I had the Truma Saphir on my van. Good little unit, heated and cooled, was just strapped down to the floor so easy to remove if I was going off-grid so couldn't use it and wanted to use the weight allowance for extra water/food instead. It requires three holes in the floor of the van, two large ones for the air intake and outlet, and a small one for the condensate drain. I would happily have one again, and definitely in preference to a roof-top one on a pop-top. Can't compare it to the other two you mention as I have no experience of them.
Hi Jason,
My van has a Heron permanently built in so it's not the same as what you're looking for.
As Mamil said, you don't have to be superman to lift the "lid" - an extra 7+kg up there would make it difficult.
Externally it's noisy but with it under my bed, it's ok. Mine has the air inlet coming in through the side with the outlet holes in the floor in front of the wheel. Performance wise, it heats & cools well. I've heard somewhere along the track that rooftops don't heat up in cold temps, mine never misses a beat.
How the portables work, I don't know but I've seen entries on this forum of how to make a semi-permanent installation of one.
Your weights should be a big consideration.
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Warren
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If you don't get it done today, there's always tomorrow!
We had our air con under the bed at the foot of it we cut the square frame work under the bed to fit it and it
Worked brilliant all except it made the floor cold so we got a piece of cardboard the length of the air con and bent it so the air went upwards we also put a fan that clips onto a cupboard which blew it around the room
The air con itself was brilliant couldnt hear it running ,the motor was on the back of the van. We ran it on lithium set up of batteries by terry from T1terry mannum. I cant take photos as ive split up from mr glassies
(Graeme) and the van was a write off in a hail storm so its gone now too . Hope this helps
A number of people here have installed a 2.5kW a Mitsubishi split system in their caravan. The 2.5kW air conditioners (pretty much any top end manufacturer) are the ants pants for efficiency.
You can run them off batteries for extended time, if a bit of forethought goes into the set-up. Cost wise it's a no brainer.
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Procrastination, mankind's greatest labour saving device!
50L custom fuel rack 6x20W 100/20mppt 4x26Ah gel 28L super insulated fridge TPMS 3 ARB compressors heatsink fan cooled 4L tank aftercooler Air/water OCD cleaning 4 stage car acoustic insulation.
