I'm on my 4th iteration of air-conditioning scheme. The latest is building a controller to run a 2nd gen prius a/c compressor. I have a thread going on DIYecar here: http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php/diy-controller-04-09-prius-c-140346.html
It's worked well so far at up to 105F outside despite speed limitations (due to only a 144v pack) and power draw was only about 1.5kW. I just got it working a few months ago so we'll see if it lasts the summer. Just some initial thoughts, I spent a lot of time/money flushing the hoses and heat exchangers to get all the PAG oil out (eats at the motor windings apparently). Also spent extra money on having new hoses made. Since you'll be starting from scratch, you won't have to do either if you go the prius compressor route. Also, if you'd rather avoid hacking a controller together, you could hack the communication protocol to the 3rd gen prius compressor which has its controller built in. Previous attempts were: - ice water and a fan. was easy to try, but laughable for phoenix. - use a single phase compressor out of a 5000 BTU window a/c unit with a homemade inverter - not enough cooling capacity, need more like 10k-12k BTU/hr. - use a 3.5 HP treadmill motor to run the original a/c compressor. Failed miserably, not enough power to even get it turning past a few RPM. - use a 5 HP single phase 240VAC air compressor motor to turn the original a/c compressor powered by a homemade 240VAC single phase inverter. The motor is readily available, so reasonably cheap. This setup worked well from a cooling perspective, but terribly inefficient and drew 3-4 kw on the hottest days and not much less on the warm days. My electronics failed on its second summer, so I spent the winter working on the prius a/c project. A friend of mine has a porsche and belt drives his compressor off the tail shaft of the drive motor. It was easy to do, but is about as inefficient as my attempt to use a second motor to drive the original a/c compressor. And, gotta rev the motor while at a stop light to keep the compressor going. http://electricporsche924.blogspot.com/2014/09/ac-update.html Joe On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 2:44 PM, Ben Goren via EV <ev@lists.evdl.org> wrote: > So, I can imagine all sorts of ways that one might run air conditioning in > an electric vehicle, but I'm sure others have actually tried and done > different ways and likely figured out the best general approach. > > Any of those others reading these words and care to point me in a good > direction? > > This'll be starting from scratch in a vehicle that never had air > conditioning in the first place but for which both factory and aftermarket > air conditioning systems are available that run off of a pulley on the ICE > engine. > > Thanks, > > b& > _______________________________________________ > UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub > http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org > For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA ( > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20150610/b19a29da/attachment.htm> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
