There's gotta be a better way

[Vince-HX]

Originally Posted by moorecomp

In my former life as an aircraft mechanic, our airplanes used what is called an Air Cyle Machine. Look on Wikipedia for an explanation. Basically it uses high temp - high pressure bleed air from the turbine engine compressor and cools it and then allows it to expand, which results in a cooling effect. Maybe you could do a similar thing with a turbocharger and an intercooler and then allow the expansion.

Sounds like a lot of work!

Best regards

Two turbo's and three intercoolers, yeah that a bit of work

really neat idea though

[wagonman76]

I think the absorption principle would be a great idea. Like what is used in camper fridges. It uses no evergy except for a heating element to boil a fluid which cools the air inside the fridge and the freezer works well too. Set up the coils inside the car and divert some exhaust heat to boil the fluid. Ive also thought for a long time that this would work well for home cooling too, use the sun to boil the fluid and the hotter the sun beats down, the cooler it gets in the house.

[trikkonceptz]

Having the same car I too have put thought into the same idea. Here is what I have been contemplating;

-A dry Ice cooler, attached to the a/c recirc intake inside the car under the dash. This cooler would have an ambient temperature fan to keep it cool as long as possible, but it would draw the cooled air through the vent thus providing a/c for as long as the dry ice lasts. You would have to test to see how long that is, but it may work.

Second option;

Remove the compressor from the belt system, research the smallest compressor possible, like the motorcycle ones used on goldwings, etc and drive it with an electric motor. The draw from that could be offset with solar panels or a second battery off the system that you could charge nightly.

Try that see what sticks ..

[sohl]

My wife ... is an A/C junkie (75 degees and that sucker is on)

Ooh, mine too! She doesn't like how the wind from open windows buffets her ears, even though she sometimes doesn't drive on any roads above 25 mph, and usually not over 45 mph. 70 degrees and sunny and that AC is on. I think this is a big reason we are not even getting EPA mpgs in our Honda Odyssey. But hey, in our house, she loves it to be 80+ degrees and we only run the AC a few days a year.

[azraelswrd]

I like wagonman's idea of an absorption cooler:

Solar air conditioning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Inexpensive Home Building: Passive Cooling Solar Cooling: Use Heat To Cool
Home Built IcyBall
Building Your Own Larry Hall Icyball
HowStuffWorks "Gas and Propane Refrigerators"

Size, weight and safety are issues to consider but I like the idea of using all that "free" exhaust heat. Also, it probably wouldn't cool very fast (or until more heat is generated) at first. But the principle is sound. It is practical and is on the commercial market (see gas/propane refrigerators)

[SuperTrooper]

Originally Posted by wagonman76

I think the absorption principle would be a great idea. Like what is used in camper fridges. It uses no evergy except for a heating element to boil a fluid which cools the air inside the fridge and the freezer works well too. Set up the coils inside the car and divert some exhaust heat to boil the fluid. Ive also thought for a long time that this would work well for home cooling too, use the sun to boil the fluid and the hotter the sun beats down, the cooler it gets in the house.

It's been tried. It works well in a well insulated box or even a building, but the greenhouse of a car requires way too many BTUs/hr for a system that would fit in a car.

[Tango Charlie]

Hey, moorecomp. Former A&P, eh? Me too! The puddlejumpers I worked on didn't have air cycle machines, but I have heard of them. I'm afraid running a turbo to get the compressed air would rob as much or more power than the AC compressor. I like the 'outside the box' thinking, though.

wagonman, since I live in the mecca of RV manufacturing, you'd think I'd know about camper refridgerators. But I don't. Do you have any links that might explain the... oh! thanks, azraelswrd!

Trik, your dry ice idea violates my requirement #2, but your electrically-driven compressor idea is intriguing. I didn't know Goldwings had AC!

[millenniumtree]

Route the exhaust pipe to a stirling engine, which then runs the A/C compressor.
A/C from the engine's waste heat!

I'm not sure how large the stirling would need to be to power the A/C compressor... 1-2 hp maybe?

[Chiefdruid]

Ok, here's what I've got rolling around in my head. A bank of 12v thermoelectric coolers avalable from All Electronics | Electronic and Electro-Mechanical Parts and Supplies at Discount Prices cooling a heat exchanger (manifold) of sorts. Pull the vented air seat covers input air through this manifold.
Years ago, I built a water cooler for an overclocked PC. With just one TEC chip, I could get frost on the cold block in 20-30 seconds at room temp. The only problem is getting rid of the waste heat from the hot side of these coolers. You would have to vent a heatsink to the outside to pull a sufficient amount of heat to keep these cooling properly...

Here's a link if anyone's interested:

40MM X 44MM THERMOELECTRIC COOLER | AllElectronics.com

[Daox]

Not a bad idea, but yikes, those things pull 5 amps each! That would add up fast. I wonder how many you'd need to get descent cooling.