Question:
In my quest for more boondocking in the summer months, I ran across a
couple of companies selling 12 volt air conditioners. This would be a
dream come true! One of the companies is DCairco.com. Does anybody
know anything about them?
Answer:
How many dozens of batteries does that require? I boondock almost
exclusively. That' why I have a generator. But I sure would be
interested to know more about the 12v kind. I bought a 12v coffee
maker once. Took 40 minutes to make a cup. Threw it away.
The current draw isn't too bad at 37.3 amps/12 volts for the 9,000 btu unit.
But 9,000 btu is about 2/3 to 3/4 the capacity required for minimal cooling
of most small-to medium rigs.
And you'll still have to come up with 298 ampere/hours recharge for each
8-hour run.
I regularly have great 12V air conditioning and only use 5
amps on High. It is called evaporative cooling and works
superbly in dry desert weather and I've even used it on warm
East Coast evenings where its cooling effect is less.
These evaporative coolers used to be almost standard in the
early days, but gave way to freon air conditioners and
generators. I happen to have both kinds, but make great use
of the evaporative cooler when boondocking. BTW, the
commonly heard gripe that it quickly empties your fresh
water supply is B.S. (make that Balderdash).
