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Success-air con in the conex

Bluedog225

Bluedog225

Texas
Joined
Nov 18, 2019
Messages
3,372
I’ve been working on getting this done for a long long time. I insulated the heck out of my conex. And then installed all my solar stuff.

There’s enough room left to right for insulation, a rack of SOK batteries nestled inside one of those big industrial storage shelves from Costco, plus a Midea dual hose air conditioner, plus, I think, another rack of batteries.

The Midea has to be vented either out the back or through the floor. I chose the floor because I hate the idea of a side opening to let rain in. The Midea hose is not long enough to make it to the floor. But I hooked up a 6 inch hose for the hot air exhaust and a 10 inch hose for the intake. If my maths were correct. I’ve got a larger intake area than the original hose. one nestles inside the other. And it all exits through a hole in the bottom. A 12 inch hose for the intake would’ve been a better fit for the Midea plastic but I used what I had. Worked ok.

It’s only 65 today. I ran it down to 60 and it blows cold. We will know more when it’s 110 eff. Hoping to keep the batteries cooler than 80.

One more project off the list.


IMG_9965.jpeg
 
How many square feet is that area, and how many BTU is the AC?
 
160 ft.² for the conex with a couple of inches of polyiso insulation on the roof and all sides. Radiant barrier behind the foam and white elastomeric cool roof on the roof. The Midea is 12,000 BTU claimed.
 
Bluedog225 said:
I’ve been working on getting this done for a long long time. I insulated the heck out of my conex. And then installed all my solar stuff.

There’s enough room left to right for insulation, a rack of SOK batteries nestled inside one of those big industrial storage shelves from Costco, plus a Midea dual hose air conditioner, plus, I think, another rack of batteries.

The Midea has to be vented either out the back or through the floor. I chose the floor because I hate the idea of a side opening to let rain in. The Midea hose is not long enough to make it to the floor. But I hooked up a 6 inch hose for the hot air exhaust and a 10 inch hose for the intake. If my maths were correct. I’ve got a larger intake area than the original hose. one nestles inside the other. And it all exits through a hole in the bottom. A 12 inch hose for the intake would’ve been a better fit for the Midea plastic but I used what I had. Worked ok.

It’s only 65 today. I ran it down to 60 and it blows cold. We will know more when it’s 110 eff. Hoping to keep the batteries cooler than 80.

One more project off the list.


View attachment 199414
Click to expand...

Is that a single-hose unit?
 
Bluedog225 said:
160 ft.² for the conex with a couple of inches of polyiso insulation on the roof and all sides. Radiant barrier behind the foam and white elastomeric cool roof on the roof. The Midea is 12,000 BTU claimed.
Click to expand...
Nice. I hope you update us with the results over summer. There's plenty of us in 110F weather who would like to do something to keep the equip cool.
 
Hedges said:
View attachment 199421
Click to expand...

I finally cleaned this up. The Midea original dual hose (now extended) had a fitting that extended the outlet hose about 1” from the inlet hose. Claimed greater efficiency. I guess it shoots the warm exhaust air out farther and allows cooler air at the inlet.

This stainless colander/strainer lets the exhaust hose extend past the inlet. And should keep the rodents out. The single condensate hose for drainage.

Also put up thermal curtains up to divide the conex in half. So the conditioned space is about 60 square feet. Or 480 cubic feet.

The unit cools this space well. Next step is to get the panels hooked up and figure out the low voltage cutoff on the Quattro.

IMG_0655.jpeg
 
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Edit to add:

It ran at about 1100 watts. The unit was set at 65 eff on a warm (90F) day with high humidity and the conex in full sun. I also had an led light string running.

I only ran it for 6 hours or so. I suspect that if left to run 8 or so hours a day, it would bring the temps and humidity down and use less. Will know more later this summer.
 
I did something almost exactly the same. I have a wall up to make the mechanical room 8ftx8ft. The 10k btu dual hose midea AC worked pretty good up to about 100f. I was able to keep the room at a nice 70f. Unfortunately the portable AC didn’t even last a year and I didn’t even run it for the last 6-7 months during the fall and winter. I really don’t think these portable ACs are meant to run non stop or more than a couple hours at a time especially in a hot setting (90F +)

I returned it to Costco, got a full refund and ordered a DIY Mr.cool 12k btu mini split. It uses about 1/3 the power and cools the room way better since the condersor isn’t inside the room generating heat. I knew I should have done this from the beginning but was being cheap and didn’t want to spend the $1200 on the mini split. I have no concerns about being able to keep my equipment cool this summer now.
 
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@Bluedog225 Excuse my ignorance, but what is a conex? You mentioned this in the Texas power outage thread and I didn't know what it meant there either.
 
Bluedog225 said:
Conex-aka Container, express. Shipping container. You’ve probably seen 1000.

View attachment 216556
Click to expand...
Oh okay, cool. I've seen several YouTube channels of folks who've converted them to housing or some other use, but never heard anyone use that term. Learn something every day.

From what I've seen on other threads, it's housing your power system equipment?
 
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I’ve really grown fond of the term Sea Can (or is it just “C Can”), just has a certain ring to it.
 
Yes. I insulated it pretty well then stuck everything in there. I don’t know a lot about electricity and this lithium stuff is still somewhat new. Seemed somewhat safer from a fire, off-gassing standpoint since I can bring in old fashioned alternating current into the main structure with all the attendant safeguards.
 
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