Solar set up for a newbie - 12v mini split AC addition to my camper

[Iamjojo14]

Hi - newbie/very minimal knowledge when it comes to solar, wattage, etc. so please be patient.

I would like to add a 12v Mini split air conditioning unit to my camper to keep my 2 adventure pups cool during hot days. How much power (solar and battery) would I need? I'd like to have it running for 6hrs a day. I will NOT need to power anything else.

Also any recommendation on a lightweight and compact battery is highly appreciated.

 

[sunshine_eggo]

What is the power consumption of the unit? "12V" doesn't tell us much.

A link to a user guide/installation manual, etc., would be helpful.

Hint: It's going to be a sizable number for both.

 

[marionw]

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[Iamjojo14]

What is the power consumption of the unit? "12V" doesn't tell us much.

A link to a user guide/installation manual, etc., would be helpful.

Hint: It's going to be a sizable number for both.

This is what I found for consumption:

"Air volume is about 1000-3000W, air volume (M3/H): 250-450, power consumption 960W, rated current 60-80A"

 

[sunshine_eggo]

This is what I found for consumption:

"Air volume is about 1000-3000W, air volume (M3/H): 250-450, power consumption 960W, rated current 60-80A"

Mostly useless if you want a meaningful estimate. I assume there is a brand, a model, a website, etc.

"Camper" = how big?

 

[0truck0]

Say 60 amps at 12v and it cycles so compressor runs 1/3 of the time (lets pretend the circulation fan doesn't exist so we can be simpletons...).
Then that is 20 amp per hour (1/3 of 60), so 20 amp hours per hour, so 5 hours depletes 100 amp hours of stored power.
A 100 amp hr battery will not give you 5 hours run. You need more amps available for start-up.
In reality the circulation fan will run all the time and pretend 10 amps, so add that in, 20 plus 10 is 30 amp hours, so 3.3 hours on the 100 amp hours of stored power.
Unrealistic numbers, but you need start with real numbers. The cycling on and off of the compressor depends on temp, on insulation and more. 1/3 might be high, you might cycle 1/6th or something....
800 amp hrs of battery seems normal to have on hand.
I get the lure of battery air cond, but most RVers carry a small gas generator to run the a/c, lots cheaper unless you are a full timer with lots of sun and lots more heat.
I am in same boat, minus the dogs, and though everything else, including fridge, runs on a battery, if I need a/c then that will be run on a small gas gen. Having an a/c unit that can run on the small 2200 inverter gas generators is a plus, but only for small rigs as this is 9200 BTU roof units or smaller, you said mini-split which better than the roof units, so you still gotta have numbers in hand even for generator sizing. The 2200 generators are just so small, efficient and easy to carry as opposed to bigger ones that will use more gas and hard to carry hard to store...

 

[pantechlife]

I just watched this, they were looking at options for exact same reason:

 

[Vigo]

I would imagine to get 6 hours of runtime you should plan on having over 5kwh of battery to support that if there were no solar. If you want to reliably run it on mostly solar you would probably need about 1500w of panels to make it reliable as it will likely be drawing something like 600-700w most of the time to maintain temp.

 

[Billy D.]

I'll save you some time: If you want air con for 6 hours for your dogs, you need a gasoline-powered generator.

It doesn't really matter if you need to run anything else, since your air con will be so huge compared to anything else anyway.