Solar AC

I use to really soak the batts down with a hose first. It gave better instant cooling and the water wicks better afterwards.

RoyB wrote:
When we lived in Tempe AZ back in the late 60's that all the houses there had...
Swamp coolers on the roof and you crack open a couple of well picked out windows for best draft...

The only bad thing was changing out the filters on the roof. This was prime breeding grounds for Black Widow Spiders haha...

Roy Ken

I learned real quick that you MUST run the pump on the swamp cooler BEFORE turning on the blower. If not, you end up blowing about 2 pounds of dust into the house! :S

LOL

Jim in Denver,

I made no mention of shade. I said clouds. Not the same (-:

Jim

Water reserve is a good thing when out in the woods

I carry 65 gallons of potable water and mostly camp by lakes and rivers which contribute to the cooling water supply as well as fresh fish supply. Summer time is normally <10% humidity so a swamp cooler works great for us into the late evenings even better it cools off at night during the hotter summer months around these parts.

No worries about battery amp hours being used during the Spring Summer and Fall - 560 watts of Solar PV array takes care of that - when winter arrives the rig is put away for the season in a heated barn. Darn that was yesterday back in the barn for the season looking forward to the next one - on to other projects

JiminDenver wrote:
It is very dry here most of the time and swamp coolers work well. I don't have the water reserves to run one while boondocking.

Exactly. It works where it's dry, so there is usually no water around.

Besides, small 12V swamp cooler draws ~5A (3A when it works as a fan, no evaporating pump). It will take one pretty big panel to run it.

One thing that people forget is that very, very often it's not the day but the night when you need cooling. You can fool around in daytime, but when it's too hot in the night, you can't sleep and it sucks. So count on ~ 14 hours in 24 hours period, this is 70 AH = 250W panel to run this device only.

It is very dry here most of the time and swamp coolers work well. I don't have the water reserves to run one while boondocking.

smkettner wrote:
My trailer barely stays cool with 13.5k BTU. 5000 BTU? I would need three.
The other benefit to 3000w of panels will be the shade they create over the RV.

The trailer in the first video wasn't cooling down much either. His panels rarely kept up, the inverter cables were heating up and the inverter itself would go into thermal overload every so often.

There are a few other videos like it, all include the smallest AC units.

jauguston wrote:
You have to consider solar output takes a dramatic drop in output when its cloudy. The panel output ratings are under ideal labratory conditions and are not necessarily what they will do out in the real world on a day to day basis. I have a 800w solar system on my coach and it does not produce anywhere near 800w most of the time. Sometimes it will show 41-42a output other times less than 10a - depends on the weather.

Jim

Jim

Having AC run on solar at all is pretty cool, I think they are still working on running it in the shade. ;)

Jim

When we lived in Tempe AZ back in the late 60's that all the houses there had...
Swamp coolers on the roof and you crack open a couple of well picked out windows for best draft...

The only bad thing was changing out the filters on the roof. This was prime breeding grounds for Black Widow Spiders haha...

Roy Ken

My swamp cooler works great
Current consumption about 3amps for the 12Vdc blower motor
Something to be said for a low humidity environment