Thursday, June 30, 2011

Chilling while inverting, battery powered air conditioning

Once upon a time I was doing on and off electronics work for a small dealership. Along comes a new boater with a check, and he buys a little 26" foot cruiser, but the sale is conditional. The conditional part of this purchase is he has to have air conditioning installed on the boat for his wife to use while on the hook. "No way" I say, "You can't get a genset into this little craft, you can barely get into the engine room in the first place. The customer comes back and says there must be a way. My response is, "Well I can get the air conditioner to fit in the boat, and maybe it could be powered by a portable Honda genset that could ride on the swim platform." His response is "He will check with his wife."

The next day he comes back and says his wife didn't want the portable Honda genset on the boat becuse it would be ugly, and hands me a piece of paper filled with scribbled numbers, and says an inverter could be used. I look at the numbers. "It's theoretically possible", I say, "but the battery bank will be huge, and the weight increase on the boat will be notable." The salesman literally begs me, and against my better judgement, I reluctantly I build it.