DIY Portable Air Conditioner for overland/teardrop style campers
Вставка
- Опубліковано 14 чер 2021
- The summer heat is here but we still want to go camping. Having a cool place to sleep in the hot southern summer time is very nice. We are building a portable A/C unit to take with us during summer months. Hopefully this week keep our homemade camper a bit cooler.
- Розваги
I’ve done this before with half the work, for most people. Drill a hole in your
a/c on the top. Cover the outport with sheet metal to block it off. Then I covered the return with sheet metal as well with a 4” duct fitting for flex hose. Cheaper and works great. I’ve never noticed it hurting the ac to restrict the flow of the return to 4”. Also after securing the sheet metal down with self tappers I caulk all the edges. I’m watching your video because I’m trying to find a way to have the portable ac on a stealth van. I’m leaning towards just drilling holes through the floor like you’ve done and then some how disguising the A/c on a hitch luggage rack or something along with a hidden generator for when solar is unavailable. Good video!
Good idea
This is literally my plan as well. My car has these little rubber grommets in the tire well that I will probably end up widening to run some lines through
@@Justin-vq9conice I’d love to hear how it goes. I’m toying with several ideas. Searching high in low for inspiration. I use the one I made for camping and I’ve run it through the windo of the car to sleep in as well. Love that AC!
Thanks for the idea and by the way, you have a great little helper. Its great that it is a father-son project. A tip: for those watching and might want to rip plywood on a table saw. The way he ripped the material by feeding from the off cut side is very very dangerous. You must push primarily on the fence side with only a little pressure on the cut off side then push the fence side all the way through and past the blade. I am surprised that the inner (fence side) piece wasn't launched with vigor out the front and right where the boy was standing. He was standing off to the side, but the boy wasn't. One day I ripped a piece of 1/4 plywood and wasn't thinking (I had just lost my son and shouldn't have been near the table saw); and doing just what you saw here and was hit by a piece of plywood at about 60+ MPH and laid the side of my wrist wide open. Please be safe out there.
I’m usually really careful, about that especially when the kids are around. I must not have been paying close attention that day
Hearing protection (especially for the little helper) was also forgotten. Always a good idea to set a good example with eye protection. Hopefully he continues to want to help! Nice design. Did you have any issues with short cycles or freezing of the condenser coils? The intake looks like it might be under sized. I have also heard that having the intake in the front instead of the side causes freezing. @@trove1312
I rigged up something like this 25 years ago for a music jam room. The a/c unit was placed in the attic gable vent to not cut a hole in the wall (to prevent sound from exiting the jam room). I used two cold air ducts, each twice as big as the single one your using. I also rigged up homemade fans in the ducts as I don't think there any available at the time. Also the return air ducts were twice your size and two of them. The best solution might be some type of modular latching rack that hooks to a window of your camper to facilitate the a/c or heater depending on weather.
Finally! I been looking for someone doing something like this, I'm planning on doing this with a portable A/C
I've thought about that too, it might work better than this system if it has better fans. May be a little more pricey.
The issue is twofold, so far as I can figure it. The biggest is the insulation of the space. It doesn’t really matter how much cold air you’re pumping in it’s not able to hold that cold air in. The second may be the length of your hose. The longer your hose and the farther the distance it has to run from the unit to the space being cooled, the more the air in the hose loses its coldness as it travels along the hose, due to the hotter outside air temp. But in general, I like your idea of retrofitting a window unit that sits outside. We bought a ShiftPod camping tent a few years ago, which has dual ports for intake and exhaust hoses and had also intended to purchase a ClimateRite camping AC for it, but they’ve been out of production for years now. I really wish they would bring that design back.
Yep that was a good design that would have worked well for this application. Our camper is spray foam insulated so it does hold the air pretty well other than doors being opened and closed. The biggest problem has been the power of the blower on the window unit, with inline booster fans it works pretty good though.
Your kids enjoy working with you.
AC blows colder if it doesn't have to comvert hot outside air to cold air. Make a vent to draw air from inside, it will increase cooling.
It does with this setup. One hose is a return, the other is the cold going in
If it was me, I would forget about all the hoses, in-line fans and outside mounting! A temporary mount, possibly through the firewall, would go a long way to prevent someone just walking away with the unit!
Just mount that bad boy in the back wall run you exhaust in to the rear plumbing hole you made and when you don't want ac make a replacement box to put in its place when not In use..... it will cool a hole lot more space it it's not restricted.
Yes it would but I don’t have anywhere I want a hole like that in my camper
you should've Got one of those broan 370 CFM fans and put it right on the vent outside that would've really helped
NIce. amigo
Adding a reflective window cover woukd help as well. Did adding the fans work? Curious if the intake duct was too small and the cold air duct too long given fkex tubung was used?
Seaflo marine 3" fan would be perfect
I believe that is exactly what I ordered
Vintage trailer works makes the old climate right air conditioner !!
That is what I was originally planning on using. Unfortunately they are out of stock everywhere and don’t appear to be producing them right now. if you know somewhere to get them let me know
Looks like vintage trailer works does have the 5,000 btu unit. Unfortunately it is $800 whereas climate right was closer to $500. My homemade rig is under $300
Just saw this comment and looked them up. They're back in stock but even more expensive. About $1k.
Here is what we did. It is sort of the same but with a lot less materials. Our unit is a 5K btu and it is absolutely fridig in there. Our trailer has more cubic feet to cool. All we added was a small fan car 12 volt accessory to circulate the air and the faf is usable when an A/C is not needed. Here is a link to the work we did. ua-cam.com/video/7uOK6d_98xo/v-deo.html
Insulated ducting will help.
Do you have the measurements for the box? Thank u for sharing❤
Wonder if you could make a plywood cutout of the window and install the ac in it and use it in the driver window. Roll the window down and set the panel with the ac in it. Then you take it out and roll the window back up.
I could and I did think about that. My main concern there is getting it watertight if there is a storm. I also can’t stand the appearance of a window unit stuck in the side of something but what I have may not be much better
@@trove1312 I didn’t think about it being watertight. And I didn’t think of it until after I commented but the windows curve inward so just a piece of plywood would cause the ac unit to lean forward and they need to lean back a little for drainage.
Please God I hope this works lol this Arkansas heat is not good camping weather 🤣
So if air flow is not enough double check the area of the circular duct adapters. if those are 4 inch diameter ducts that is an area of about 12.5 square inches. if the upper grille in the AC unit is about 24 square inches, and I'm just guessing, and the lower grill is 80 square inches the two 4 inch dia ducts are really choking the air. The accordion ducts are also a hinderance to air flow. the duct fans will help but... How about just stick it in a window? The way God intended. Do they still roll down? Can you rig a 12v dc to the window motor, roll down the window at the campsite and place the AC on a tall table or a drive in restaurant window table and duct it with plastic and duct tape? it would eliminate the choke points and extra fans. its not clean as you mentioned but not much different than the unit sitting next to the camper as shown toward the end of the video. I guess you loose the use of one door. Hey! move or rearrange the toolbox and use the factory ductwork in the fire wall!
It just occurred to me the heat gained in the output (cold) air duct if its not insulated. That's kind of a long hose from the AC unit to the camper. Between the accordion shape acting like heat fins and its length and smallish diameter. Another challenge.
Cut a rectangular hole in the firewall, stick the AC unit in deep as you can and it may not interfere with the tool box.
it would certainly be more efficient to mount it directly into the camper somewhere. however I don’t have any space in the walls to do so unless I rig it up in a window
IT MUST TO BE METAL
I’m confused, usually intake and the hot out are out the rear, why do you need to separate the front vents? They usually stick into a room, I’ve seen this done but they just separated the rear so it wasn’t outputting heat as well.
Intake is on the front it pulls in internal air. Cold output is also on the front. Hot output comes out the back.
@@trove1312I know but why separate the front? It normally hangs in the same area, it’s not normally separated. The rear makes sense because that’s normally hanging out the window.
@@StevenPenny Because if it is not separated then there would be no airflow through the camper, it would just circulate in the wooden box and not push any air into the camper. With it divided one duct is pushing air and one is pulling air. This creates circulation which in turn cools and dehumidifies the air inside the camper
The biggest problem you have is removing the hot air inside the suv
So it’s mixing with the little bit of cold air you are getting in making it basically room temperature.
The ac you have isn’t that great meaning it’s not powerful enough to suck the hot air out the SUV and restricting the front of the ac your losing even more of the ability to suck the hot air out of the suv, you would need a bigger ac that has more power to suck the hot air out and push cold air into the SUV. Also the longer that pipe is coming into the suv with the cold air the hotter it will get especially if you use it during the day and for a good amount of time that pipe is going to get hot if the sun is hitting it and even if no sun ☀️ is hitting it the air will still get hotter the longer the pipe is
Your best option but a portable ac that is made for this situation
There aren’t any that are made for this unfortunately. It works very will with a couple in line booster fans to help with the flow
If you're not going to use the air conditioner on anything else then why would you not just leave it on the camper trailer?
Trying to save space mostly
i would have just gotten a plastic tote or even a cooler
That only works as long as your ice lasts, and it doesn't dehumidify as well.
@@trove1312no to put the ac unit in instead of building a wooden box around it
You have wasted your time building it like that. put it in the trailer box in the front of the trailer... cut a hole under your dash, where the Dash should be up under there. and mount the air conditioner down there ...it'll blow enough air in there to freeze you out of there. and you'll never have to move the air conditioner again... just have to cut a hole in the trailer box so the air hot air can blow out , and the condensation can get out... no one will even be able to see your air conditioner if you put it in the trailer box.....
Yes that is one way to do it and it would be more efficient. I don't want it mounted permanently in my box or have a permanent hole in the front of my trailer though. The whole point of this is for it to be modular so I can take an A/C when I want it or a heater when I want it. When I'm not using it I can store it somewhere else. With booster fans it works quite well like this, and I don't have to carry it around for 6 months out of the year when I don't need it.