Under Dinette Air Conditioning in a Truck Camper?

[adamis]

I have teased some pictures and progress updates of this and now I finally have a video to share. This video is actually a cut down portion of a much longer video where I go through all of the mods on my camper (please excuse the odd dialogue because some of the context is missing in this cut down video).

For those just seeing this for the first time, I have been working on removing the roof top Air Conditioning unit from my 2000 Bigfoot camper and replacing it with an under dinette unit I purchased from Aliexpress. I did this upgrade because the old roof top AC unit was HUGE, standing nearly 15" tall and weighed 103lbs. In it's place I was able to add a 100w solar panel bringing my total solar power up to 400w. Initially I was running this AC on my 100AH Battle Born battery and my preliminary testing I was able to run it for close to an hour with plenty of charge left in it. I have since upgraded to 760AH of batteries which should give me 12 to 14 hours of use. The battery upgrade is not mentioned in this portion of the cut down video.

For our use scenario, we live in California and most of our camping temperatures are moderate so we don't need to run the AC all day long. We really wanted to be able to run the AC unit for an hour or two in the evening to cool down the camper before bed time or to run it while at a rest stop to grab some food. Otherwise, we are outside and doing things so we don't need to run the AC all day long. If we ever traveled to the South we would purchase a 1000w generator to run should we find ourselves not close to shore power and needing more run time.

I will release additional snippets of the full list of modifications to my camper in the near future that will show the solar, batteries and other mods in detail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBB-md4A9Ds

[MNtundraRet]

Can anyone tell me how to hind and get to the new home page of the forum.

Sorry for replying here.

[MNtundraRet]

Everything is now working fine. The forum is now workiing correctly and I save the new link. Thank you.

😁

[MNtundraRet]

Just replying as a test. I seem to have lost the forum site yesterday. I did not see the sign-in window  yet.

[opnspaces]

Adamis already fixed the hole in his roof. But for other members that might nt be aware. The AC roof hole is a standard 14x14 inch square. So you can fill the hole with a standard roof top vent if desired.

[greenno1]

You mean by fixing a hole in the roof with 2 seperate layers of double backed tape on the back of a flexible solar panel on top?

Covering the opening with a rooftop vent isn't an option here as he has the panel on top which I think was part of the reason for clearing up open space on his roof.

C-mon.

[opnspaces]

My post was written for people who come here in the future. Possibly because they are considering removing the rooftop AC and wondering what people are using to close the hole up.

[greenno1]

560ahrs is what I built too with the cells.

Good enough storage capacity for me and runs the inverter for the micro and coffee machine when we use it.

I would think having an exposed hole in your roof might be a weak point as far as insulating the inside of the cabin.

I think you should have layers some fiberglass over that hole and added any insulating material if there is any in your roof to make it 100%. A flexible solar panel is probably not your best patching material.

Plus now you have an exposed “hole” inside the cabin that you see all the time.

Lord knows I have done a few mods to my rig and I always try to make it better than the original condition.

Just a thought.

Quick question, Why the DC Air Conditioner inside? Are you converting all appliances to electric?

[StirCrazy]

there are several things you could do, install a vent, unless you are doing it for the room to install a celing panel, you could put a chunk of wood and more of the same roofing material on top and seal with eternabond tape so it is almost flush, on the inside you can go to windsor plywood and buy the same interior panels as the rv industry uses, cut a small square, insulate the hole with foam block insulation and then put a patch panel on with trim around the edges to make it look good.  is it ever going to look as good as if it was never there, nope but you can do a pretty good job making it look acceptable if your mind is to it.

there are several reasons to do this, the extra room for panels, like has been said, mabe just to get a more efficient and quieter AC, or maybe to lower the overall hight of the unit.  the last two you could just install a fantastic fan in its place and it would look like it came that way from the factory.  or maybe if you use a rack system to mount your panels instead of closing off the hole a fan would work there also.  

[Bedlam]

I think I would seal the outside hole with an aluminum plate and closed cell foam on the underside if I planned to put solar over the top.  On the inside, I would probably finish a wooden plate with a cluster of recessed puck or eyeball lights for task or mood lighting.

[StirCrazy]

yup, everyone probably has their own ways, the reson I would use wood is thats what the rest of the foor is, so if you have 1/2" plywood for the underlay, I would put that, and since you have access to the inside of the celing where the vent is you can block it and make it the strongest section of the roof.  we are both on the same page for the closed cell and a light would be an idea but are you going to have a recess once you get the same amunt of foam in there as the rest of the trailer.. I supose you could as the insulation might not run the full thickness.

[Bedlam]

I am tall which is why I suggested recessed lighting. The new LED fixtures are thinner, so there are more options for recessed or surface mounts. You could even use ribbon or rope lights if maximum insulation is the priority.

[adamis]

So, to answer the question about what I did with the hole. On the roof with the opening I cleaned everything up then put a layer of double sided tape down then a solar panel on top. On the inside, i added a piece of plywood to give support just in case anyone stepped on to the panel on the roof and not realized there was a hole there. For the future, I will be adding a "ceiling fan" based off of 120mm computer case fans and a fan controller. I had thought about lighting here as well but focused just on the fans. These fans can be very quite yet move a decent amount of air. My goal was to have some air circulation inside the camper.

Here are some images to clarify things.

[StirCrazy]

nice.  the C for temp doesnt bother me as thats what I use anyways, I keep my house at 22, the wife likes it 23 or 24 but I think she is part lizard haha.  the strong man is like a supper cool mode.  I may have to look at this when we upgrade our camper as the ones we are looking at have no AC so it would be a good way to add one and keep the roof clear for solar.  How heavy is the unit? 

[adamis]

The AC unit is 44 lbs. In the full length version of this video I do a break down on the weight savings I managed for all of my projects. I was able to shave off 283lbs off of the camper. I could have saved even more by eliminating the generator  but chose to replace the genset with two 380AH batteries in it's place (meaning the weight savings was a wash). If I had just stuck with my single 100AH battle born which could power the AC for over an hour and still eliminated the generator I would have saved over 400lbs of weight.