ah, that is funny. But I do know so many people who do not get it. Here in my home town where the average rainfall is a touch more than 10 inches a year, you'll always meet someone who says their swampy is a POS and they are swapping to refrigerated but they are worried about the electricity bill, then you find out they barely open a window to let the air flow happen when they use the swampy.

I'm in South Oz where, for the vast majority of the time, it's as dry as a lime burner's boot.
I'd have the cooler I linked to if I could come up with a decent way to fit it.
Mostly its about how/where to mount it to draw directly from outside.

[mtbikernate]

yeah, most of my life has been spent in the midwest and southeast.

no such thing as a swamp cooler in those parts. didn't know such a thing really existed until after college when I had a summer job in the desert.

In a small trailer, a maxxfan with the windows open can really get a lot of air moving and with really lightweight bedding, it's good enough for me. the only time it gets difficult to have that much cross ventilation is when I need to button down a bit when it's raining. I probably ought to figure out a way to make small awnings that cover just my windows for these situations and I can't deploy the big awning due to wind.

I did add some vent ports that keep rain (and bugs) out to help a couple years ago. They still don't allow quite as much airflow as opening the side windows.



But when it's pouring, you need something...

[MickinOz]

But when it's pouring, you need something...

What is this thing called "pouring"?

[mtbikernate]

But when it's pouring, you need something...

What is this thing called "pouring"?

headed out for a long weekend in a month to a spot that got almost 2ft of rain from one storm over the course of a couple days back in August.

I actually rode out a tropical storm in my trailer in October of 2020. bailed out on another trip earlier in 2020 because of a different tropical storm.

there's that old adage about rain and camping, and it seems true more often than not.

[featherliteCT1]

mtbikernate,

I think rigging up an awning device for rain conditions is a great way to go.

I used some 3M VHB tape to attach an 24 inch long piece of 2x 2 inch aluminum angle horizontally, on the outside skin of the trailer, above the slider window. Then I built a cheap three sided wooden awning out of 1/4 inch plywood to hang and snug up under the flat of the aluminum angle. The awning is just three rectangular pieces of plywood about 5 inches wide x 24 inches long; with the three pieces forming a roof and two sides.

I attached an eyelet on the underside of each end of the aluminum angle and attached a corresponding eyelet on each side piece, a few inches down from the top. When the awning is attached, the roof of the awning fits flush with the underside of the aluminum angle.

I use a 1/4 inch turnbuckle, with hooks on each end, to snug the roof of the awning up under each eyelet on the end of the aluminum angle.

So, there are two turnbuckles, one turnbuckle on each end of the awning.

I glued rubber window seal material onto the edges of the awning pieces to avoid scratching the exterior walls of the trailer while attached.

Very simple and quick mounting and unmounting. I only attach the awning when I am parked. Below is a link to the turnbuckle I am referring to.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/National-Hardw ... 1000422515

[mtbikernate]

if I did awnings, I'd go the fabric route. lighter, more packable. use a couple short fiberglass rods to support them and tension the fabric. would have to work out a design to get it all to work how I see in my head. there are parts that I have no idea whether they exist, and if they do, what to call them.

I have a big Foxwing awning that protects one of my windows from rain, but I'm only going to deploy it if wind is low.

and if the weather is rowdy enough that it's pouring, I'm not going to put it up in the first place. but I WOULD put up little fabric awnings over each of the windows.

[featherliteCT1]

mtbikernate,

I agree whole heartedly with your observations. If you ever rig up a fabric awning that works, let us know. I thought about a fabric awning but could not figure out how to make it work. Plus, i was in a hurry to go on a trip and once I had the awning made out of wood, I never went back after three years of use. Lucky for me, I have a good place to store the awnings that takes up little extra space. Not sure if I was just being lazy or ignorant.

[mtbikernate]

mtbikernate,

I agree whole heartedly with your observations. If you ever rig up a fabric awning that works, let us know. I thought about a fabric awning but could not figure out how to make it work. Plus, i was in a hurry to go on a trip and once I had the awning made out of wood, I never went back after three years of use. Lucky for me, I have a good place to store the awnings that takes up little extra space. Not sure if I was just being lazy or ignorant.

my idea looks something like this. Except sized WAY down, just small enough for the little side window.

61a247e4cc28b42a151bf9e8c1e0afbc.jpg (135.84 KiB) Viewed 424 times

with the pole resting in little anchors on the side of the camper body and maybe a single straight strut that fits into a little fabric pocket on the awning and rests on a base against the camper that makes sure the whole thing stays taut away from the camper. The poles would effectively make a "T" shape, or maybe more accurately, look something like this from above since the ends of the cross would curve back around to the camper.

[featherliteCT1]

That design just might work! I never thought about using the springy poles. I am wondering if the spring loaded awning would resist lateral movement and flopping around as the wind blows when it rains.

[mtbikernate]

That design just might work! I never thought about using the springy poles. I am wondering if the spring loaded awning would resist lateral movement and flopping around as the wind blows when it rains.

it'll probably depend on how well the poles anchor to the trailer body, so it will probably be heavily dependent on that hardware and the tension in the poles. For the top, I'm envisioning some kind of channel that mounts permanently to the camper above the window, and a corresponding piece permanently attached to the awning that would slide right in.

I don't think it would need to stick out super far away from the camper, but I would appreciate it covering at least half the vertical length of the window, I think. If you wanted to make it more stable in wind, I bet you could use 3 poles total. the one long pole that creates the arch shape, and then 2 more poles that extend from the corners of the channel on the camper body to corresponding fabric pockets at the center of the awning. I bet that shape would be pretty stout in wind.

[featherliteCT1]

Oh yeah! The channel you are talking about reminds me of keder rail that is used to secure RV awnings to the eve of the trailer. Keep going, I need you to build a prototype and perfect this design so I can copy what you do!