Good afternoon, I am buying an old 2000 school bus running on a Ford E350 and 7.3 powerstroke. The unit doesn’t come with aircon and my plans have us going to warm places. To keep my marriage intact, I am going to have to create some cooling and my current idea is to get a high output alternator, attach a suitably capable inverter and then run a small domestic aircon. I’m no electrician, but I here are my sums. I am told a 5A (5,000btu) aircon could draw up to 5 x on start up, so I need to prepare for 25AC amps. 25A x 110V = 2750W. 2750W/12V = 229DC amps. I know there will be loss in the system, but I have also heard people running 15,000 btu aircons on 2,000W inverters. It seems to me that a good quality 200DC amp alternator could easily run the small aircon detailed above. Does this all make basic sense, and if so, what alternator would you recommend, or am I barking yup the wring tree? Thanks!
A 200A 6G alternator, our part # 8253M-HD200, should work. You should have the alternator charge a dedicated battery before powering the inverter. Trying to run the inverter off the alternator by itself could damage both the alternator and the inverter.
