My wife has MS and needs to stay cool, especially aboard on hot windless days. I equipped our 18' cuddy with a 5,000 BTU air conditioner, powered by a Honda EU1000i generator.
Shown here after 5 years of saltwater use.
This rig didn't recirculate air but it did invoke those words I love to hear from my wife when in the cuddy on a 90° breezeless day, "I'm too cold". So the installation was a complete success.
Success didn't come on the first try. I started out by enclosing the cockpit with it's canvas and eisenglass installed in such a way the the air conditioner was basically in a fabric window. This way it recirculated the air as was supposedly necessary for an air conditioner to work properly. It didn't get the job done...didn't even come close.
I velcroed all the edges of the canvas and eisenglass to make the enclosure 'hermetically sealed' vs having slight openings between the snaps. Still wouldn't cool so I had a liner put in the bimini so I could enclose 1" of foam and a silvered space blanket to keep the heat of the sun from penetrating. Still ineffective.
More BTU's I thought. I found I could start and run an 8,000 BTU air conditioner with the 1000i if I didn't use eco-throttle, but I had to spool up the air conditioner fan before kicking in the compressor. But even the 8,000 didn't get the job done in the heat of the day. I didn't want to have to go to more BTU's because it meant I'd need a bigger generator, and besides, I decided I didn't want to have to be all closed up while aboard. That's when I went unconvential with the non-recirc plan and the 5000 BTU unit.
I rigged another boat the same way, also with excellent results. It sure was nice to be able to run the air conditioner while overnighting aboard on the road...we call it Wallydocking (overnighting in WalMart parking lots). So now I had two 1000i's to play with when we weren't boating.
We were planning a trip to Alaska and needed a generator for the 12,000 BTU a/c unit in the camper. We found we could parallel the 1000's to get the air conditioner started, and even shut one down once it was running. I built a platform in the pickup bed to conveniently house the two EU1000i's.
Things went well until we got into the western desert heat. The a/c needs more current in hot weather, especially starting. This put the 1000's right at the limit and occasionally one would stumble, the other would overload and I'd have to shut everything down, power down both generators, bring them both back up and gingerly turn on the a/c, hoping not to have to redo the cycle.
When we got bumped out of the hookup campground at Lake Powell and had to move into a no hookup Army Core spot it was time to get the power thing under reliable control. Of course there's no place at Powell to get anything, so we hit the road without the camper, overnighted in a motel in Page and picked up a 3500 watt generator at an auto parts store and were finally on our way to a/c happiness.
The cheapo 3500 watt generator thankfully got us through the Alaska adventure, well mostly. Somewhere on the way home, the generator got it's first taste of gasohol. This softened the gas cap and allowed gas to run down over the motor. We were careful and made it back ok by never filling up the generator's tank. At home, the generator started spitting oil. I found the gas that had run down onto the generator motor had disolved a crankcase gasket. No parts are available for these generators so it was a throwayay.
Next, we learned that our van a/c was terribly ineffective in hot weather unless the van was moving. This meant no sleeping in rest areas and being miserable in traffic jams. So we got ourselves an R2D2 unit. We call it R2D2 because it looks like one. This is a 9,000 BTU 'portable' unit on wheels that vents through a hose out a window.
But alas, the 1000i wasn't up to running R2D2, so we upgraded to a EU2000i and hung it off the back of the van.
It wasn't long before we needed the real estate inside the van that R2D2 required with it's massive vent hose, so I rigged an 8,000 BTU window unit in the van. From then on, everything was rosy.
About this time, my daughter, Sara Jane and son-in-law, Trey, were going to use the camper for a cross country trip and he doesn't mess around when it comes to power, so we got a Honda EU3000i equipped with remote start for the camper. What a blessing to have a no nonsense generator. I even made an enclosure for it so it could be out of sight - even while running.
Then Big Duck enters the picture and we're so happy that she's equipped with an air conditioner and will run happily with the 2000i. But we soon find that the 9,000 BTU unit on her roof only cools the back 1/2 of the boat. I guess we might have suspected this when we noticed the auxillary fan hanging next to it.
So now we've got to figure a way to cool the helm as well as the galley/dinette. Trey came up with an acceptable solution for making things tolerable, at least while working on the boat in the back yard...a high velocity squirrel cage fan which blows the cool air all the way forward. And in fact it does the job so well, that the compressor eventually cycles off.
Trey's observation when it did cycle off was, "Hey, we're not using the a/c to it's full potential." But he suggested that with two couples and a couple dogs aboard it still wouldn't be enough. There may be a way to make a new Coleman 15,000 BTU unit work, but for now I may just put the R2D2 unit behind the helm seat - which Trey had the foresight to already have a separate breaker and outlet for. The 3000i will be removed from the camper and be installed on the roof of Big Duck, or if we find tit adds too much weight up there we'll put it on the rear deck.
Update here:
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