True battery powered AC/not swamp cooler - Fiberglass RV
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Old 08-03-2019, 05:32 PM   #1
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Name: Mitzi
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True battery powered AC/not swamp cooler

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/z...E#/updates/all
Looks like a good one to me. Can't use swamp coolers in Florida's humid environment. The compressor has been miniaturized to the size of a Coke can.
Its 24 volts 210 watts. Run time on rechargeable battery pack is 4-5 hours.

Looks like a winner to me.
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Old 08-03-2019, 06:13 PM   #2
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Claims 2,356 BTUs, Less than half the BTUs of a standard small window A/C unit (5,000) and only 18 percent of the common roof A/C unit (which admittedly is over kill for a small FBRV). Runs on 24 volts so you can NOT use a single camper battery to supplement power. You could use shore power with a 24 volt source but whats the point.. if you have shore power get a real A/C. Looks like it might provide a cool breeze for up to five hours but wont cool much of an area. Guess we will know in a few months if it ships in November as planned.
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Old 08-03-2019, 06:27 PM   #3
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It also has to be vented to the outside with the two big tubes shown. Otherwise it will have no net gain in the trailer. But if you leave a window open to do this, what have you gained?

Even if it did produce a useable amount of cold air, it will only do it for 5 hours max. Then what do you do? At about 1/5 the BTU capacity of a normal trailer unit, it doesn't seem practical.

It seems the advertising is misleading.
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Old 08-03-2019, 06:28 PM   #4
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They have a 12v to 24v converter. And it's aimed at tent campers and small RVers-possibly tiny house residents.
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Old 08-03-2019, 07:40 PM   #5
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Originally Posted by Mitzi Agnew-Giles View Post
They have a 12v to 24v converter. And it's aimed at tent campers and small RVers-possibly tiny house residents.
Yeah you can up-convert the voltage.. at reduced run time.

Please let us know how it works for you.
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Old 08-03-2019, 10:50 PM   #6
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Claims 2,356 BTUs, Less than half the BTUs of a standard small window A/C unit (5,000) and only 18 percent of the common roof A/C unit (which admittedly is over kill for a small FBRV). Runs on 24 volts so you can NOT use a single camper battery to supplement power. You could use shore power with a 24 volt source but whats the point.. if you have shore power get a real A/C. Looks like it might provide a cool breeze for up to five hours but wont cool much of an area. Guess we will know in a few months if it ships in November as planned.
A better choice might be a 24volt battery system with a 24v solar panel to keep it charged. That works out OK because because a lot of the DC fridges will run on 24v power. Australia will be a great customer base for them as they use 24v in many of their RVs. It is easy to wire up a pair of batteries for 24v and it is easy to purchase 24v solar panels in the USA.
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Old 08-03-2019, 10:57 PM   #7
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you need to watch out for these crowdfunding little AC things.


About 5 years ago the "NovaKool" was crowdfunded. All the media websites jumped on promoting it way sooner that they should have. It has since gone through a name change to "Kapsul" but they have missed 4 years of delivery deadlines with nothing but promises being given to drag in new funders who "prepay" their orders. Also the unit the are promising would be very small has kept increasing in size every year. But after 5 years with millions in funding they have yet to deliver one single working unit to any investor.
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Old 08-04-2019, 07:32 PM   #8
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Name: Fredrick
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Cooling a smallish RV or TT????

Why not one of these https://www.amazon.com/Igloo-40358-P.../dp/B008AQK1NC

and a 12v powered fan??
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Old 08-04-2019, 09:04 PM   #9
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Fred, from experience...about 30 of them with 30 batteries and 30 solar panels...I have been deeply researching this question along with a lot of other people and SO FAR, no practical means of real AC run on DC power has been discovered...sorry.........
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Old 08-04-2019, 09:13 PM   #10
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Why not one of these https://www.amazon.com/Igloo-40358-P.../dp/B008AQK1NC

and a 12v powered fan??

Actually, what you do is fill that thermoelectric cooler with beer and drink it when it is cold, cooling you down from the inside. After several beers, you won't care that it doesn't really work very well.
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Old 08-04-2019, 10:48 PM   #11
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Looking at BTU calculations the minimum for a 17 foot trailer is 5000 BTU.
Guess it might keep a car/ truck/ van cool but that is about it.
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Old 08-04-2019, 11:04 PM   #12
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They have a 12v to 24v converter. And it's aimed at tent campers and small RVers-possibly tiny house residents.

A tent is the least insulated dwelling I can think of.
I would not anticipate getting this item or getting my money back. That promotional letter reads like a Nigerian scam.
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Old 08-05-2019, 05:28 AM   #13
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I will just say this with a fair knowledge base of what I'm saying. You are generally far better off using AC items that are energy star compliant than DC items. The gains you will get and the cost savings will allow for a nice sine way inverter with minimal efficiency losses.


My 5cuft chest freezer that I modified to a fridge for example only used 12 watts per hour even sitting outside in the Arizona sun.



I also have a modified 5,000 BTU AC unit, it has a hard start cap in it, a relay and a time delay that spools up the fan to high before kicking in the compressor so there isn't a motor and compressor load at the same time which drastically reduces start up current. With this, I pull less than 300 watts per hour (360 when running) and you calculate run times from this.



With 1,340 flat mounted watts of solar and a 6,000 watt battery bank I could sleep in 4-6 extra hours running AC, I could run the toaster oven for an hour, the microwave and so on.


I wouldn't mess with most of the gimmicks floating around. Spend the money you save on a better solar set up.



Currently in AZ (ideal sun ideal time of year, less than Ideally mounted panels, less than ideally efficient grid tie inverters) in 14 days I've collected 76kwh of solar from 1,220 watts of panels which works out to about 5,400 watts per day in a fairly optimal situation. Again, just another real world statistic to help you make informed sizing choices.



Lastly, the first thing I would do on ANY RV I ever bought would be converting to 24V for a tone of reasons. The water pump and converter/charger will be the two biggest issues but both can be had for $200ish. I only run 24V systems and the difference is noticeable!
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Old 08-05-2019, 06:32 AM   #14
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Battery powered AC is easy, all you have to do is invest in a thousand pounds or so of batteries and a second trailer carrying a big foldout solar array...
Easier and cheaper would be a very muffled and sound isolated inverter generator.
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Old 08-05-2019, 06:44 AM   #15
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TucsonAZ did you convert your Lil Snoozy to solar with 2 12V batteries? If so I have an absolute TON of ?s.
This is something I am putting on a back burner otherwise. For a variety of reasons we may not be able to shelter in the Snoozy for hurricane aftermath. Heat and humidity in the aftermath of a hurricane would have the capability of killing me. So I am just bookmarking it.
. I still have the Tent Mahal I hauled up and down the west side of the east coast in 2007, a true battery powered airconditioner would do me a lot more good than a swamp cooler. Ice for powering a swamp cooler would be in short supply.

If you remember the footpowered washing machine Drumi www.yirego.com I had that bookmarked for the couple of years during its development also.
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Old 08-05-2019, 08:30 AM   #16
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AC>???

I was just foolin ya'll re the battery cooler + battery fan thing.
Our solution was to dry camp in VT last sumer for 3 weeks..using the AC + generator only for a little while on only 2 days when it got really warm.(it sometimes does get warm in northern VT in August) The other days we didn't need the generator at all bks the 120W solar pannels kept the battery up easily.
WE usually cook outside when camping anyways, and use a small 12V fan at night if we need air and "noise" We made the newbie mistake of camping for a week in July last year at Cape San Blas in FL panhandle..holy sheiite was it hot and humid..we ran the AC nearly 100% of thwe time we were IN the trailer. Will not do that again.
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Old 08-05-2019, 08:49 AM   #17
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I also have a modified 5,000 BTU AC unit, it has a hard start cap in it, a relay and a time delay that spools up the fan to high before kicking in the compressor so there isn't a motor and compressor load at the same time which drastically reduces start up current. With this, I pull less than 300 watts per hour (360 when running) and you calculate run times from this.


Currently in AZ (ideal sun ideal time of year, less than Ideally mounted panels, less than ideally efficient grid tie inverters) in 14 days I've collected 76kwh of solar from 1,220 watts of panels which works out to about 5,400 watts per day in a fairly optimal situation. Again, just another real world statistic to help you make informed sizing choices.
Thanks for the real world numbers from you collectors. Getting real numbers from flat mounted panels is very useful.

I didn't see what type of batteries you are using, and I'm assuming the 76 kwh you collected was measured before the batteries and not from the batteries after charging them. Have you measured the losses during charging? I'm curious what the battery inefficiency might be with your particular batteries, but I'm expecting about 25% or more.

Second question is: Why did you put the time delay relay on the compressor instead of the fan? It seems starting the compressor with no other load, would be better than staring it with the fan at full speed. I get that your method avoids the starting surge for the fan, at the same time as the compressor, but it doesn't eliminate the running load when starting the compressor, and since the compressor is the largest draw of the two, it needs all the help it can get. It's a great idea to separate the two during startup. I never thought of doing that.
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Old 08-05-2019, 11:49 AM   #18
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Just finished wiring my Trailer 12 VDC side. I have a 45 Amp 12VDC automatic charger with a VRS (Voltage Sensing Relay) to separate the 2 batteries. The larger one is dedicated to the fridge and the smaller one is the rest of the trailer. There is a bypass switch to connect the 2 batteries together. Gauges on all devices so I know what is happening to the charger and batteries.
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Old 08-05-2019, 05:38 PM   #19
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Originally Posted by redbarron55 View Post
Battery powered AC is easy, all you have to do is invest in a thousand pounds or so of batteries and a second trailer carrying a big foldout solar array...
Easier and cheaper would be a very muffled and sound isolated inverter generator.



Not even remotely accurate.
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Old 08-05-2019, 06:50 PM   #20
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Lets just use 5 amps for the AC (maybe).
Lets assume it runs 12 of 24 hours a day (Most RV take a lot of ac due to poor insulation)
5 amps at 120 volts would be 50 amps at 12 volts and lets be generous and say that is 52 to account for the losses in the inverter.
52 amps X 12 volts (well really more like 12.5) 625 watts not taking into account for the AC power factor. 625 x 12 = 7488 watt hours. since we are talking AC the powerfactor will be probably around 80% but we will just use 90% instead so we are looking at 8263 watt hours daily.
This means that you will need half of that each 12 hours day and night.
You will have to have at least twice that 625 watts to run the AC and charge the batteries for the night. If lead acid you should not discharge less than 50% so you will need a pretty good stack of batteries and a pretty god sized array of solar panels to charge them.
It adds up pretty quickly. roughly 1200 watts of solar panels and however the batteries work out for the night roughly 1200 amp hours of batteries.
Of course there are a lot of assumptions.
Since this is off the cuff and typed while I was checking into the ARES Ham emergency net I have not spent a lot of time with the calculations.
The generator (If possible to use) is cheaper and easier.
My 2200 watt LP generator easily runs my Mini-Split and peaks at 9 amps and can be 5 sometimes. Pretty quiet and runs 20 hours on a "20" lb LP tank.
Of course where you don;t need much AC it would take less power.
The basic problem is the AC tends to be a relentless power draw, mitigated by high efficiency units and really good insulation.
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