How to temporary chill a car with non-working AC.

The A/C system in an `89 old Honda is completely dead. They
quoted a price of about $1500 to fix but the car's worth as much as
that. I like to put in a 700 watt 117V portable or standard home air
conditioner in the trunk but worry it may drain the battery. Is it
possible to make a difference by continuously pumping chilled
waters (filled with icicles) into the entire liquid line (tube) that runs
thru the evaporator?

Thanks

Find and get an automotive swamp cooler. They were popular before car A/C
became common.

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004, Burt Squareman wrote:

> The A/C system in an `89 old Honda is completely dead. They
> quoted a price of about $1500 to fix but the car's worth as much as
> that. I like to put in a 700 watt 117V portable or standard home air
> conditioner in the trunk but worry it may drain the battery. Is it
> possible to make a difference by continuously pumping chilled
> waters (filled with icicles) into the entire liquid line (tube) that runs
> thru the evaporator?
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
>
>

Just carry a 450 oz. Slurpee!




____________________________________
Do not write below this line. Reserved for me.

Burt Squareman wrote:

> The A/C system in an `89 old Honda is completely dead. They
> quoted a price of about $1500 to fix but the car's worth as much as
> that. I like to put in a 700 watt 117V portable or standard home air
> conditioner in the trunk but worry it may drain the battery. Is it
> possible to make a difference by continuously pumping chilled
> waters (filled with icicles) into the entire liquid line (tube) that runs
> thru the evaporator?
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
>

Um.
That would be so much trouble, so messy, and not very effective. When
you say the system is "completely dead" - what is bad? if you can do the
labor, the parts won't cost too much. Changing a compressor (if thats
whats bad) is a matter of unbolting the a/c lines, taking the belt off,
and unbolting the housing.

I like to put in a 700 watt 117V portable or standard home air
> conditioner in the trunk but worry it may drain the battery. Is it
> possible to make a difference by continuously pumping chilled
> waters (filled with icicles) into the entire liquid line (tube) that runs
> thru the evaporator?
>
> Thanks

You've GOT to be trolling. How long an entension cord do you have?

A car a/c unit is equivalent to cooling an entire house. A 700 watt
window unit isn't up to the job anyway.

JM

Well, first, I'd suggest shopping around on the repair of your car's
a/c. Depending on exactly what is wrong, you may get some quotes
below $1500. But on to the other ideas...


> I'd like to put in a 700 watt 117V portable or standard home air
> conditioner in the trunk but worry it may drain the battery.

The kind of inverter you need to do justice to this application is
pretty big: in ballpark figures, I'd go with a 1500 W continuous/3000
W peak inverter of at least "modified sine wave" output quality ("pure
sine wave", i.e., what the power company gives you, would be even
better, at higher cost). The ante is probably six or seven hundred
dollars.

The issues are that (a) motors draw more at startup than in continuous
operation and (b) an inadequate inverter slowly murders them with
undervoltage, like operating at home in a brownout.

On the input side, we can do another finite-napkin model and figure
that after accounting for inefficiencies, you're using 1400 W, at 14
V, which comes out to 100 A. That's a lot of current; you'd want to
run a husky wire, fused at the battery end, like the kids with the
enormous stereos have to do. It also represents a very large
fraction of a typical car's alternator output. These arguments still
apply even if you look at things more closely and decide that my
safety margins are too large.

Finally, you have to expose the home air conditioner's coils to the
outside world or else you're defeating your own purpose by dumping
that excess heat into the cabin. And don't forget to support it very
solidly.


> possible to make a difference by continuously pumping chilled
> waters (filled with icicles) into the entire liquid line (tube) that runs
> thru the evaporator?

Without dragging out some rather dusty textbooks and a calculator, I
think that as a working fluid, this would be far, far less effective
than compressed freon. It would also eliminate any chance that any
part of your a/c system is salvageable. And you'd have to arrange a
pump.

You might be better off getting an ice chest and some of those quilted
blankets of "blue ice" and making cold packs for your body. This
would at least be tidier than what I had to do on a trip across the
Mojave when my air conditioner went on the blink -- an ice chest full
of ice water, into which I could dip a towel for my head and neck and
shoulders. It must have been a sight to behold, sort of Lawrence of
Arabia meets the Beverly Hillbillies.


You might be better off with a portable evaporative or "swamp" cooler
meant for use in the car -- see for instance
http://www.evaporative-cooling.com/e...ml#anchor93613
These only work well if you are in a dry climate. For high humidity
environments, there are devices that blow air across an ice bed:
http://www.evaporative-cooling.com/istr1.html
Neither of these are anywhere near as effective as a compressor-type
air conditioner in good working order, but they do take the edge off
the heat, and their 12V power draw is reasonable.

Best of luck,
--Joe

Burt Squareman wrote:
> The A/C system in an `89 old Honda is completely dead. They
> quoted a price of about $1500 to fix but the car's worth as much as
> that. I like to put in a 700 watt 117V portable or standard home air
> conditioner in the trunk but worry it may drain the battery. Is it
> possible to make a difference by continuously pumping chilled
> waters (filled with icicles) into the entire liquid line (tube) that runs
> thru the evaporator?
>
> Thanks
=========================

I have a good air conditioner sitting in the middle of my garage . . . I
sometimes us it to HEAT the room on a chilly morning. An air conditioner
generates more HEAT than COLD, if the backside is not vented out a window.

Are you planning to cut the hole thru the top of the trunk, or the side
of the fender?

catnip.... is that what you've been smoking? Buy a bag of party ice and
sit it on the back seat, or your lap. :-)

On Thu, 23 Sep 2004, motsco_ _ wrote:

> An air conditioner generates more HEAT than COLD

An air conditioner generates neither heat nor cold. All it does is *move*
heat.

>An air conditioner generates neither heat nor cold. All it does is *move*
heat.>

Partially true. It also converts a lot of electricity into heat in the process
of "moving" the heat.

Quent

Daniel J. Stern wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Sep 2004, motsco_ _ wrote:
>
>
>>An air conditioner generates more HEAT than COLD
>
>
> An air conditioner generates neither heat nor cold. All it does is *move*
> heat.
>

Actually, it doesn't move heat, either. It moves energy. Heat is just
how energy is transfered between the condenser (or evaporator) and the
rest of the world.