Dc dc

[gscamp]

Hey Will, I love your videos. I am converting a 2008 suburban. It wasn't ment to be for camping. Wife has been going through cancer for the last 7 years . Her first was head and neck. She can't sit up for long periods of time cause the surgery damaged some muscles. I stripped all the back seats out laid a piece of wood down to put a mattress in there so I could drive her up to Panama Beach to see grandkids. Well she loved the little cheap build . Since then it's actually turned in to a full out build. We, well more me have watched 100's of your videos. Great videos btw. I'm wanting to go solar with it but unfortunately she has lung cancer now so the solar is going to be put on hold for a while. I saw one of your dc to dc videos so I'm going to start there. I will be buying all my stuff from you. I wanted to get the Victron Orion dc charger . I don't know what one I should get the 12 12 18 or the 12 12 30. I would like you opinion on this matter. We also live in FL so I need a secondary ac . I started thinking that the suburban has dual air front and back . Do you know if it is even possible to isolate the back ac and have it run on solar or the dc to dc .
I appreciate your time on this matter. Thank for all the content you are putting out there.
Thanks again
Scott

 

[time2roll]

I am all but certain the air conditioner in a Suburban has a single compressor driven by the engine that feeds each of the cooling units. This is not going to run off a DC-DC charger.

What the DC-DC charger can do is pull 12v power from the alternator to charge an auxiliary battery while driving. This will provide some lights etc while camping or even drive a small inverter to run a tv. I recommend the 12-12-18 for this service.

 

[gscamp]

Well thank you for the info. Back to the drawing board. Lol. I was going to get 12 12 30 just to charger battery faster is there any safety issues running this unit versus the 12 12 18 ?
Thanks again

 

[time2roll]

The main issue would be overloading the alternator.

 

[HRTKD]

The rating for the DC-DC charger is on the output side. 30 amp rating means it will charge a battery at 30 amps (maximum). To do that, it may have to put up to 45 amps from the alternator. That number of amps will require some large cables, especially if the run is very long.

Because of this, the lower rated charger is a better fit for the alternator and to keep wiring costs down. Sure, it won't charge as fast.

FWIW, I'm throat cancer survivor (2009). Neck weakness is a problem I have but not to the extent your wife has. I can't spend much time under a car working on it. My neck muscles just give up eventually.

 

[gscamp]

The rating for the DC-DC charger is on the output side. 30 amp rating means it will charge a battery at 30 amps (maximum). To do that, it may have to put up to 45 amps from the alternator. That number of amps will require some large cables, especially if the run is very long.

Because of this, the lower rated charger is a better fit for the alternator and to keep wiring costs down. Sure, it won't charge as fast.

FWIW, I'm throat cancer survivor (2009). Neck weakness is a problem I have but not to the extent your wife has. I can't spend much time under a car working on it. My neck muscles just give up eventually.

Sorry to hear you had to go through that. That was the worst thing I have ever seen in my life . They had to cut her ear to ear radical double neck Disection. I hope you are doing well I know it's a long battle. Yall have to be the strongest people. Thanks for your input. A friend of mine suggested I try to put another alternator on it . That just seems like to much work . I might have to break down and spend the money on one of the better ac like the ones they put on the roof.
Thanks again

 

[HRTKD]

You may want to look into a small, portable air conditioner instead of a permanent unit. The small ones may not be that efficient, but they don't require installation - no cutting holes in the roof. However, this type of unit is going to require a 120v inverter and it can't be a small inverter. It will need to be large enough to handle the surge from the air conditioner.

An effective air conditioning unit would need to vent hot air out of the vehicle. I have a portable unit that I occasionally use in my camper. It has a 5" hose that the hot air vents out of.

If you want solar on this vehicle, then you want to avoid installing anything else on the roof.

 

[gscamp]

Funny you say that . I was thinking about one of those just for the same reasons you had mentioned. Yes I am definitely going to put solar on it. I was going to start with a
dual battery with the victron 12 12 18. It starting to cool down here so I'm not in a big rush for the ac and solar. I thought the dual battery would be able to run all I need for now. You guys on this forum are truly great.

 

[HRTKD]

I have a 15K BTU air conditioner on the top of my camper. I think it's rated to pull around 19 amps on a 120v AC circuit. I have the Victron 12/3000 inverter which does run the air conditioner, but just barely. I have 560 Ah of LiFePO4. With 640 watts of solar on the roof of the camper the air conditioner won't run very long. Maybe a couple of hours. When I add my 640 watts of ground panels (same panels as on the roof), I lessen the draw on the battery bank, but I'm still pulling from the batteries.

Traditional air conditioners require a lot of amps. The mini-split systems are a lot more efficient, but I don't know how you would use that in a Suburban (the original Urban Assault Vehicle!). My folks had a Suburban back in the 80's.

For folks that don't have space for gobs of solar, a large inverter and plenty of battery, a standalone inverter generator, like a Honda 2000eu, is a good way to go. The generator could travel on a hitch mounted cargo carrier.

For air conditioning in a Suburban (or most non-RV vehicles) there aren't a lot of options.