DIY Portable Air Conditioner for overland/teardrop style campers 

I’ve done this before with half the work, for most people. Drill a hole in your a/c on the top. Cover the outport with sheet metal to block it off. Then I covered the return with sheet metal as well with a 4” duct fitting for flex hose. Cheaper and works great. I’ve never noticed it hurting the ac to restrict the flow of the return to 4”. Also after securing the sheet metal down with self tappers I caulk all the edges. I’m watching your video because I’m trying to find a way to have the portable ac on a stealth van. I’m leaning towards just drilling holes through the floor like you’ve done and then some how disguising the A/c on a hitch luggage rack or something along with a hidden generator for when solar is unavailable. Good video!

I rigged up something like this 25 years ago for a music jam room. The a/c unit was placed in the attic gable vent to not cut a hole in the wall (to prevent sound from exiting the jam room). I used two cold air ducts, each twice as big as the single one your using. I also rigged up homemade fans in the ducts as I don't think there any available at the time. Also the return air ducts were twice your size and two of them. The best solution might be some type of modular latching rack that hooks to a window of your camper to facilitate the a/c or heater depending on weather.

Thanks for the idea and by the way, you have a great little helper. Its great that it is a father-son project. A tip: for those watching and might want to rip plywood on a table saw. The way he ripped the material by feeding from the off cut side is very very dangerous. You must push primarily on the fence side with only a little pressure on the cut off side then push the fence side all the way through and past the blade. I am surprised that the inner (fence side) piece wasn't launched with vigor out the front and right where the boy was standing. He was standing off to the side, but the boy wasn't. One day I ripped a piece of 1/4 plywood and wasn't thinking (I had just lost my son and shouldn't have been near the table saw); and doing just what you saw here and was hit by a piece of plywood at about 60+ MPH and laid the side of my wrist wide open. Please be safe out there.

Finally! I been looking for someone doing something like this, I'm planning on doing this with a portable A/C

The issue is twofold, so far as I can figure it. The biggest is the insulation of the space. It doesn’t really matter how much cold air you’re pumping in it’s not able to hold that cold air in. The second may be the length of your hose. The longer your hose and the farther the distance it has to run from the unit to the space being cooled, the more the air in the hose loses its coldness as it travels along the hose, due to the hotter outside air temp. But in general, I like your idea of retrofitting a window unit that sits outside. We bought a ShiftPod camping tent a few years ago, which has dual ports for intake and exhaust hoses and had also intended to purchase a ClimateRite camping AC for it, but they’ve been out of production for years now. I really wish they would bring that design back.

It took me watching for 3 mins to realize that suburban was a trailer.

Your kids enjoy working with you.

AC blows colder if it doesn't have to comvert hot outside air to cold air. Make a vent to draw air from inside, it will increase cooling.

Just mount that bad boy in the back wall run you exhaust in to the rear plumbing hole you made and when you don't want ac make a replacement box to put in its place when not In use..... it will cool a hole lot more space it it's not restricted.

Seaflo marine 3" fan would be perfect

If it was me, I would forget about all the hoses, in-line fans and outside mounting! A temporary mount, possibly through the firewall, would go a long way to prevent someone just walking away with the unit!

you should've Got one of those broan 370 CFM fans and put it right on the vent outside that would've really helped

Adding a reflective window cover woukd help as well. Did adding the fans work? Curious if the intake duct was too small and the cold air duct too long given fkex tubung was used?

Vintage trailer works makes the old climate right air conditioner !!

Here is what we did. It is sort of the same but with a lot less materials. Our unit is a 5K btu and it is absolutely fridig in there. Our trailer has more cubic feet to cool. All we added was a small fan car 12 volt accessory to circulate the air and the faf is usable when an A/C is not needed. Here is a link to the work we did. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7uOK6d_98xo.html

Insulated ducting will help.

NIce. amigo

The biggest problem you have is removing the hot air inside the suv So it’s mixing with the little bit of cold air you are getting in making it basically room temperature. The ac you have isn’t that great meaning it’s not powerful enough to suck the hot air out the SUV and restricting the front of the ac your losing even more of the ability to suck the hot air out of the suv, you would need a bigger ac that has more power to suck the hot air out and push cold air into the SUV. Also the longer that pipe is coming into the suv with the cold air the hotter it will get especially if you use it during the day and for a good amount of time that pipe is going to get hot if the sun is hitting it and even if no sun ☀️ is hitting it the air will still get hotter the longer the pipe is Your best option but a portable ac that is made for this situation

Wonder if you could make a plywood cutout of the window and install the ac in it and use it in the driver window. Roll the window down and set the panel with the ac in it. Then you take it out and roll the window back up.

So if air flow is not enough double check the area of the circular duct adapters. if those are 4 inch diameter ducts that is an area of about 12.5 square inches. if the upper grille in the AC unit is about 24 square inches, and I'm just guessing, and the lower grill is 80 square inches the two 4 inch dia ducts are really choking the air. The accordion ducts are also a hinderance to air flow. the duct fans will help but... How about just stick it in a window? The way God intended. Do they still roll down? Can you rig a 12v dc to the window motor, roll down the window at the campsite and place the AC on a tall table or a drive in restaurant window table and duct it with plastic and duct tape? it would eliminate the choke points and extra fans. its not clean as you mentioned but not much different than the unit sitting next to the camper as shown toward the end of the video. I guess you loose the use of one door. Hey! move or rearrange the toolbox and use the factory ductwork in the fire wall!

IT MUST TO BE METAL

Do you have the measurements for the box? Thank u for sharing❤

Please God I hope this works lol this Arkansas heat is not good camping weather 🤣

I’m confused, usually intake and the hot out are out the rear, why do you need to separate the front vents? They usually stick into a room, I’ve seen this done but they just separated the rear so it wasn’t outputting heat as well.

i would have just gotten a plastic tote or even a cooler

If you're not going to use the air conditioner on anything else then why would you not just leave it on the camper trailer?

You have wasted your time building it like that. put it in the trailer box in the front of the trailer... cut a hole under your dash, where the Dash should be up under there. and mount the air conditioner down there ...it'll blow enough air in there to freeze you out of there. and you'll never have to move the air conditioner again... just have to cut a hole in the trailer box so the air hot air can blow out , and the condensation can get out... no one will even be able to see your air conditioner if you put it in the trailer box.....