Anyone have any experience: American Cooling Technologies?

[topfrog007]

My bus came with an American Cooling Technologies EZ-3 installed. It a roof hanging evaporator that produces 35,000 BTU It uses between 7.5 and 15 amps

Here is the manufacturers website along with the sales manual.

http://www.actusa.us.com/index.html

http://www.actusa.us.com/sales/ez3.pdf


Does anyone know anything about these systems? Wondering if it's worth anything or if it can be used for a conversion...

[Oonrahnjay]

     No, "experience" but I looked at a couple of "low-medium" capacity items (condenser and evaporator) and they pull over 40 Amps @12V and that's just for those devices -- no idea how much compressor load (although I'm guessing they're made for an engine/belt driven compressor) or other items like control circuits.  That's over 500 watts just for condenser and evaporator fans. 

     They look to me like good units but I wonder if they're "too big".   They look high-capacity and large current draw.  Might be better to use a couple of mini-splits (all 120V) that includes compressor and control circuits and space them out around your bus.  The mini-splits are smaller capacity but you'd have individual cooling where you'd need it. 

     I guess if "your way" is a single big unit, these might work; otherwise, something else might be better.

[bevans6]

The evaporator is 15 amps at 13.5 volts, half that at 27 volts, for the 35K btu unit.  The condenser that matches has similar numbers.  Seems a remarkably efficient unit, to me, very low draw.  I have no idea how they would do that.  Airflow is nice on the evaporator, 700 CFM.  That's twice what my rooftop has.

Brian

[Oonrahnjay]

The evaporator is 15 amps at 13.5 volts, half that at 27 volts, for the 35K btu unit.  The condenser that matches has similar numbers.  Seems a remarkably efficient unit, to me, very low draw.  I have no idea how they would do that.  Airflow is nice on the evaporator, 700 CFM.  That's twice what my rooftop has.   

       Yeah, twice the airflow and about 2.5 times the BTU (assuming you're rooftop is about 14-15 BTU).  One thing about the "skirt-type" condensers, they'd fit just fine in my bus; I have no bays but about a 12" skirt around the edges of my underfloor.  I haven't looked to see if there's spacing between the frames for one of the condensers but the height and depth measurements would work really well.  And, despite the fact that they move a lot of air, the evaporator/fan units are compact and should fit in many roof area locations.  I see a lot of good from these, I'm just worried that they may be too much of a "shooting rabbits with a cannon" for what we need.  But if your need lines up with them, they sure look good.  (Still haven't investigated what compressor they'd need to push 35K BTU; we'll need to consider 120V/240V/engine-belt driven compressors, current draw, matching to condenser/evaporator pairs etc.)

[Oonrahnjay]

       I'm sure that there are many more choices out there but a search of Grainger air-conditioner compressors shows  Grainger Item #6AGY7, "Compressor, R-410A, Nominal HP 1, BtuH 12, 825, Voltage 115, Amps 12".   So, a compressor that will supply approx 1/3 of the rating of the 35K BTU components is the largest 120V compressor available from Grainger and it will draw approx. 1500 watts.  I'm very unfamiliar with 120V air conditioner systems but doesn't this make a 1000 watt mini-split look pretty good?
       It looks to me that the ACT system will require an engine-belt driven compressor; that's fine for vehicles in motion but I can't imagine that it will work for the kind of use that most of us will put our vehicles to.  If I'm wrong on this, I'd love to know more.