adamis
Northern California
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Those are all home based units. The idea is to replace two large bulky items with one singular smaller bulky item that does two things. I don't need to run it forever on battery power, just an hour of runtime would be enough to do what I need to do. Anything else I could plug into shorepower. While it would be great to have something super efficient, I'm trying to eliminate bulk, not add to it.
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time2roll
Southern California
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adamis wrote:Those are all home based units. The idea is to replace two large bulky items with one singular smaller bulky item that does two things. I don't need to run it forever on battery power, just an hour of runtime would be enough to do what I need to do. Anything else I could plug into shorepower. While it would be great to have something super efficient, I'm trying to eliminate bulk, not add to it. Nothing wrong with that.
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valhalla360
No paticular place.
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So 600w of panels will likely produce something around 2400w-hr per day.
The unit pulls about 1000w when running, so that gets you around 2.4hr of air/con per day. Slightly more in heating mode. This all assumes a 100% solar/battery system.
With this setup, you can say you have air/con but really other than cooling off during a quick lunch stop, it's not going to work.
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mkirsch
Rochester, NY
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Bus Grease Monkey on youtube put some sort of heat pump system on his personal bus a couple of years ago and was real happy with it.
Of course he had a little more room for the unit and the solar paneling, as he has a BUS.
The reality of this discussion is you're not going to get anything but armchair quarterbacking and naysaying, as nobody has experience with doing what you are trying to do. It's not like installing fender flares.
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StirCrazy
Kamloops, BC, Canada
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I saw this and though neat, then I started working out some numbers if you ran it on 12V power. start up 400amps for 150ms , cooling 84 amps , heating 74 amps. now these are maximum numbers but are you only useing this plugged in? or are you towing a trailer with a huge battery bank and fold up awnings on each side loaded with solar panels.
I don't have AC in my camper so I am not sure what that takes but in my 5th wheel I can run it if I am luckey on a 15 amp circut some times , so I imagin it is surging to 18ish amps on start up. so this is more efficient than normal ac units, but this is a little over 1/2 the output of a 13.5btu ac unit at 8200 btu, and for heat it is only 5797btu. so how long will it have to run to do a simluar job or will it even keep up? I like the idea of a heat pump though if you going to be plugged in, but for heat in the fall I don't think you can beat the good old propane furnace using a whopping 2.9 amps of 12V.
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Samsonsworld
West Texas
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By current ductwork, you mean the furnace ducts? I can't imagine it would cool very well blowing at your feet. Think I'd rather have the topside A/C since cool air falls.
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valhalla360
No paticular place.
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mkirsch wrote:The reality of this discussion is you're not going to get anything but armchair quarterbacking and naysaying, as nobody has experience with doing what you are trying to do. It's not like installing fender flares.
The reason you aren't seeing a lot of people doing it is because it's impractical.
When you do find the rare person claiming to have done it, they gloss over the severe limitations. Just because most of us have looked at the numbers and realized it's not practical doesn't mean we don't know what we are talking about.
No naysaying, show us the numbers for a system that works. Either you can or you can't.
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adamis
Northern California
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valhalla360 wrote:mkirsch wrote:The reality of this discussion is you're not going to get anything but armchair quarterbacking and naysaying, as nobody has experience with doing what you are trying to do. It's not like installing fender flares.
The reason you aren't seeing a lot of people doing it is because it's impractical.
When you do find the rare person claiming to have done it, they gloss over the severe limitations. Just because most of us have looked at the numbers and realized it's not practical doesn't mean we don't know what we are talking about.
No naysaying, show us the numbers for a system that works. Either you can or you can't.
What we have discovered in other discussions is that this will work in some parts of the country and might not in other parts. On the West Coast, even on hot days we typically need the AC to run maybe for lunch while on the road and for an hour or two in the evening to cool the camper down. Most of the places you want to camp are going to cool down in the evening so only 2 to 3 hours of AC run time are necessary to make a substantial impact on camping experience.
Contrast that with folks in the South where it stays hot and humid throughout the day and evening and the AC needs to run 24/7 then solar and batteries won't cut it. However, there is still a lot of advantage in those locations to being able to run the AC on battery for two or three hours and I still think would be worthwhile for those inclined to do it. If you end up needing more, you are already lugging around a generator anyway or plugging into shore power so you aren't taking away your options, just adding to them.
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Grit dog
Black Diamond, WA
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Ok, I live on the "West Coast" and while what you say may be true on a "travel" day where you only use the camper at lunch and then beginning in the evening, there isn't a chance in ____ that your camper doesn't get screamin hot sitting about anywhere in Cali that you can reasonably drive it to, ALL day on an average summer day...
This thought is even less practical than $750 shocks, unfortunately.
The endless pursuit for a better mousetrap is what makes the world go around. But many/most times, re-inventing the wheel is less than fruitful.
Or think of it this way, IF what you're proposing was even remotely practical or cost effective, do you not think that at least a few of the 100s? of RV manufacturers would not have already employed this idea?
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time2roll
Southern California
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If I could push the 2 hour run time into 4 to 6 hours through a more efficient chiller that would be worth considering IMO. More effective than going 2x or 3x on battery and solar. Otherwise the existing plan will work fine for what it is.
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