Technical adjustments or selections for hot weather camping?

Hi Jim,

I've just ordered window covers, both interior and exterior. I do have a thermostatically controlled pair of fans for the fridge.

I do keep my vents open in summer time and try to open a window on the shady side of the rv.

If I can I'll park with the nose facing north.

I do run my fantastic fan on low.

9 a.m. and I'm getting 9 amps @ 13.5 volts. That's enough to run parastic loads, the fridge fans, and the fantastic fan.

HiTech wrote:
Do you make any different selections of technology for hot weather camping?

For example some solar panels do much better than others as their temp goes higher. SOme mounting systems allow much better airflow. Some batteries are designed for high underhood temps. Maybe some other electronics are better in the heat such as solar controllers, inverters, gensets...etc?

Do you make any special provisions for additional fans? Fridge? Extra fans venting the converter? Extra cooling for the inverter? More genset cooling?

Do you specially shade any part of the RV to avoid direct sun raising the operating temp of any system?

I know you see much smaller RV's with 2 AC's on the roof here than I was used to. I have also seen a large number of home made RV's with NO windows at all, and many with covers over or behind the glass that look like they stay on all summer, if not all year.

Do you do anything special with the tires? They seem to die earlier with extreme road temps.

Jim

we spend most of march into early-to-mid april in mesa, az. the weather is usually mild enough but occasionally it gets HOT! when those days happen we pull in the slides, put the reflectix panels in the front windshield, crank on the AC (we have two compressors) and set out two small oscillating fans to help circulate the air. after AZ we spend the remainder of april and most of may in TX and/or NM and we use the same rules. we also try and get spots that are either heavily shaded or which face north or east. that keeps the sun from directly impacting the windshield.

Parking north is interesting. Minimizes the south facing wall size (solar heating) and keeps a Motorhome magnifying glass windshield out of the sun as much as possible. I like it.

Pulling in the slides isinteresting too, presumably to minimize both surface area exposed to heat and volume needing to be cooled?

So much to learn!

Jim

HiTech wrote:
Parking north is interesting. Minimizes the south facing wall size (solar heating) and keeps a Motorhome magnifying glass windshield out of the sun as much as possible. I like it.

Pulling in the slides isinteresting too, presumably to minimize both surface area exposed to heat and volume needing to be cooled?

So much to learn!

Jim

there is only a minimal reduction in the surface area exposed to heat but it does make it much, much easier to cool the interior. we utilize the same strategy whenever we're in very cold weather as it makes it easier to heat the interior.

I just got back last night from 10 days in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. I go there several times every summer and it is typically very hot and very dry. Most of my build-out is based on boondocking in the high desert.. The past few days were up around 104ºF. The temperature inside my truck camper stayed in the 75-80ºF range during the heat of the day with the A/C running continuously.

...some solar panels do much better than others as their temp goes higher. Some mounting systems allow much better airflow.

Two of my (4) solar panels are UniSolar US-64's which are supposed to degrade less when hot, but I have not made any attempt to measure their hot performance vs. my Grape Solar panels. All of the panels are on raised mounts about 1" above the roof.

Some batteries are designed for high underhood temps. Maybe some other electronics are better in the heat such as solar controllers, inverters, gensets...etc?

My Odyssey batteries are mounted in the basement of my camper and I have a fan that circulates cabin air through the basement. Even with the fan running 24/7, the batteries were up around 90ºF around the clock (as reported by the inverter & solar charge controllers). All of my chargers are temperature compensated to account for this. The batt's perform great when warm (not hot), but I am sure that this has reduced their life somewhat. I don't have a thermometer to measure ambient air temp in the basement.

My EU2000i was outside on the dusty ground in direct sunlight (and rain) the entire time and running most of the day... Current draw was 1100-1200W continuous and It never skipped a beat. I have never had any indication that it has ever overheated. Note that in these conditions, I don't run it inside the enclosure.

On Wednesday (and Thurs) I took a nap and ran the A/C from the inverter/batteries for a few hours (needed a break from both the heat and the noise). This ran the batt's down to ~70% SOC. When I re-started the generator to charge the batteries, the charge current was ~105A and after 15 minutes or so the control panel for the inverter/charger displayed an over-temperature alarm (~175ºF internal temp). I turned the charger off and allowed it to cool (fan running), then lowered the max charge current to 50A. The charger operated fine after reducing the current. Interestingly, the inverter section has never set an over-temp alarm even after operating heavy loads for hours on end.

Do you make any special provisions for additional fans? Fridge? Extra fans venting the converter? Extra cooling for the inverter? More genset cooling?

I have one "computer slot fan" inside the fridge and also one 4" fan at the top of the chimney. The fridge kept my beer at 37ºF and the freezer stayed at ~4ºF. I ran the fridge on LPG to reduce the load on my generator.
I have not added any additional cooling to the inverter/charger (which is mounted in a confined space) or generator.

Do you specially shade any part of the RV to avoid direct sun raising the operating temp of any system?

I have made Reflectix covers to go over all of my windows inside the TC. I don't honestly know how much insulation benefit I am getting (probably very little), but it does make it nice and dark inside which feels cooler and makes daytime napping easier.

I know you see much smaller RV's with 2 AC's on the roof here than I was used to.

I have one 7200 btu A/C... but then again my "RV" is a small truck camper.

Do you do anything special with the tires? They seem to die earlier with extreme road temps.

I have not done anything to protect my tires and I don't make any adjustments to the air pressure. I currently have ~75K mi. on them an expect to get another 15K.

And finally... I used excess PV-solar exclusively (via diversion-load output from the solar charge controller) to heat my shower/dishwashing water and had plenty of hot water.

Cheers,
-Mark

Pretty amazing setup.

I was thinking I could solar water heat in summer sun simply by plumbing in a bypass to the water inlet and putting a hose loop down. Even with a white hose from the full hook up faucet, the cold water coming in at 106 degrees out and sunny was within a few degrees of the temp of the hot water from the tank until it flushed through the hose. It would be pretty easy to take advantage of all that solar water heating.

On tires the problem I am seeing is the hot roads harden the tread polymer (cook out the plasticizer) and make wet road traction poor. The tires last too long rather than not long enough. It is amazing how much better new tires grip in the rain the first couple of years compared to 4 or more years of very hot summer roads cooking them. That's something I never saw in colder climates.

Jim

Hi Mark,

What solar controller are you using?

msiminoff wrote:
And finally... I used excess PV-solar exclusively (via diversion-load output from the solar charge controller) to heat my shower/dishwashing water and had plenty of hot water.

Cheers,
-Mark

I continue to really want this feature along with data logging. I envy all of you with your high powered toys.

:)

For hot weather camping I think I might even have some extra fans rigged up to a dump load.

Does anyone use a small amount of water sprayed to get evaporative cooling, similar to the operational principle of a swamp cooler?

Jim

Hi Jim,

Look for a misting fan. 02cool had a lovely unit--but it has been withdrawn--it used ice and evaporative cooling.

HiTech wrote:
Does anyone use a small amount of water sprayed to get evaporative cooling...?

In the places I camp (very hot & very dry) swamp coolers work very well! However I already struggle with bringing enough water for drinking/washing.

pianotuna wrote:
What solar controller are you using?

I have two MorningStar SunSaver MPPT-15's