| Author | Message | ||
| Johnny (63.159.128.35)
Rating: N/A |
SUMMER IS HERE! It's a rather-muggy 85 today. At work today, the A/C in my shuttle bus (Ford E-450 cutaway) crapped out. The A/C in my Cadillac crapped out. My wife called me to tell me (what else?) that the A/C in her Cherokee had crapped out. Since I've had compressors, condensers, R-134a, & cold air on my mind all day, this idea came from...well, someplace. I'm contemplating building a generator out of a minicar engine (probably a Geo Metro 1.0 or a Festiva 1.3). What about this: in addition to the generator, use the engine to also spin an A/C compressor (or two?) for cooling while dry-camping? Also, what about mounting a 12V rear A/C (Carrier, TransAir, & a few others make them) for on-the-road cooling? | ||
| brandon s owen (Brando) (208.251.255.26)
Rating: N/A |
WOW! if only i had that much time on my hands! | ||
| Steve (208.19.55.140) Rating: N/A |
Good idea to grab up a donor engine if you know how to build your own jenny, but why not rob a diesel, instead of gas? Steve | ||
| DrivingMissLazy (24.196.191.70)
Rating: N/A |
Johnny, one problem with your idea is how to maintain engine rpm under varying load conditions. The governor must be responsive enough to react to any sudden change of load on the generator or compressor. You need to maintain the alternator at 1800 rpm, plus or minus 5-10 rpm to maintain 60 hertz AC output. Richard | ||
| Peter Broadribb (Madbrit) (208.186.37.219)
Rating: N/A |
Can't you use a cruise-control? The type that uses magnetic pick-ups on the drive shaft and put the magnets on the flywheel or front crank hub. Using a diesel motor from a Refer truck has been discussed before, and I think that the consensus of opinion was that it was cheaper in the long run to buy a ready made genset. By the time a frame was made and the motor was joined to the genhead and all the electronics were sorted, things were getting close financially. Also, apparently a bunch of these cheap genheads are not too clever on the quality of power they put out. Peter. Peter. | ||
| FAST FRED (67.75.113.1) Rating: N/A |
Go big bucks and get a trace 2440 or similar and feed it DC from the biggest alt you can find. Spin it with your favorite engine & use a welding Volts controller. Slow to respond but that 1 second is what the batts are for. Works in boats , where a very high std of living is the norm. FAST FRED | ||
| Scott Whitney (66.82.9.14) Rating: N/A |
Check out this .pdf brochure for Whisper Air which is a DC air conditioner: http://www.victronenergy.com/DatasheetsPDF/WhisperAir/UKDFNLWhisperAir.pdf Scott | ||
| Erich (216.132.61.162) Rating: N/A |
The whisper air is rated at 6800 BTU/HR. This makes it half the capacity of a typical roof air conditioner. While on it uses 350 Watt or about 30 Amps at 12 Volts Erich Sizing the rest of the system is left as an exercise to the reader | ||
| Johnny (63.159.152.52)
Rating: N/A |
"Good idea to grab up a donor engine if you know how to build your own jenny, but why not rob a diesel, instead of gas? Steve" My conversion is a long-nose school bus, with a gas engine. | ||
| Johnny (63.159.152.52)
Rating: N/A |
On a positive note, my F-350 is back on the road after a run-in with a red-light-running clown in a Nissan Frontier, & it has working A/C.  |