qtla9111 wrote:

Here is what one owner told me about his set up. Granted, it is 5000 btu's. Good enough for an RV bedroom for sleeping or day use in a living area when you are boondocking. I recently ran my 5000btu unit in the living/kitchen area of my 39ft TT and it cooled beautifully.

"The system include a 2200 watt (continuous, 2800 watt surge)
inverter with aut shutdown at ~10.5 volts to prevent battery damage.

My 5000BTU Carrier surges at ~ 30 amps on a direct high speed (call for
cooling) and runs at ~ 7.3 amps running. On fan-on start it surges to
7.5 amps; when then switched to cooling it surges to 15.5 amps. Runing
rurrent in high speed is 7.5 amps and in low id 4.9 amps. If you do
the math, the run time does not compute and suspect that the Batt's AH
ratings are less than stated or that the inverter actually cut off at a
higher voltage. Either way I am more than pleased with the run time.

The 12 hour run time (continuous) was determined by running an electric
clock set at 12:00 and checking the elapsed time when the inverter shut
down. If you are willing to settle for an intermittent 4-hours of
operation, then the battery bank size can be reduced accordingly.

The electrical system is described in the files section, but does not
include the wiring digram; but If you have a fax #, email me and I will
send it to you.

Shore power and inverter power circuits are separate, brown outlets and
face plate are shore power and white outlets and face plates are
inverter circuits. Duplex outlets (one by the A/C and one exterior)
are color coded - brown and white. All 12 volt circuits are run off
the batts, but the charger has a constant 13.6 volt setting and will
run all 12 volt circuits with or without the batts.

The key to the whole system is a really good multi-batt, high output
charger with equilization mode. More options (mfg.'s) now than the
Truechatge 40+ that has an independent 3-bank capablity so each batt is
charged according to its needs, as I can run any one, any two or all
three batts at any one time, thus the charge rate abd charge time will
almost always be different.

The high amp output allows for a 3-hour (typical) charge time to
recover via gen set during the day or on the road or shore power."

Here is another who uses his rv heat pump a/c on solar:

"We can run one of them off the batterys, we've got a 3K inverter with 5K surge and 4 AGM's, normally we will fire up the generator to run them but we can run one just fine off the system."

I don't have solar yet, it is in the budget for this year. But, if someone out there does have solar and a larger inverter, why not try it on a small window unit and get back to us. First hand information is better than hearsay. I say, give it a chance.

TMBLSN wrote:



Sure, it's called a generator. Honda and Yamaha make them in the quiet-inverter variety.

blkfe wrote:

Ok...Ok...
I have often wondered if a gas or LP powered engine could directly drive an AC unit. The engine could cycle on and off. Could get by with a small engine because it would be very efficient. Could be very quiet as well.
Am I crazy or what?
Brad

alcolby wrote:

It is a matter of watts in, watts out.

"Cooling beautufully" is just not a sensible statement, how can 5MBTU cool a 39' anything?

A lot of motorhomes, including mine, have trouble keeping up with anything past about 95 degrees, and that is with two 15M BTU units
[six times the single 5M unit]

Running an air on solar is an equally daunting task,you run out of rooftop real estate long before you can get enough panels up there to do the job.

BTW, batteries @10.5 volts are in discharged state of about 70% and they will soon expire from this mistreatment.

If someone wants to cool an RV without having shore power, an evap water [swamp] cooler is a practical method.

Al C