Which air con unit?

[Dot]

Has anyone had any experience of the Trauma Aventa air con? good bad or indifferent.
We are looking at putting an air con unit in the bedroom area, have an Ibis in the front. When building the bus we put the necessary space already in the roof plus the wiring / fuse etc just need to get a unit.

[T1 Terry]

This was the unit in the European van I recently helped fit up a lithium and solar system. It failed within the first day out from the caravan yard in Adelaide, after 2 days a tech talked them through a reset and away it went again. They were in the front yard a few days and it failed again, a reset wouldn't get it going this time. A tech came out, said it was to do with a circuit board that failed quite often, to do with water running inside the van instead of off the roof if the van wasn't perfectly level. 3 weeks waiting for the parts, nothing, they ended up leaving without the air con working and hoping they could find a friendly agent in Qld where they were headed for a house sit.
A very heavy start up current, not as noisy as the older Dometic rattler, but a lot noisier than Brian's split system air con, you have to actually touch it to know it's going during the day.
I'm seriously looking at the Kogan 2.5kW inverter split system for the Mazda, even though I built a section into the roof to fit the Dometic rattler, less draw on the battery/inverter/alternator while driving and heaps quieter, and only $500 plus freight, hard to beat.

T1 Terry

[cedtrains]

Terry,
What is the minimum requirements for the split systems, batteries ( Lithium Obviously ) and Solar?
Rob

[jon_d]

Terry,

Masters are having a clearance sales. I saw a 2.5 kw split, inverter unit at the local Masters for about $600.

[Dot]

Holy moly, maybe not such a good unit after all so if others also give bad reports we shall go with the tried and tested Ibis in the roof again as all wiring is done If a split system was to be entertained we would have to do sooooo much extra work just to get it up and also space would have to be found. Would not consider the tacky option of mounting the unit on the outside.

[T1 Terry]

Terry,
What is the minimum requirements for the split systems, batteries ( Lithium Obviously ) and Solar?
Rob

Input power flat out is 2,000w, so a 2000w or better inverter would be required. How long you want it to run on the batteries will determine how many Ah of battery you need, 2000w divided by 12v = 167 amps, so it will run flat out for 36 mins per 100Ah of battery capacity. Lithium doesn't have a problem with 167Ah being drawn out of a 100Ah battery, so that part is not an issue, but a bit more than 36 mins run time up the sleeve plus enough for all the other bits would be a good idea
Solar depends how far you want to recharge the batteries. If the unit was running full power all the time the sun was at it's height then you would need nearly 3,000w of solar to break even, but the unit would have pulled the temp down within an hr and be cycling at probably around the 50% mark if you had reflective window shades and good insulation even on a 40*C day, so probably around 1500w of solar would keep the system running and the battery charged, and a bit left over for other stuff.
That may sound like a lot of solar and it is, but this is Eddie's (Wombat) set up,

Solar awning.jpg

Each of those window shades is a 175w panel, there are 5 x 250w panels on the roof and another 200W panel over the rear window and gives close on 2000w of solar. Eddie's bus is 100% electric including cooking, microwave/convection oven and water heating. He has a 3.5kW air con unit and he still has 25 amps @ 26v left over for battery charging with the air con running full power and the door open, so it can be done.
Brian only has 720w on the roof of his Hino, he also has a split system inverter air con, his bus is also all electric including a 240vac fridge and he has no problems staying cool either.

T1 Terry

[T1 Terry]

Terry,

Masters are having a clearance sales. I saw a 2.5 kw split, inverter unit at the local Masters for about $600.

We bought a 2500w split system, but not an inverter model, from Bunning when they had their last clear out, $299, I'm guessing that one will end up being fitted to the house now, a lot more room for solar panels to power it that way
Unfortunately we don't have a Masters open here yet, but I believe one is being built close by, won't that put the cat among the pigeons

T1 Terry

[Mrcoolabah1au]

When the cat's away the mice will play

[Shirley]

What type of air con does Eddie have on his bus, the set up looks great.
What type of a bus is it?

[Jon and Kay]

When last in Darwin I removed the bedroom overhead aircon and replaced it with an auto Maxxair fan. We use it every day, where we only ever used the aircon about one week per year.
We have since removed the front overhead aircon and are in the process of adding a split system Akai Inverter from Bunnings 2.6kw $549 4 star energy or a Fujitsu Inverter at $795?