Retro fit 680 air-con

[G-A-R-Y]

After a very hot week in France I wondered if anyone has fitted roof air-con to a 680. Is there an underslung unit perhaps??​

 

[sticky1]

We had a Dometic Freshjet in a previous van, it was very good and pretty low profile. It used plenty of power but was brilliant on EHU. https://www.dometic.com/en-gb/outdoor/motorhome-and-van/motorhome-and-caravan-air-conditioners

 

[Californication69]

Check out the eco flow wave. Had good reviews and no drilling of holes

 

[GordonH]

After a very hot week in France I wondered if anyone has fitted roof air-con to a 680. Is there an underslung unit perhaps??​

I’ve seen posts on retrofits. Not in the same position as factory unit but appears possible. Have a browse here https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1ANJwo4Zcy/

 

[Fishface]

I can't comment on retrofits - but a couple of points to be aware

We have a dometic freshlite ( just like the freshjet, but has a window bringing in light) with a rated cooling power of 2kW. This works well in our MAN TGE ( so same size as grand California) and we have been in temps of 39 degrees although whilst much cooler than outside, still feels a bit warm at these temps. I'd be very wary of anything smaller - I note that the eco flow has a rated cooling power of 820w on AC power, so it would be better than nothing but not a total solution.

Also a lot of campsite EHU are rated at 6A or below - ours will draw 4A whilst cooling, which means that anything else on top will likely trip the supply, unless you have some form of battery/smart inverter set up to deal with this.

 

[GordonH]

We are currently in Croatia having travelled down through France and Italy then ferry from Ancona to Split. Temperatures have never dropped below 30C with highs touching 39C. We have the factory fit Dometic Freshjet 2200 and its been a godsend. Works well in an Indium Grey GC600 even in these high temperatures and agree with @Fishface that smaller units may struggle. As also said 6A sites are common in the EU but we have found no issues with that (the factory unit has a specified 4.2A draw) although we’ve been careful to switch the AC off if we are using anything that uses significant energy. The GCs EHU battery charger which maintains the leisure battery and runs the 12V system which includes the fridge has a 15A (@12Vdc) max output so may add a further 1A@230Vac which means 5A supplies, again not uncommon in the EU, may be problematic. The only site we’ve stayed on (San Marino) that had that low a breaker rating also had a 16A feed in the box so I chose that one

 

[Hammer]

we have ecoflow wave 2 and have been using in Europe last week during heat wave. In the daytime the unit will fight to lower temp due to the amount of heat entering the van. With thermal blinds on front and all other blinds shut its does lower the temp a bit but don’t expect it to drop from 30 to 20 degrees with sun beating down. At night it’s another story as temps drop to mid/low 20s it actually got too cold couple of times in van. I didn’t want fixed unit when we specified the van originally as we don’t tend to travel too much during peak of summer and nice to be able to remove unit and not carry round for rest of year when not used. Upshot is if you intend on travelling lot in june/july/aug and into hotter climates then think a fixed unit is certainly the way to go. There is a new wave 3 now which has increased cooling so might be bit better.