adamis wrote:
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.
So basically, if you don't really need air/con, it will run the air/con for long enough is what you are suggesting.
If you can run it for an hour or two in the evening and then it's cool enough the rest of the night...I've found in those conditions a shady site and/or the windows open/fans blowing thru will cool it to comfortable levels quicker.
If we are just stopping for lunch and it's hot, by the time it's cooling off noticeably, we would typically be back on the road.
It's such a narrow window of usefulness it's really not worth the trouble. Doubly so when you figure in the high cost and complexity of building a system that can run for even these short time periods.
Now if you are deep into building a big solar/battery systems and know all the pros and cons and how you would use it, have at it. But for the random person with little prior knowledge, highlighting the severe limitations compared to the cost & complexity of implementation, for most it's just silly to think it's a reasonable option.
