The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Electric A/C on my ‘62 C-10

Very much looking forward to hearing about this also. There are challenges I see but I'm keeping an open mind at this point and trying to be positive. One is output. These compressors output only 20cc. That is tiny and it makes me wonder if you could cool much space with it. A typical mechanical compressor (think Sanden 508) is roughly 7 times that at 138cc and so is the Toyota Prius (which by the way operates on 200+v). So obviously they're going to have to run very fast and even then they will never equal the output, but let's see what happens. You're also going to need a lot of amps if you're battling an ambient temperature of 100 degrees or more. Unfortunately if this amp demand causes your alternator to become a crispy critter, we may not know that right off the bat...although it shouldn't take long.

With alternate approaches, it always comes down to efficiency and size and how to move heat quickly.

Around 6 or 7 years ago I showed folks here using no compressor at all and no refrigerant at all how I could easily make solid ice in 7 minutes...taking a 1.5" x 3" block of aluminum from 70 degrees to 20 degrees in an ambient temperature of 78 degrees. (The COP by the way will usually be around .5, so in an ambient temperature of 100 degrees, 50 is about as low as I can make it go...although some makers claim a COP of .7, I've never seen it happen). All I need is a Peltier device, a good heat sink and a fan (in comparison to your truck's airconditioner please think of this as the condenser unit), a piece of aluminum for the "cold sink" (even though as you know there really is no such thing as cold) plus voltage/current of 12 volts and 7 amps. This is great technology dating back to the 1830s. If I could figure out how to use this and solar energy to adequately cool houses, I'd be living on an island I bought for cash and I'd probably hire Bill Gates to drive me around in my yacht. I can get the efficiency but I (and millions of others who have tried) can't figure out how to make these cool large things. But please take a look below. I could make a pretty good personal ice machine or beer cooler. (even though other methods are more efficient) I have thought for years a small mini-icebox could be made for the AD truck...but you really need to exhaust the heat to the outside or you're just going to be in a loop...taking heat from one area and depositing it back into the same area.