small a/c unit

[Hardin Valley Magic]

anyone ever heard of these or have one??
http://www.gotoreviews.com/archives/metaefficient/

search air conditioning

[bdosborn]

I don't have a Kar Kool but I made one that works pretty good.



Bruce

[madjack]

Steve, those units have been discussed before...they work fine as long as humidity is low here is a linky
madjack

[Hardin Valley Magic]

Thanks for the ideas. After much of the building is complete THEN add air the second build should go smoother..

[Sonetpro]

I am building mine now. I found a new petcool on ebay for $350 shipping included. Not a bad price for a 2000 btu heat pump. only 39lbs and small footprint. and only draws 400 watt's. I have tested it with my 1000 watt Honda and it works fine. Heat and A/C in a 39lb 13x13x16 box works for me...Steve

[Arne]

re the pet kool, can you give some feed back on noise level on heat and cool?

It might be somthing I'd put in tear no. 2... it would be hard mounted in the rear of the tear, and noise and viabration would be a concern....

[Sonetpro]

I too was concerned with that. Mine will be mounted in the cabinet above the bed. heat and fan is fairly quiet. when the compressor is on for A/C it is kinda noisy the fan for the condenser seems to be the culprit. I am going to experiment with some computer fan's to see if I can get sufficient airflow at less noise. it will also be mounted cradled by 3" high density foam. That should eliminate vibration. I will post the results....Steve

[Dooner]

Just thinking out loud guys.

What if you take Bruce's (bdosborn) basic idea and instead of an evaporative media, you used an auto heater core and pumped ice cold water from an ice chest through it. Do you think that would work at all? And if yes, maybe it could help out the guys in the high humidity areas.

Should I have filed for a patent before think out loud?

[Sonetpro]

Dooner, I also live in a high humidity area. I researched that very same idea. but if you put the math to it it would require like 100lbs a day of ice in order for it to be feasable. I would much rather mount a 39lb unit and haul a 30 generator. Just my $.02..Steve

[madjack]

Just thinking out loud guys.

What if you take Bruce's (bdosborn) basic idea and instead of an evaporative media, you used an auto heater core and pumped ice cold water from an ice chest through it. Do you think that would work at all? And if yes, maybe it could help out the guys in the high humidity areas.

Should I have filed for a patent before think out loud?

Dooner there is a unit called a koolaire(Ithink) that does something similar...it has a chambered box that sits in a cooler coverd in ice and has a small fan that pushes air thru it...as I recall they are fairly inexpensive and work well from what I have read...just about every other month this discussion is revisited and there are some great ideas/alternatives that come up...but unless you camp in a dry an $80 window shaker from the box stores is awfully hard to beat for the money
madjack

[Dooner]

Sonetpro,
I understand what your saying, but I don't think it would take that much ice IMHO. I have some relatives that could not afford AC in there home. They would use evaporative coolers to help out with the heat. They would freeze some gallon milk jugs of water and set them inside the coolers to cool the water. The ice seemed to last most of the day.
I was thinking of keeping the ice in a seporate 5 day cooler so the only thing that would be melting the ice a little faster would be the water going through the heater core. Seems if you but a couple large ice jugs and some smaller cubes, it would last a couple of nights (not running during the day).
It was just a thought.

Mr. Madjack (respectfully),
I think I saw the Koolaire that you speak of. Doesn't it use the same principle as the evaporative cooler? My thoughts were that if the cold water would run through a core (coil), it would condensate and take out some of the moisture (humidity). Remembering that the water and ice would be seporated from the airflow, so not to add more moisture.
Maybe it would be an aternative for no shore power. I don't know how long AC would last with an inverter and battery.
Remember, just thinking.
I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy

[Sonetpro]

Here is a link to somebody that has made what you were talking about....Steve

http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/%7Egmilburn ... ff_ac.html

[madjack]

Mr. Madjack (respectfully),
I think I saw the Koolaire that you speak of. Doesn't it use the same principle as the evaporative cooler? My thoughts were that if the cold water would run through a core (coil), it would condensate and take out some of the moisture (humidity). Remembering that the water and ice would be seporated from the airflow, so not to add more moisture.
Maybe it would be an aternative for no shore power. I don't know how long AC would last with an inverter and battery.
Remember, just thinking.
I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy

Dooner the kooleraire uses air instead of water in system like you are descibing...a sealed box is in a cooler full of ice and air is blown thru the box and cooled, theer is no evaporative process at work like in a swamp cooler
madjack

p.s. ain't none of us worthy but we just keep on keepin'on

[bdosborn]

I agree with Madjack: the home center $80 AC is probably the cheapest and most effective option for cooling a Tear. I left out AC thinking we would never need it since we camp in the mountains most of the time. We really changed our mind after Minden. The swamp cooler is the only option that made sense since we do mostly dry camping and haven't worked up to hauling a generator around (yet). Our 120 amp-hr battery will run the swamp cooler for about 20 hours using around 1/2 gallon of water every 4 hours. We haven't camped with it yet but it worked great in the garage when it was 85 out.
Bruce

[Hardin Valley Magic]

After further reveiw we have decided that the big box stores have them locally for around $70-$80. So were going with one of them..Thanks for the info on different ideas though..