(SOLVED) Solving the climate control crises

[MAGE]

Edit to OP:

Mini split systems are the future. Carrier has 42 SEER mini splits but they are 220v at 60 hertz. Everyone should consider building 120V/220V to run mini splits with the highest SEER rating. Blueridge also has some for $1500 you can buy straight from them. You’ll need an HVAC certified person to install the system. The higher the SEER the less power you’ll need to keep the space cool. This video shows a 115V mini split but is nice to see the math. Thanks to the YouTuber!

I've been diving deep into solving the temp control environment for vanlife. The biggest gripe of van and small space dwellers who want to live off grid is the struggle to keep their space a constant 70 degree temperature in their van or small space.

May this be a thread to help solve this problem.

Solar is the most obvious energy option for off grid power. I've seen countless videos on people attempting to cool their small space (van) with different solutions.

Swamp Coolers, Top end A/C units on the top of their van, and Franken Coolers

I became so inundated with solving this problem that I bought a Prius, which has climate control built in. I will someday buy a new Hybrid RAV4 which also has the Toyota climate control mechanism.

The two top solutions that I have found are the following:

The

9,000 BTU (0.75 Ton) 38 SEER ENERGY STAR Single Zone Ductless Mini-Split Heat Pump System attached to the back of a van or camper. Apologise for the boldness of this, I wanted to copy and paste the unit.​

That unit has 38 SEER and I believe it would be the most effective solution for solving this crises. I would think it would need at least 800-1000 watts of solar on the top of the van. Here is a video demonstrating this Mini-split solution.

For a regular van like and Odyssey, I have found something called a Frankencooler google it and they have a website, guy makes these out of his garage. I would imagine it would just need enough solar or battery capacity to run the fans, and it also needs ice to run the cooler. For the ice solution I would imagine the expensive Dometic fridges capable of making ice could be a solution. I don't know how much solar power and battery capacity that would be needed to run a Frankencooler all night and day, or how much of a pain it would be to replace the ice.

I also found a youtube channel called Cold School who uses a different build for his Ice chest cooler but his ice only lasts about a couple hours.

Both of these ice chest processes use a radiator. The Frankencooler runs the hot air through the radiator first, blows air through the ice after already being cooled.

I have also found another youtube video where people run an aluminum pipe through the bottom of their cooler so it doesn't use an evaporative process. I will try to find these youtube videos later.

Together lets attempt to solve portable solar/ac crisis as much of the world goes without A/C. If we can find a simple portable solution we can solve the world's A/C crisis and solar van build people can actually live in a comfortable temperature controlled environment equipped with a thermostat to control both the heating and air conditioning problems with their van build.

As far as heating I have found a COZY brand panel heater which is safe to use inside a van as it doesn't reach combustible temperatures. A chicken coop heater on low from COZY only runs about 70 watts and would likely be enough to heat up a van to a suitable temp given enough battery life and solar power.

Hooking a Frankencooler and this 70 watt (on low) heating panel to a thermostat could potentially solve the climate control problem in a van. If someone made a youtube series about how to climate control a van I bet it would get millions of views, as millions of people around the world want to solve the A/C energy crises and live a comfortable temp controlled life.

Thanks for all of your help. I will be posting the youtube videos in my next post.

 

[stienman]

Regarding the generation of ice, keep in mind that if you use a freezer inside the van to create the ice, then melt the ice to cool the air in the van, you will ultimately end up heating the space more than cooling it.

To freeze the ice the freezer pumps heat out of the water and into the van. Moving the ice into a cooling device to cool the interior of the van will offset that heat, however it won't be 100% efficient. You'll have formed a closed-loop which can only result in an increase in heat, overall.

Make sure that you emphasize that the freezer must be dumping its heat outside or elsewhere, otherwise people are only building expensive and inefficient space heaters.

 

[MAGE]

Oh yes. VERY important point you're bringing up. I have been thinking about this most of the day and I do believe I came up with somewhat of a solution. Vanlife people usually use a thick black separator curtain in between the front seats and the back of the van. It's not perfect but I did see in a youtube video that there is a huge temperature differential between the back of the van and the curtain in the cab when they have a maxxfan running in the back.

I drew this crude drawing to show my idea of how I could redistribute the hot air from the dometic fridge, possibly even using a small square plastic piece to rest the curtain on so it would allow the hot air to blow into the "cab" instead of the back of the van, just basically a plastic piece that allows for the curtain to rest ontop of the plastic or wood piece so the air wont be blocked by the curtain allowing for the hot air to be redistributed into the front cab.

Cracking the windows in the front cab to allow for at least a small amount of air flow would also help decrease the overall temperate.

More crude drawings and youtube videos incoming

 

[MAGE]

Here is another process from Cold School that has the radiator on the outside of the cooler. The process takes the cold water from the cooler and forces the air through the radiator on the outside with a fan, another interesting design.

In comparison the Frankencooler pulls air and runs it through the radiator first before it hits the ice.

I'm going to try to find the video that uses an aluminum pipe in the cooler which blows cold air through the pipe because the pipe touches the cold water in the bottom in the next post.

The purpose of me posting on this forum is because in the end we will need to calculate how much solar power and battery capacity I would need to run the "frankencooler", the dometic, ( and a laptop

 

[MAGE]

 

[toms]

I’m not sure if this product is available where you are, i have a Daiken Uluru split system AC, it uses less than 300w to keep my 23m van cool on a 40degreeC day.

It’s normally sunny when it’s hot, so running AC and charging the batteries from 4 x 280w panels is no problem.

Heating is left to a diesel heater.

I really can’t see the problem.

 

[rcrracer]

I've been diving deep into solving the temp control environment for vanlife. The biggest gripe of van and small space dwellers who want to live off grid is the struggle to keep their space a constant 70 degree temperature in their van or small space.

May this be a thread to help solve this problem.

Solar is the most obvious energy option for off grid power. I've seen countless videos on people attempting to cool their small space (van) with different solutions.

Swamp Coolers, Top end A/C units on the top of their van, and Franken Coolers

I became so inundated with solving this problem that I bought a Prius, which has climate control built in. I will someday buy a new Hybrid RAV4 which also has the Toyota climate control mechanism.

The two top solutions that I have found are the following:

The

9,000 BTU (0.75 Ton) 38 SEER ENERGY STAR Single Zone Ductless Mini-Split Heat Pump System attached to the back of a van or camper. Apologise for the boldness of this, I wanted to copy and paste the unit.​

That unit has 38 SEER and I believe it would be the most effective solution for solving this crises. I would think it would need at least 800-1000 watts of solar on the top of the van. Here is a video demonstrating this Mini-split solution.

For a regular van like and Odyssey, I have found something called a Frankencooler google it and they have a website, guy makes these out of his garage. I would imagine it would just need enough solar or battery capacity to run the fans, and it also needs ice to run the cooler. For the ice solution I would imagine the expensive Dometic fridges capable of making ice could be a solution. I don't know how much solar power and battery capacity that would be needed to run a Frankencooler all night and day, or how much of a pain it would be to replace the ice.

I also found a youtube channel called Cold School who uses a different build for his Ice chest cooler but his ice only lasts about a couple hours.

Both of these ice chest processes use a radiator. The Frankencooler runs the hot air through the radiator first, blows air through the ice after already being cooled.

I have also found another youtube video where people run an aluminum pipe through the bottom of their cooler so it doesn't use an evaporative process. I will try to find these youtube videos later.

Together lets attempt to solve portable solar/ac crisis as much of the world goes without A/C. If we can find a simple portable solution we can solve the world's A/C crisis and solar van build people can actually live in a comfortable temperature controlled environment equipped with a thermostat to control both the heating and air conditioning problems with their van build.

As far as heating I have found a COZY brand panel heater which is safe to use inside a van as it doesn't reach combustible temperatures. A chicken coop heater on low from COZY only runs about 70 watts and would likely be enough to heat up a van to a suitable temp given enough battery life and solar power.

Hooking a Frankencooler and this 70 watt (on low) heating panel to a thermostat could potentially solve the climate control problem in a van. If someone made a youtube series about how to climate control a van I bet it would get millions of views, as millions of people around the world want to solve the A/C energy crises and live a comfortable temp controlled life.

Thanks for all of your help. I will be posting the youtube videos in my next post.

Nobody ever mentions anything about that guy cramming his mini split outdoor unit against his RV. Don't all mini split instructions say the outdoor unit should be mounted at least 12" from a wall. Cramming it against the RV has to kill the efficiency.

 

[MAGE]

I’m not sure if this product is available where you are, i have a Daiken Uluru split system AC, it uses less than 300w to keep my 23m van cool on a 40degreeC day.

It’s normally sunny when it’s hot, so running AC and charging the batteries from 4 x 280w panels is no problem.

Heating is left to a diesel heater.

I really can’t see the problem.

I’ll have to check that out! Thanks!

 

[MAGE]

Nobody ever mentions anything about that guy cramming his mini split outdoor unit against his RV. Don't all mini split instructions say the outdoor unit should be mounted at least 12" from a wall. Cramming it against the RV has to kill the efficiency.

Oh is that a thing? Lol I didn’t know that thanks for your input.

 

[MAGE]

I think some combination of all 3 of the above units could actually push efficiency to the max. I would think a cooler with insulation and an efficient radiator/bilge pump combined with a thermostat and dehumidifier would do the trick. Someone think of a genius solution and we will have a million dollar product on our hands!

Upon further review the Daiken is an efficient mini split but I couldn’t find the SEER rating.
Also you would have to mount the outdoor unit to the back of your minivan so I don’t think it would work.

I think right now I’m going to buy the plans for the Frankencooler and build it out and run some testing.

 

[MAGE]

Alrighty guys I’ve ordered the Frankencooler plans and also will attempt to recreate the Make Everything Workshop video and do a comparison of each build.
I also noticed in the Cold School videos that a person gets better efficiency if enough air is allowed to flow in front of the radiator.

I’m going to attempt to push maximum efficiency on the coldness of the air, extending the time of the ice with proper insulation and using salt, trying out different ways to boost everything. I will also try out different fans to try to get the decibel level as low as possible because a person would want it to be quiet.
I’m really liking Make Everything Workshop build because it has those portable batteries and compatible fan that seems to work well with the build but I want to try Cold School’s air/space separator to push more efficiency on air flow.

 

[MAGE]

 

[MAGE]

vs

 

[MAGE]

 

[curiouscarbon]

Such a wholesome thread, I am grateful @MAGE

Maintaining comfortable air temperature and relative humidity for everyone is a very worthy challenge.

The 0.75 Ton 38 SEER 16.5 EER unit really shocked me with 38 SEER!

3.412 BTU/thermal Watt
38 SEER / (3.412 BTU/thermal Watt) = 11.1 Coefficient of Performance!! Wow!!
16.5 EER / (3.412 BTU/thermal Watt) = 4.8 Coefficient of Performance

So on hot days, it would move 4.8 Thermal Watt for every 1 Electric Watt. This is normal for compressor based heat pump.

On mild days, it would pump 11.1 Thermal Watts for every 1 Electric Watts This is incredibly efficient!!!

Peltiers as used by most people achieve 0.5 Coefficient of Performance, which means only 0.5 Thermal Watts moved for each 1 Electrical Watt. Very bad.

 

[RogerD]

I’m not sure if this product is available where you are, i have a Daiken Uluru split system AC, it uses less than 300w to keep my 23m van cool on a 40degreeC day.

It’s normally sunny when it’s hot, so running AC and charging the batteries from 4 x 280w panels is no problem.

Heating is left to a diesel heater.

I really can’t see the problem.

What is the model number?

 

[RogerD]

9,000 BTU (0.75 Ton) 38 SEER

It's 24.4 SEER. I messaged that guy when he first put out that video and he couldn't or wouldn't give me any specifics regard power usage. Nor does he in the video.


Mitsubishi makes a 6000 BTU 33.1 SEER.
Model: MSZ-FS06NA MUZ-FS06NA


Never seen anyone with a Frankencooler that worked well. Seems like a waste of time.


Swamp (evaporative) coolers can work but only where there is low humidity.

https://assets.sylvane.com/media/images/articles/evaporative-cooler-map-best-locations.jpg

The way they work is actually pretty simplistic and you could build one yourself. The only thing I'm not sure about is how much water they require to run. Obviously, the smaller your rig is, the smaller the unit needs to be and the less water would be required.

I would most likely do something along the lines of the below but use a fan-tastic vent endless breeze 12v fan instead of computer fans.

DIY RV Swamp Cooler

Here is a video of someone that built one similar.

Here is a video that is interesting. They built a cooler using the fan I mentioned that fits in their van window.

I have a Frigidaire FFRE0533S1 5000 BTU window unit. It has the lowest power consumption of any I could find. It has since been discontinued but there is a replacement (Model: FFRE053WAE) that has the exact same specs.

https://na2.electroluxmedia.com/Original/Electrolux/Electrolux%20Assets/Document/Product%20Specifications%20Sheet/English/FFRE053WA_0320_EN.pdf

Frigidaire 5,000 BTU 115V Window Air Conditioner Cools 150 Sq. Ft. in White FFRE053WAE - The Home Depot

Our washable filter captures dust from the air and keeps your air conditioner working efficiently with our easy-to-clean washable filter. Our air conditioners maintain the preset room temperature, so you will remain comfortable at all times. With the Adjustable Side Panels, the side panels will...

www.homedepot.com

When I first got it (3 years ago), I never saw it go above 410 watts. Maybe I didn't test it enough. I started testing it again since it's getting hot and I've noticed it's 410 watts @ 90F. As I write this it's only 83F and it's pulling 386 watts. At 94F it pulled 416 watts.

When in cool mode and the compressor isn't running the fan runs and uses about 65 watts. In eco mode, it doesn't run the fan except for 20 seconds every 10 minutes.

How well your rig is insulated is really going to matter and is key. So that it holds the cold air well / the times when the compressor doesn't run are longer. You want to insulate the floor. Hot air rises and cold air falls. I would also create some form of a partition to separate the cab from the rest of your rig. If you have windows in the rear, I would make insulated covers.

It has a low voltage start-up and you can easily run it with a 1000 watt peak / 800 watt continuous generator. However, I would get a generator that could power the AC with the generator in ECO mode (1600w continuous or so). It should give you a longer runtime (use less fuel) and likely last longer.

I've always run it off of a generator but building out a solar system for it now.

I will say that it's certainly possible that a mini-split AC could be more efficient. But I think it may depend on the size of your rig. I just don't know enough about them and can't find any info that I need to know in order to make a decision. Also, a good one with a high SEER / EER rating is upwards of $1500. Which I really don't want to spend to test how it will perform against my window unit.


When it's under 80F a decent fan(s) could work.

My favorite fans are the 02cool smart power and fan-tastic vent endless breeze. I have two of each.

The endless breeze can move more air but uses more power to do it and it's louder. It's basically a portable roof vent fan as it moves 900 CFM of air at the highest speed setting. The roof fans move 900-950 depending on the model.

High on the 02cool moves about the same amount of air or close to it, as the endless breeze on low.

Here is a YT video that compares them.

Another fan that might be a replacement for the Endless Breeze is the Boundless Breeze. It's only $40, where the cheapest I see the Endless Breeze for these days is $95 plus tax/shipping. I will likely buy one to test it out and see how it compares to the endless breeze.

Amazon.com: Quick Products QP-TE1-0126 Boundless Breeze Ultimate RV/Marine Fan - 12 Volt : Automotive

Buy Quick Products QP-TE1-0126 Boundless Breeze Ultimate RV/Marine Fan - 12 Volt: Ventilation - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

www.amazon.com

 

[toms]

What is the model number?

FTXZ25NV1B

 

[MAGE]

Wow great contribution guys! Keep them coming!

I'm going to simultaneously try to solve the issue for minivan people as well, like the Honda Odyssey/Toyota Sienna people.

My end goal is to have a setup that can climate control the small space of a minivan but please keep the regular Promaster and Transit solutions coming as they are useful to everyone!

I do believe I found the fridge for the van lifers AND also the power station that I'm going to get to try this all out. The actual Frankencooler build does actually work pretty well if properly insulated radiator, I'm going to draw the idea out with my crude drawings again lol, but here is the fridge that I think is going to be perfect for what I'm going to try!

 

[MAGE]

1. ICECO, Dometic, or Bouge RV 12v Fridge/Icechest
2. Pecron S1500F (HB)...or you could use the S1000F - $945 on Indiegogo until the 15th
3. Frankencooler - $150 DIY / $299 from Frankencooler.com
4. Thick curtain separating the "cab" from the back of my Odyssey - $50?
5. 200W-300W total in solar panels to charge the Pecron - $250
6. Thermostat - Inkbird ITC-308 Digital Temperature Controller 2-Stage Outlet Thermostat Heating and Cooling - $35
7. Dehumidifier - AUZKIN Portable Dehumidifier - $30
8. Cozy space heater - $40

I've chosen these items considering their efficiency and price and utility. I will now attempt to draw my crude drawing again in my next post lol. If anyone finds better suited or more efficient items for a Honda Odyssey Minivan please let me know and I will update the list. I will be purchasing all of these things online on the 20th of June for my van and do plan to create a youtube video explaining everything and the setup.

I have looked into the swamp cooler for a minivan on youtube and I just keep finding that they have issues but I will continue to dig deeper.