Solar direct air conditioner

[bluedog225]

Jage's purchase of the Kyocera 185 watt panel got me thinking about options for solar air conditioning.

It gets a little warm in these parts. It would be nice to be able to escape the heat from about 11 an to 4 pm.

Even a small portable ac requires too many panels.

I wonder if a small freezer like the SunDanzer could double as a van ac? Put refletix in all the windows, crank it to full power and blow a small fan into the open door.

I guess the way to see if this setup has any chance of lowering the temp is to set up a cheap 120v refridge or freezer and see how much it lowers the temp on a 100 F sunny day.
Just thinking out loud.

Tom

[rockbender]

You'd have to do a good job of isolating the compressor system to the outside so that the hot air off of that isn't heating your van. I can feel my fridge put off a fair amount of heat when its working.

[Tapatio]

How about an evaporative cooler like this one? Solar panel would easily power it, 4.6amps on high. One of the comments said it consumes 5 gallons of water per day.

http://www.amazon.com/Turbo-Cool-RV-...7570643&sr=8-1

[daveb]

Originally Posted by bluedog225

I wonder if a small freezer like the SunDanzer could double as a van ac? Put refletix in all the windows, crank it to full power and blow a small fan into the open door.


Tom

I'm not sure but I doubt it Tom. Besides the BTU factor, running the refrigerator at 100% might take a toll on it. I'm more incline to look into the tech junk out there that cools vehicle seats and incorporate that into the bed. A nice cool slab to lay on. Coupled with a fan, I figure most would feel somewhat comfortable.

Myself, I'm waithing for the day to find a power source small and compact enough to run a real air conditionar...

Dave

[LenS]

How much cooler do you want it?

I figure the swamp cooler shown above that consumes 5 gallons of water per day would lower then temperature in a low humidity area by about 11F.

If it is 100F outside and a sunny Texas day the van inside temp could get up to 120F very easily. My experience is that one of the small A/C 5200 btu units will drop the temp in my van about 30F. So even one of those would only get you down to about 90F. Even an Energy Star 5200 btu unit will consume about 400-450 watts. I would guess that a small refrig or freezer that consumes say 100 watts would only put out 1000 btu's and that would translate into lowering the van temperature by 6F. Not much. Think you need a 10,000 btu a/c unit and a very long extension cord for Texas summers.

[bluedog225]

Thanks for the suggestions. I don't think evap coolers work well around here because the humidity is usually pretty high.

The numbers help clear up my fuzzy thinking. I have always thought that a 9000 btu ac would freeze out a smb on a hot sunny day. I guess I need to check that out. It still would be nice to have a variable input dc cooling system to hook up to whatever solar or wind power that was available.

I appreciate the input.

Tom

[Bigduke6]

Since we're thinking out loud, I was thinking the other day about a 12 volt motor that attaches to the factory ac compressor. No idea how much power it would require to run or the rpm's needed. Too much coffee and the south Texas heat combined with a little ADD don't let me run the details to ground, but could be possible if power Needs aren't too high. Flash. How about wind power? Either dc wind generator or shaft/ gear drive. I usually want to camp and windsurf at the same time so have that other source of energy. How's that for fuzzy thinking?

[daveb]

I do not know how well the Danhard AC system SMB installs works without the engine running. I've been told it's not bad, but nobody (as far as I know) has offered up any numbers showing what it does on shore power. I'd like to hear from them.


My starcool will freeze me out with the factory and the DC portion of the Starcool operating while in motion, but my starcool is basically worthless on shore power alone and just can't keep up with the sun baking down on the vehicle. Parking in shade makes a big difference but I'm still lucky to get 15 degrees lower than outside temps. I've yet to see something that doesn't pull huge amounts of energy and agree with Lens.

For what its worth, Danhard (who made Starcool) has a huge selection of add on air conditioners and I might look at seeing if it possible to do a switch.
http://www.danhard.com/evap2.htm
http://www.danhard.com/revised%20catalo ... atalog.pdf
It's a huge cost though.

[witoke]

Look up Marine AC. There are units that are designed to be run independently. I don't think you can generate enough power with a full rooftop of PV's or a wind gen but you can do it with a small generator. A brief look at some of the sites will give you the power requirements.

[gerrym51]

swampy.net has a/c that work with ice