ok...i went down this rabbit hole so far that i'll be coughing up rabbit pellets for the next few months...
i absolutely LOVE the idea of a
portable air conditioning unit i can take camping. unfortunately it is more of an idea than it is a reality. compressors and heating elements are just power hungry by nature and that is why electric heating and cooling is not something that is currently going to work well off of a battery. i'm sure in time there will be a tech breakthrough that will allow for it...but until then, i have found only one solution that works.
i wanted a small a/c to go in my CTC and the best i found was going with a 2300w inverter generator (weighs 39 pounds, about the same as some 12v batteries) and a 5000 btu window unit.
we take the genny with us anyway, so all i did was buy the small window unit and build a box for it so i can keep the whole unit inside the camper and not cut a giant hole to mount it and still be able to isolate the exhaust from the room air and then i can vent it anywhere. the portable a'c units are a LOT bigger, weigh a lot more and pull more power to get the same amount of cooling. you still need to address the hot exhaust no matter what kind of unit you buy. even the battery operated units still need to be vented outside.
if i was going to use this in a tent, i would get a piece of plywood a few inches wider and a foot taller and cut out a square for the unit to fit thru so that it is essentially like it would be if mounted in a window so that the front is inside the tent and blowing cold air while the plywood isolates the rear exhaust and the tent can zip up behind the plywood to seal the tent and keep the hot exhaust outside while keeping the cooler air in the tent.
yeah, its a bit cumbersome for a tent...but, still doable. for a camper, camper shell, etc., it works really well.
the 5000w unit pulls less than half of the genny's rated output. THATS why i went this route. i can run this around 6 hours off one tank.
www.zerobreeze.com
