12 Volt Air Conditioning and Portable Power

[guest]

The two links below are for a 12 volt air conditioner and a mobile Xantrex 1500 watt power supply. Some of you may be familiar with one or both of these products, but together they could be a more or less complete cooling system that would require no modification to a truck. The Xantrex setup is self explanatory, but the 12 volt evaporative or ice air conditioning is pretty neat. Don't get this setup confused with those rinky-dink ice chest fan things; this system is industrial strength. I have talked to the guys who build these units and they seem to know what they are doing. The obvious problem is evaporative cooling basically only works well in the southwestern states, and the ice coolers need a LOT of ice to work. But with that said, it's a neat unit. The fans they use are the same fans Ford uses in their passenger cars, so it can move some air. They apparently sell a lot of these units to law enforcement for use in surveillance vehicles and they work well in that application.

http://www.xantrex.com/web/id/63/p/1/pt/24/product.asp

http://www.swampy.net/index.html

I thought these items could potentially be particularly useful for some of the vans out there that are probably getting pretty hot right now.

 

[woobergoober]

Great info Frisco. Always on the lookout for an alternative to idling, in order to keep cool. I hear so many horror stories about the 7000.00 units not working right, that I would be scared to death to buy one.

Scott

 

[mvbn1]

Great information! I've "run some numbers", and it looks to me like either the Model MW1 or T154 would work great in a cargo van. Also gives me a few ideas on how to make one, and see how well it works.

As far as the inverter unit goes, it would be less expensive to purchase the 1500watt unit, then it would be to buy and inverter, batteries, and all the stuff to mount and install them. You can get that unit for around $325.00 on the internet.

Total cost of the two together would be around $500.00. From the fuel saving, you could get that investment back in one summer.

 

[guest]

I thought the same thing about the 1500 watt power pack. It's a pretty good value at $325. You can also hook up additional batteries to it if you want to.