Refrigerated Air Conditioner for Camping

Yeah, in the ‘portable’ (wheeled) ones you definitely would want a 2-hose unit. I tried a 1-hose A/C in my little trailer and it just sucked hot outside air back in through cracks or whatever just as fast as it produced cold air. Room air conditioners from 5000 BTU on up tend to work too if you get the right size for the space.

Is this for an RV or a tent? If a tent, I’d just get a 5000 BTU room unit and zip the doorway around it.

Anything that actually works is going to weight about 60 or 80 lbs at least. No getting around it. And some that weigh that much don’t work… I tried a portable mini-split called Rollicool and it was a total fail; it only dropped the temp in a 14’x6.5’ trailer from 89* to 83* in the course of an hour, so I returned it.

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1 hose units are trash.

2 hose units are way better.

With portable A/Cs, getting hosed is a good thing! :smiley:

I’ve never met a backpacker with a portable air conditioner.
You might do better using a goat or mule to haul it and the battery pack and solar cells.

I’ve taken rolls of aluminized bubble wrap —- Home Depot attic insulation —- for car camping to put up inside a “shade” shelter against the mosquito netting walls and on the roof in hot weather and it’s very good at blocking direct heat from the sun. Unlike a cloth tarp, no noticeable infrared comes through it. The kind with aluminum on both sides works best.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Reflectix-48-in-x-100-ft-Double-Reflective-Insulation-Roll-BP48100/202092205

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What kind of “excursion” are you planning? Will you be traveling from place to place or setting up an base camp to operate from?

I see your from Miami, are you doing your excursion in the Everglades??

Welcome to BLF…. :slight_smile:

There are a few that are really battery powered, portable, and compressor driven (not evaporative like those above). Like this on Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1253665084/zero-breeze-the-worlds-coolest-portable-air-condit

But I think you can seriously consider carrying a big block of ice and a fan. It’s more efficient, unless you have a power source. There’s also a Kickstarter for that:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/idea3di/geizeer-eco-friendly-ice-cooling

A more recent project with, er, less complaints:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/548470077/coolingstyle-portable-multifunctional-air-conditio/

You have GOT to be kidding!

It at least needs a long hose carrying heat to a heat sink in the nearby ocean.

And in a tent, dumping the heat through a hose?
This is where the Reflectix aluminized bubble wrap would make sense, to block sunlight from heating the tent:

But for catsake, that thing is probably barely competent as a beer cooler.

Not to mention likely using an ozone-destroying refrigerant, for which China is currently the primary source.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-environment-ozone/china-responsible-for-surge-in-ozone-depleting-emissions-study-idUSKCN1ST0A8

It’s industrial waste, what’s the best way to get rid of it? AH, yes sell it to the Americans ….

That tiny thing can only cool up to 55 sq ft? Like, that is a closet or a small tent or you have to sit in front of it.

Plan your camping trip further north or to higher elevations. If you want AC don’t go camping, just stay in a hotel…
Smh

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Certainly not for everyone or every situation, but I can see how these could be useful to some people.

Pitch your tent in the shade & cool that bad boy down at night! :+1:

Booyah…. a cooler nights sleep. :beer:
.


…. a COOLER nights sleep!

I thought camping was to get away from electronic conveniences and be in tune with nature ? Roughing it so to speak .

When tent sleeping I have found that a damp sheet and a fan to work pretty well to stay cool in dry climes. Haven’t tried that in humid areas.

A portable (one that can be carried) A/C that uses refrigerant doesn’t exist. The basic components of this type of system are evaporator-aka cooling coil, condenser, compressor; plus other components that control the flow of refrigerant; and the amount of electricity required would require a very large battery.
There’s wouldn’t be enough surface area of the coil to develop any useful amount of cooling in a unit this small.

The closest you could get is one of those that roll around and exhaust out of a window; I think Frigidaire makes one.
portaable AC

There was a comment here which sounded like it might have been spam, so it was deleted. But the product he described was relevant.

The zero breeze battery powered ac. 240W input and 2300BTU cooling. It’s $1000 with battery sold separately.

I flagged it. When they dredge up a thread from 3 years ago on their first post and make a spammy pitch and give a link to buy something I don’t usually give them the benefit of a doubt.

I had a great results with homebuild ac few years ago, our central ac was being fixed that summer, (our electrical was already over loaded with few windows ac running) it was basically a large cooler, filled with ice, an old bmw heater core, a 12v submersible mini pump, and 2x12v 120mm fans. and few sheets of hard foam insulation, pink 2x2 sheets from home depot. worked better that i expected, but not before i discovered and corrected few mistakes. i made it to run on 12v on purpose so i can use it in a tent during camping, while it worked great at home, camping use was not that great, i mean it did work great as long as there was ice in the cooler. but cooling a tent in a summer heat is very hard (barely felt that the cool inside the tent) and it made walls and some stuff inside the tent go damp. So now i put my tent in shade as much as i can, and if not, i cover it with emergency heat blankets, so it reflects ir rays, it works better than ac.

this thing

only sprays water into a fan

you need very dry air for it to do anything

and it will still make you and your clothes and tent soggy

plus you have to feed it water

wle

For some of us, our idea of “camping” is staying at a hotel which lacks a restaurant.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve stayed in some remote locations, including one wherein the hotel probably had the only electricity for a good 50-100 miles, powered by two large Caterpillar gensets. It was surreal seeing wood fires across the lake while we were in full Western luxury with aircon.

This unit from EcoFlow was just announced. I don’t have one yet, but I do have several of EcoFlow’s other products and can attest to them being first-rate quality: