| Author | Message | ||
     Vladimir Ivanovich Kirillov Grand Master Username: soviet Post Number: 614 Registered: 2-2013 |
Some trucks have air-conditioning to cool the cab so the driver can sleep while vehicle is parked. These things are noisy and their inventor should be flogged like the family mule. I recent gave a road train operator the full metal jacket at 3 am in the morning when he parked his rig outside my place. He drove off but has threatened to "come and get me" and I have told him please try. That aside David's wise advice about black cars has not dissuaded me into getting one. Even white cars get miserably hot where I dwell. And so I am in the throws of developing a stationary air conditioning system to keep a car cool inside when parked in the sun. All my cars apart from the Camargue have enormous boot/trunk space. Enough for many large batteries, a household air conditioner and electric motors. When I work away from home I use a small household air conditioner sitting on a 44 gallon oil drum plugged in 240 volt mains power poked into the passenger side window - rough but it works on my Falcon panel van. Does anybody have any ideas | ||
| Patrick Ryan Grand Master Username: patrick_r Post Number: 577 Registered: 4-2016 |
Hi Vlad, A lot of the trucks run evaporative air coolers, which are very quiet. http://www.viesa.ca/ However, there are now a lot of air conditioners available for trucks, which of course are not so quiet. http://www.truckart.com.au/truck-art/truck-art/sleeper-cab-cooling-solutions/viesa-internal-unit-evaporative-cooling.aspx But it is the DIY units that can be bad. In my many years of being a Service Manager I have seen some doozies!!! From the best: A 2 stroke lawn mower bolted to the back of a truck, where the cutter plate has been replaced with a pulley that drove a belt to an automotive air conditioning compressor that had been removed from a Falcon. The unit was separated into condenser bolted below the lawn mower chassis with a fan that was then bolted to the same pulley that drove the belt to the compressor. The Falcon evaporator was bolted into the back of the sleeper bunk with half of the Falcon dash with it!!! The next best was a Briggs & Stratton engine bolted under the truck chassis again running a belt to a disassembled car A/C unit. The last was a Honda 4 stroke generator mounted under the tail of a prime mover, that simply powered a home 240V A/C unit (window rattler size) that was occupying the space that was allocated to the rear window of the sleeper bunk. This one was actually very good and almost silent. | ||
| Patrick Ryan Grand Master Username: patrick_r Post Number: 578 Registered: 4-2016 |
I think I spotted Vlad in the car park yesterday????  | ||
| Patrick Ryan Grand Master Username: patrick_r Post Number: 579 Registered: 4-2016 |
Here are some more ideas that may be helpful to Rolls Royce owners. Fixing the heater can be expensive. How about this?  We all know the cost involved with left to right conversions & vise versa  | ||
| ross kowalski Prolific User Username: cdfpw Post Number: 152 Registered: 11-2015 |
Swamp coolers all the way!  as long as it's dry out when it's hot, they work great. | ||
| Patrick Ryan Grand Master Username: patrick_r Post Number: 580 Registered: 4-2016 |
Hey Ross, Why not fit 2??? | ||
| ross kowalski Prolific User Username: cdfpw Post Number: 153 Registered: 11-2015 |
Patrick, As far as I know swamp coolers only fit to the left side. Also, while I do have two 1981 vw rabbits (USA) to be clear, that is not my car. | ||
| Patrick Ryan Grand Master Username: patrick_r Post Number: 582 Registered: 4-2016 |
RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! | ||
| Vladimir Ivanovich Kirillov Grand Master Username: soviet Post Number: 640 Registered: 2-2013 |
Don't laugh at me chaps I am still toying with this idea. So far I have come up with the idea of replacing inside a household air conditioner the 240 volt ac motor with an expensive 12 or 24 volt brush less DC motor powered by a group of large heavy duty 12 volt batteries wired in parallel. My intention is to tinker with this idea until it works or I decide its a waste of loot because I want the black Jaguar or Chrysler 300k to be able to be parked in the seething northern Australian summer heat and not cook the interior or fry me when I get back into it. Now my research shows that brush less motors have maximum torque from the get go. If this does not work then I intend to make a constantly variable gearbox like a Daf to go between the motor and the fan/refridgerant pump. My Falcon Pano is the perfect test bed for my scheme as I have saved tens of thousands of dollars by living in it and not paying rent when I leave my remote country lair to work. I simply mount the small air conditioner on a 44 gallon drum, poking the air conditioner in the passenger side window space with cardboard and duct tape sealing the area around the air conditioner to the window frame and simply plug the bugger in. It works a treat and keeps the entire van cool inside in summer in direct sunlight. I am placing this experiment in the forum in order to drain the brains of fellow jetsetters because I lack education in the fields of physics, maths and electricity and ac. My intention is to get the ac working on DC battery power and then breakdown modify and fit it to one of my classic cars in the boot/trunk area so its unseen apart from the on off switch on or even under the dash. So does anybody have an e = mc2 why it can't be done and can anybody tell me why household ac uses R403 refrigerant instead of R134A? Just as an aside a good source of R12 gas is your local rubbish dump in old freezers and fridges where it is released into the atmosphere when crushed. Don't get caught collecting it though as that's a bit like being caught by the plod with a pistol attached to a silencer with subsonic bullets under the front seat of your RR/B. Not a good look but effective for Lady of Ecstacy anti vandal protection. | ||
| Omar M. Shams Grand Master Username: omar Post Number: 909 Registered: 4-2009 |
Dear Vlad, Why not buy an a.c. compressor from a Toyota Prius? | ||
| Vladimir Ivanovich Kirillov Grand Master Username: soviet Post Number: 641 Registered: 2-2013 |
Good point Omar. Unfortuneatly the Prius uses a 200 volt AC not DC system and there is not enough room even in the Cadillac to carry the Prius batteries and electric motor to run such a high ac voltage hence I am looking still at a DC system. | ||
| ross kowalski Prolific User Username: cdfpw Post Number: 172 Registered: 11-2015 |
Vlad, compressors take 1 or 2 hp anyway which means around 1000watts minimum. So a 12v to fo that job would need to be a beast with huge wires. What about a propane refrigerator hacked into a air conditioner. Lpg has hundreds of times the energy density of the best lithium batteries made. I just get the feeling that batteries are not the way to go for that. Good luck | ||
| John Beech Experienced User Username: jbeech Post Number: 29 Registered: 10-2016 |
If Vlad's prepared to carry multiple batteries, then there's no reason to be harnessed to 12V because placing four of them in series gives him a 50V solution at 250W and much thinner wire. Moreover, 50V brushless motors are commonly available (we use them in our remote control model helicopters in KV ranging from 450 to 720 - KV=RPM/volt). FWIW, our motors ($250) will easily handle a couple thousand W continuously. Add to this a 50V 120A controller ($150) plus an on-off hand controller, which is cheap ($35) and Bob's your uncle. however, while there's more than one way to skin the cat I like the propane idea. | ||
| David Gore Moderator Username: david_gore Post Number: 2303 Registered: 4-2003 |
Vladimir, Before the days of a national electricity grid, country people used to have a home 32V DC generator powered by a diesel engine with a bank of 12V car batteries to power the house lights during the night without having to run the generator. The generating set would have to run continuously to power a conventional electric refrigerator so a kerosine powered refrigerator was used with the "Silent Knight" brand made by Sir Edward Hallstrom of Taronga Zoo fame being the most popular. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Hallstrom The kerosine fridge operating principle with kerosine replaced by diesel fuel could be used to provide cooling and a 12V car heater/cooling fan running off a solar panel/back-up battery would suffice to deliver cold air to the car interior. The basic physics of an absorption refrigerator are detailed on the following links: http://vintageservelrefrigerators.8k.com/HowItWorks.html http://www.rvdoctor.com/2004/02/rv-absorption-refrigeration-basics.html http://home.howstuffworks.com/refrigerator5.htm | ||
| ross kowalski Prolific User Username: cdfpw Post Number: 174 Registered: 11-2015 |
Vlad, just buy this |
