Cool! It's an Urban Assault Vehicle!
Working link: https://senville.com/air-conditioners/
Screw the batteries, get a nice generator and spew that CO2 out. Trees will love you for it.
Uh....eh, got nada. Sorry.
They run on 240v, so you better have some seriously beefy batteries with an expensive 12v to 240v inverter. You are probably better off with the Coleman roof-mount AC.
They are very efficient, but running them on solar or battery power is probably not a very practical idea at this point from an economic standpoint.
The smallest one they show is 9000 BTU, which translates into something like 900 watts, although power consumption is not given on the web page you link.
That would require something like 100 square feet of solar panel, assuming you are getting high-quality direct sunlight. If you want to power it during the non-peak flux hours, the number of square feet goes up.
That's not counting losses due to converter inefficiencies, cable losses, etc.
In case you don’t know, there is a vast cult of RV’ers on YouTube with (what seemed to me to be highly experienced) vids on just about topic you might imagine. I found a lot about “what to look at on a used RV” that might be useful to you.
If you have a woman that’s going to stay with you, I recommend a water heater upgrade, preferably tankless. Never-ending hot water. Saves a bit on propane as well if your current water heater is gas.
I haven’t made the jump yet myself, but it’s definitely on the list.
I read an interesting stat sometime back.
It takes 1000lbs if LiOn battery to equal 1.85 gallons of gasoline. If your Generator is only 20% efficient you can save a bundle and save more by not having ti haul around a ton or more of batteries.
Cool! It's an Urban Assault Vehicle!
My experience with inop RV AC units is minimal but, the 3 times I have worked on them, all they needed was a new motor start up capacitor and lubrication. Does it trip breakers when the AC tries to start?
Ductless? Doesn’t that mean free of duct tape repairs? :P
I have 41 years exp in hvac and have installed quite a few mini splits including several with multi indoor units matched with a single outdoor unit.
I believe that the mini split could be adapted for an RV although I have not seen that application before.
The amperage draw for the cooling attained with the “inverter” style mini splits is very low and most act as heat pumps to provide heat in winter. I would recommend a good generator sized for it...I don’t know enough about solar power arrays to advise.
A couple of things...don’t buy a system off the internet. Contact a local HVAC wholesaler and price them. Warranty parts for systems bought on the net are sometimes impossible to acquire.
Don’t buy one of Chinese mfg...use Japanese or Korean.
High watt loads like AC, electric stove and washer/dryers will drain down a battery bank fast. Real fast. You can cover the whole roof with solar and it will not keep up with the daily amp demand. In addition, for any of the AC using devices that are running off the inverter, inverters are only about 70% efficient. That means 10 watts worth of energy in gives you 7 amps of energy out.
For running AC and other high electricity users, a generator is needed. Run the AC, electric stove and such off of the AC output of the generator and the DC output to the battery charger. Use a quality charger set up for multiple inputs such as generator, shore power, solar and wind.
Bottom line is for AC and other large draws, a properly sized generator is needed, solar and wind will not be able to meet the demand.
Cassettes are a pain in the ass to install and fitting them to an RV sounds like a bigger pain. I installed a three zone ducted mini-split for a fellow a few years ago and he insisted on putting the outdoor unit in his small attached garage with his other outdoor mini-split. He opened the garage door and found lots of melted plastic his first summer.
Mini splits are great but not exactly well suited for RVs. They mostly run on 240V but are not low amperage draw. The 18,000 btu unit in my shop usually draws about 8 amps of 240V... not likely something you are going to do with a few solar cells.
Packaging is also a problem. The condenser unit is not huge but it isn’t small either and the form factor is not well suited to the top of an RV. They like to be vertical and to have some clearance from the wall, like 10 or more inches.
For distributed zone HVAC in a home they are just about unbeatable with efficiency rivaling geothermal and cost a fraction. The inverter technology and zone temperature control are the key. A three phase unit would be even better.
BM for the cabin.
That is likely to be a problem for you. The condenser fan in the outdoor unit is designed to operate in an open environment. It very likely cannot tolerate the airflow restriction imposed by mounting internally. you might be able to do so with the use of external fans to provide airflow to and from the unit if you bury it in an enclosed space.