With the in-wall airbox done, the cabinet holding the A/C could now be designed to tightly couple with the airbox.
As condensation builds
up during use, water can start dripping if it overflows the pan built
into the bottom of the A/C unit. As that unit's pan does not have a drip pickup nipple,
there was no convenient way to catch overspilling water and route it
out the van. So the base of the enclosure (pic above) serves as a backup
water catch pan. It received 4 coats of exterior polyurethane.
There
is no specific hot side intake on this A/C unit, as it draws air from louvers
on both its top and sides. So most of the enclosure serve as a
distributing space for the air coming from the airbox's intake to reach
the louvers:
The white strips in the pic above are weatherstrips that tighly seal off the A/C unit's sides.
To hold the A/C unit firmly pressed against the weatherstrips in the back of the enclosure, ear tabs were installed on the unit's cover (pic above). Long wood keys are then inserted, exerting pressure:
More weatherstripping later... and voila, time to test that puppy:
Well, it did not go too well... The temp in the van dropped 7°F / 4°C in a few minutes, but crept back up over the next 10'. The cold side was blowing warm-ish air. Time to investigate...
The exhaust pipe under the van was blowing hot air, hard. However, the intake pipe was no showing much suction. Finally, opening the enclosure lid did bring the cold side back down to cool temps. So, suspicion confirmed: no matter the application it is always much harder to suck than to blow ! 😂
Since the airbox's 3 foot long 3x4 intake pipe is too restrictive for this A/C unit, the intake fan had to get help drawing in air from outside. Enter the cavalery: 4 high pressure high speed 12V 0.8A 80x80x38 server fans that together can push 300CFM...
As they need to automatically start when the air conditioning is on, I tapped into the 110V line going to the thermostat to power a 12V adapter that feeds the fans:
18AWG yellow wires were spliced in:
Since the A/C unit's selector switch is rated for 25A, way beyond that
unit's specs, it should have no problem with an add'l ~50W max load.
This powers an AC/DC adapter with adjustable output voltage, to fine tune the fans' speed. No need for 300CFM or ear bleeding noise levels...
And now... the van is too cold ! 😂
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