Off Grid Inventions: Turning a 12 Volt fridge-freezer into an air conditioner!
This is a prototype and test to convert a 12/24 volt fridge-freezer in to an air conditioner for small spaces that uses only 50 watts of power.
I have always been a tinkerer/inventor at heart even as a kid and many of the projects in my book "Off The Grid" were a result of that drive to devise ways to use solar power in unique ways. I designed solar air heaters, solar dehydrators, solar clothes dryers and a solar composting toilet that all work and use passive solar power.
Now that it s starting to warm up here I am using solar to run my mini evaporative cooler and when it gets hot enough the big Hessaire swamp cooler will come out and those work great in low humidity climates like mine. However, most people can't use an evaporative cooler because of higher humidity.
So that got me thinking about how I could design a simple air conditioner that uses low power but doesn't increase humidity. Now, that has been a major design issue for engineers all over the world and the best they have come up with still use lots of power and 6% of our energy use in the US and 10% of world energy use goes just to air conditioning. That is increasing as average temperatures are rising and areas are getting warmer sooner and getting hotter and the hot season is lasting longer.
So, I have a design in my head to use one of my 12 volt fridge/freezer units and using simple fans, vents and gel packs (no condensation) to create a solar air conditioner that will run on less than 100 watts that will cool at least 200 sqft and could be used for apartments, rooms or in an RV or off grid cabin.
I am NOT an engineer so if you have experience with engineering and can help with the design your feedback on this project will be greatly appreciated and if it works we may just invent a better AC unit that would greatly reduce the world's energy use and maybe save people's lives.
#offgrid #airconditioner #inventions
