# Waeco Air Conditioner



## Deleted member 207 (Sep 28, 2008)

A few weeks ago I lashed out on a dual 12V/240V Waeco air con unit, at present I have to say that I am reasonably happy with it. We already have an Eberspacher heater, so this is a cool only unit.

The only fault being the installation instructions which were obviously outsourced to a Chinese company who just ommitted any paragraphs in the original German that were too hard for them to translate to Chinese and back into English!! Fourteen pages of "instructions", and eight were "warnings" - "don't put your fingers into a 240V socket", "only persons who have the physical and mental ability to turn on the switch should use this device" - whats that all about? (end of whinge).

We've had a few 30C days and quite humid and its been a pleasure to have the unit just ticking over - the neighbours are starting to worry about me sitting in the back of the camper!!

The setup is a factory sealed roof mounted air con unit, an inverter, a low volts battery relay to allow the vehicle battery to assist with start up of the a/c, wiring from the inverter to the a/c (240V), the a/c to the inverter and battery relay (12V signal wires), battery to inverter (12V heavy duty cables), remote wired on/off switch for the inverter. The a/c unit is turned on/off and temperature is controlled by a touch pad on the front of the air diffuser. 

The manuals dont give instructions on what order the installation has to be done in, so I ended up with; from knowing that I needed the a/c unit on the roof, then measuring out where I could fit the inverter using the wiring supplied and could the cables be routed safely within conduit and hidden behind cupboards, ceiling and walls. I just used tape to stick everything where I wanted it, made sure that it all fitted before any cutting or drilling happened.  

You need a 400mm x 400mm hole in the roof, I glued (Liquid Nails) wooden supports into the hole that I cut to re-enforce the roof. The unit then "just" drops in through the hole and gets bolted to an internal frame - AFTER you have laid the wiring behind the ceiling. I had a few problems with the roof seal losing its "sticky", so resorted to Sikaflex to make sure it stayed in place.

After that it was just a case of connecting the wires to right plugs - not hard as the plug sockets make it impossible to get it wrong. The 240V power is a standard Euro style two pin plug, just plugs into the inverter. The inverter has a 240V power in (a computer style plug) so that when hooked up to 240V it takes priority and runs without battery power. I decided to leave the 240V supply to the battery recharger, but a quick cable changeover makes 240V to the a/c easy enough. 

The inverter needs a location which is reasonably close to the leisure batteries and can be ventilated, it also needs to be mounted securely to a wall or the likes. I put it in the bottom of a wardrobe and have made up a mesh to go around it to make sure that it can breathe. 

The other electrical bit was all 12V so I felt happy enough to do it myself, there is a relay which allows direct connection from the vehicle battery, its protected by a low voltage cutout. 

I'll see how the batteries cope over the next few months, but may end up with some newer ones as these are close to ten years old.

Additional items that I needed to buy - grommets where wires pass through fibreglass wall panel, 240V rated conduit, 6mm battery wire and connectors, flexy conduit for the 12V wiring, a few cable ties, tube of Sikaflex, 2000mm of meranti wooden batten 50mm x 19mm, tube of Liquid Nails.


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## Deleted member 2636 (Sep 29, 2008)

An excellent write up, Roger, and many thanks for it
I would add that if anyone is installing any Waeco equipment that the company can be very helpful if you get stuck: At least they used to be, whether or not their service will be as good now that Dometic have got their claws into them remains to be seen


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## Deleted member 207 (Sep 29, 2008)

baloothebear said:


> An excellent write up, Roger, and many thanks for it
> I would add that if anyone is installing any Waeco equipment that the company can be very helpful if you get stuck: At least they used to be, whether or not their service will be as good now that Dometic have got their claws into them remains to be seen



Yes, that occurred to me. Especially as the Waeco Air Con business in Australia has gone over to Dometic, and all the other products have stayed with Waeco. 

I had a look at the DC Airco and the Eberspacher Sleeping Well products.

The DC Airco were close to $1500 more expensive and weighed about 50kg - as opposed to 28kg for the Waeco. The DC Airco is also a true 12V/24V air con and does not need a seperate inverter.

The Eberspacher was not big enough to cool a van, it relies on the vehicle air con to cool and then it maintains the temperature with the engine off - its really a truck sleeper cab cooler.

The latest air con systems coming out of Japan are now 72V and are powered by 180Amp to 220Amp alternators - along with electric power steering. Its interesting how much more they seem to be getting out of alternators nowadays.


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## Deleted member 2636 (Sep 30, 2008)

> are now 72V and are powered by 180Amp to 220Amp alternators



It's the same with the new Beemers; I believe that they're on 36v and 42v electrics. Got to be something a bit meaty because of the HID lights


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