cruisair marine air conditioner control panel

The compression takes a lot of energy, which is why most systems use ~30 amp shore power or require alternator upgrades.

Once the coolant is compressed back into a (hot) high pressure liquid, it goes to the condenser coils (which would be the outdoor component in home air conditioning units) to dump heat. Air conditioners take the heat from compressing refrigerant (sometimes referred to by the brand name Freon) and move it out of the environment you want to cool.Īnd, they then use the de-compression or evaporation process to provide cooling inside the environment. Instead, it comes from the compression of the air itself.Ĭonversely, if you've ever used compressed air for cleaning or in power tools, you may notice the high pressure air coming out is usually much cooler than surrounding air. Most of the heat doesn't come from the friction of the piston in the pump with the wall of the cylinder. If you've ever used a hand pump to put air in a tire or a ball, you may have noticed that the pump gets very hot. The compression itself generates a lot of heat. Refrigerant is compressed (into a liquid form) in the condensing unit and then the pressure is released (in a gaseous form) in the evaporator coils. The same mechanism that is used in other air conditioning environments is still used in a marine environment. The salt pump (aka circulation pump, raw pump or sea water pump) provides the energy to move this seawater through the system. The water comes from a water intake through the hull under the waterline and leaves through an above-waterline discharge. In a marine A/C unit, there is refrigerant with a very high specific heat capacitance in a closed loop inside the ac unit and water flowing steadily from outside the boat. Marinaire MSBA16k2 16000 BTU boat ac unit As a side note, higher humidity levels in the air increase how much heat the air can hold - which is why humidity makes hot air feel hotter.

This is why water cooling is so helpful in marine HVAC - the chilled water helps dissipate the heat from the compression cycle. In contrast, air does not hold heat particularly well. Water holds heat very well (it has a high specific heat capacitance). This is why ac installation is a bit more complicated on boats than a home ac system and also why marine AC units are usually more energy efficient. Unlike most home air conditioning systems, marine cooling units have access to an unlimited supply of water. We are often asked how boat ac systems work and how those differ from the AC systems in houses.

Cruisair marine air conditioner control panel