Portable Air Conditioner in Sterling semi

Surprisingly enough that poor man a/c works, not great but works. I recall old timers doing similar things.

 

suffice it to say, that surge rating very seldom works. Might work if you had one of them expensive digital invertors. But good luck on the cheap dirty invertors, even though they aren't cheap.

 

These humidify the air in the truck as the ice melts. In desert areas it's not nearly as uncomfortable as the eastern 2/3 of US where heat and high humidity are always connected.

My brother used something like this to get through a few days at home when his AC died. The increase in humidity almost offset the decrease in temp before the ice melted.

 

Makes perfect sense. I thought about the humidity factor, but I didn't realize it would be that bad.

 

Any time you have a electric motor hooked to a power source there are two ratings. Surge wattage needed to start it and normal running. I once had a 12Kw generator to run the house when tornadoes rip out telephone poles on my road now and then. And find that when the big stuff cycles on in the home, the gennie kicks in to crank em. But since it was a big one, it will absorb the shock rather easily.

If something turns at 1000 watts, you plan on 2500 if not almost 3000 to start it. Don't run it pure off batteries, feed em. Cycling the batteries up and down in time kills them.

If you are looking at a floor unit, it's going to be rather big and you might find it too much. I use one now and then to support my radiator cooled computer in the hot arkansas days.

 

Just put the ice in gallon zip lock bags to contain the moisture. Humidity issue solved, and makes getting rid of the melt water easier as well.

 

Try the freezer bags instead of ordinary ziplock. The Freezer gallon bags to be exact. There is a coating to defend against lost meat left in freezer burned state and wasted without these bags.

If you are unsure a computer 12 volt fan can move air, I assure you my large two foot long (360mm radiator) cooling my 6 core cpu is capable of maintaining 72 degrees at night with heat off inside my home in winter. I recall another which I built that ran two matrix video cards from Asus that heated my previous home 8 degrees in a hour's time. I sold the cards when my 16 seer system kicked in and roared into high which almost never happens except on about 10 to 20 days of summer.

I hope that you find the rest you are looking for, it is a challenge on one hand to obtain a atmosphere pleasent to rest and sleep in the truck with engine off and almost a slap to the industry in it's consistent failure to obtain same despite decades of hard use and exposure to all sorts of life threatening enviornments around the world.