Kitty on Board? -- A/C gen.
Thanks a bunch! good gen.
Terry K
Larry wrote:
Terry Spragg wrote in
:
What mechanism provides the cold?
Same as any window unit....Freon, mostly R-22 but more R-134A these days
at lower pressures. The difference is the condensor is cooled with
seawater. There's a pipe-in-a-pipe. The inside pipe is where the high
pressure freon is pumped by the AC compressor. The outside pipe has a
flow of seawater going through it at no pressure at all...from a little,
cheap plastic pump whos strainer soon fills with some of the nastiest
prehistoric creatures on earth sucked up from the sealife that lives
under a marina dock....blocking the strainer, zeroing out the seawater
flow, overpressuring the backed up freon condensor and causing a tripout
from high head pressure on the AC compressor.....It's inevitable...(c;
Do you have an airconditioner pump, evaporator and condenser to cool
recirculated water?
The water is raw seawater, not recirculated. It eventually eats the
condensor from its caustic contents. (see pipe-in-a-pipe above). The
freon parts, except for this seawater condensor, are the same cheap crap
from a window airconditioner....marked up to amazing "marine" prices, of
course.
I was twigged when you indicated water cooled A/C, and was hoping
your system used cool sea water to provide modest cooling to the
cabin, with no power needed to actually chill the water.
Nope...it's just an air conditioner cooled with seawater.
Anyone in a boat with any brains will do what the tugboat operators
do....go to a MOTORHOME dealer and buy a rooftop AIR COOLED AC unit for
$2000 less money. No seawater flooding from a broken hose. No creatures
to clean out from tiny strainers all clogged up that bite like hell. No
duct work hogging valuable STORAGE SPACE at a premium inside the boat.
No losing valuable locker space for the damned NOISY air conditioning
unit INSIDE the living space, half of who's cooling capacity is cooling
its OWN STUPID HEAT. The RV AC unit has the noisy compressor and fan
OUTSIDE the living space so if you have a 12000 BTU unit, you get to use
all 12000 BTU cooling the space....not the hot compressor, hot fan motor,
hot seawater condensor, etc.
"Marine" air conditioners are really stupid on small boats like
sailboats. It was OK on the Hatteras because it was in the bilge, not
the sleeping space!
|