Installation location:
Self contained units MUST be placed inside the air
conditioned area of the vessel - NEVER let them suck bacteria
laden bilge fumes or possibly the carbon
monoxide laden air from an engine room.
We recommend every vessel with a generator
has high quality CO (carbon monoxide) detectors installed.
The units must also recirculate the air conditioned
air of the boat, not hot/humid fresh air. Think of an air conditioner
as a powerful vacuum cleaner sucking air out of whatever compartment
it is in and blowing this air through the ductwork. Every pass of
air over the evaporator will drop the temperature about 18-22°F- no
unit can take in 95% humidity, 95°F air and discharge it at a
dry 55°F!
Typical installation locations are under a settee,
under a bunk, at the floor or ceiling of a closet, under the V berth,
on a shelf at the ceiling level, etc. Like all HVAC equipment, it is
good form to place the slowly dissolving chlorine tablets such as "Kontrol" in
the wet drain pan to combat mold/mildew etc. a few times a year.
You can install a unit in an engine room or lazarette
if you box it off so that the return air comes ONLY from the inside
of the vessel - it must be airtight from the engine room or liner of
the boat.
The most common installation mistake is to
leave even a small opening such as a 1" crack that is open to
the liner of the boat - you will end up mixing for example 50% bilge
air with the air conditioned air - the unit will never catch up and
sweat profusely from the humidity - the compartment must be air tight
from the bilge or liner.
Discharge air ducting:
To greatly simplify the discharge ducting we supply
aluminum plenums that bolt directly onto the blower flange that have
the correct number of 4" collars on them for the size of the unit.
The 4" flexible ducting attaches to these collars with a plastic
wire-tie, and terminates at the 4" discharge grills. Do
not block off any ducts - this will
reduce the airflow over the evaporator which may cause the unit to
cycle off and on via the freeze control switch.
The most desirable location for our grills is
on a bulkhead near the ceiling. In fact, if you have trouble running
the ducting you can place the discharge grills right next to each other
and simply point them in different directions. The cold air will bounce
off of the headliner and gently drop down into the room, and our blowers
are powerful enough to de-stratify the air in both the heat and cool
mode if properly sized for the application.
The discharge air will normally travel about 8-10',
so of course you will have to run a duct to the V for example if the
unit is in the main salon and you want to cool the V berth.
Common mistake: Make
sure you get the cold/dry discharge air away from the return air intake
of the a/c. If you place your unit in the V for example, don't install
a discharge grill in the V because the V is relatively small and may
be 70° when the main salon is 85°, causing the compressor to
cycle off on its' freeze control switch. We are working with approximately
20° temperature differentials: return air = 75°(24C), discharge
air = 55°(13C), refrigerant = 35°(2C). To ascertain if you
have properly ducted your discharge system, check the air temperature
of the air at the return grill -
it should be the same as the room temperature where the thermostat
is located.
Because our units are so powerful for their size,
we do not supply variable speed fans, however you will not be bothered
at all by the fan noise - we even insulate our blower motors - these
units are very quiet.
If you design your own ducting system, do
not have excessive runs of ducting or restrict the air flow return. If inadequate air is passed over the evaporator, the unit will
develop frost on the evaporator and will eventually ice up unless
it is equipped with a freeze control, whereby it will cycle on and
off.
Our units are designed to bring the air temperature
down to about 70°F - if you try to attain a lower temperature you
will either develop a freeze up or cycle on the freeze control.
Return air ducting:
There is no need for return air ducting - these
units are like vacuum cleaners, sucking air from whatever compartment
they are in and blowing the cooled or heated air through the discharge
duct-work system. If you use our pre-designed
ducting system you will be assured of
having the correct amount of air flow and air velocity to successfully
de-stratify the air in a properly sized application without having
excessive noise or uncomfortable drafts.
The blower motor and rotary compressors are air
cooled and do get warm, therefore it's good form to have the return
air travel over these components in route to the evaporator. There
is no need to have the evaporator up against the return air grill,
in fact it's better to have the opposite - make sure the evaporator
has at least 2-3" of space from a bulkhead.
We manufacture vertical or side discharge units
- although it is possible to change this after production it is difficult
to do so and we don't recommend it.
Plumbing:
The intake through hull should be as low as possible
in the water in a location that is always underwater and not exposed
to the backwash of the propellers whereby air bubbles could be ingested.
Almost every marine air conditioning pump is a flooded volute pump
and must be mounted below the waterline. For
boats that are in dry storage, you may install a T fitting at the discharge
of the pump with one line running to a vertical location with a valve
for releasing the back pressure to simplify priming.
Frequently you can "T" off of a head
intake, however we don't recommend having the a/c share a through hull
fitting with any other pump such as the engine or generator because
of the hazard of the more powerful impeller pump sucking air backwards
through the a/c rather than water from the through-hull fitting, possibly
overheating and damaging you equipment.
The units' discharge through hull fitting should
be between 4" and 8" above the waterline - if below 4" it
would have to be treated as a "below the waterline" through
hull and would be required to have a valve - above 8" the noise
of the running water may be bothersome.
Care should be taken to avoid crimping the suction
line. If long runs of plumbing are required or if the unit is placed
well above the waterline you may end up with too much head pressure
necessitating a higher volume pump. We have a variety of pumps in stock,
and the charge to increase the GPM capacity is nominal - see our pump
page.
The sea water requirements for cooling our equipment
is about 200 gallons/hour/ton of air conditioning(12,000BTUs= one ton)
at a maximum temperature of 100°F. The only metal the salt water
touches is the inside of a 90/10 CuNi condensing tube which is inside
a copper shell. We do not use a serrated, knurled or enhanced tube
to increase the surface area because we find our slick inner tube to
be less prone to trap debris and much more durable - we make up for
this loss of surface area by extending the length of the condensing
tube ensuring long-term trouble-free operation.
All of our condensing tubes are 5/8"OD, and
for systems of up to about three tons of A/C (36,000 BTUs), a single
3/4" intake through hull set up is adequate - larger systems may
need a 1" or larger, depending on the total GPH requirements.
In multiple unit installations, we often suggest
using one large pump with a pump relay box whereby each unit has a
24 volt wire returning to the pump relay box (usually mounted by the
pump), and if any one of the units engage, the pump will supply water
to all of the units.
Depending on the number of units and pump size,
we often run one 1" supply line from the pump from which 5/8" T's
supply individual units. The sea water discharge from each unit can
be individual by each unit or tied together into one or more discharge
through hull fittings.
The condensate drain line should never be connected
to the raw water discharge line-
if there were a blockage in the discharge line, the raw water pump
would pump raw water back into the drain pan and ultimately into
the boat causing a sinking
hazard.
The condensate drain line is a gravity line and
the highest point of this line will determine the water level in the
condensate pan. A common mistake is
to have the condensate line run a couple of feet at the same level
of the chassis - if there is any section even 1" above the bottom
of the chassis,you will have excessive water in the drain pan.
Under normal operating conditions, the condenser
(the copper tube within a tube on the unit) should be warm to the touch
- if you cannot feel any heat in the condenser whatsoever when the
compressor is running, you have too much cold water passing through
it. This is only a problem in some areas where the water temperature
is 40°F and the air temperature is 90°F! This can be remedied
by installing a gate valve on the supply line at the unit to throttle
down the water flow. Remember to never
restrict the SUCTION side of a centrifugal pump,
conversely there is no harm restricting the DISCHARGE side of a centrifugal
pump.
If the condenser is too hot to hold your hand
on constantly, you are not getting enough cooling water. This is not
a very scientific way of determining water flow but it works. Most
of our units have manually resettable high pressure switches on the
condenser, whereby if the unit is operated without enough cooling water
and the refrigerant pressure on the high side reaches the limit, the
switch will activate, shutting down the compressor until it is manually reset by
pushing in the button.
Electrical:
All of our units are pre-wired onto two clearly
marked terminal blocks. We recommend the use of GFI (ground fault interrupt)
breakers for any high voltage equipment near water, and always
use stranded wire - never
use solid core wire on any vessel because
the motion of the vessel may eventually cause a failure and can be
a serious fire hazard.
Be sure to use the proper size wire for our
equipment. Undersized wire or poor
dock/ship connections will result in a voltage drop that may damage
the equipment and be a fire hazard.
Use a minimum 12 gauge power supply wire - never
use 14 gauge for even our smallest units if wired 115 volt.
Be sure the breaker capacity is less than the
current capability of the wire -
for example, with a high quality #12 wire @120VAC, don't use a breaker
of more than 30 amps. Use quality wire - cheap #12 wire may be rated at less than 30 amps, typically the larger number of strands and the higher the
voltage capability of the wire determines its capacity - use wire
rated at a minimum 600V.
Many marinas have inadequate wiring -we suggest
you test the dock line voltage during peak loads -it may be 120 volts
on a cool weekday morning and 90 volts on a hot weekend afternoon!
The high voltage block has three connections for
the power supply and three connections for the pump - don't mix them
up! This terminal block is clearly marked, however if you wish to confirm
which is which, the heavier gauge wires are the power in and the lighter
gauge wires are the pump output terminals. With 120V systems, the
black wire is your line (L), which goes to the circuit breaker, the
white wire is your neutral (N), which goes to the neutral buss bar,
and the green wire is always ground (G), which goes to your ground
buss bar. With 230V systems there is usually no neutral, (the white
wire) and there are two lines, one black(L1) and one red(L2), both
of which must be on a dual terminal 230V breaker.
The low voltage terminal block connects to the
digital control - we use the HVAC industry standard - red, white, green,
yellow color code - any domestic thermostat will operate any of our
equipment and you will never have to helicopter in a rocket scientist
to figure out our digital control, in fact, one can cross all of these
wires except the white for cool or all of the wires except the yellow
for heat! The 24 volts for the digital control output is produced by
an internal transformer in the a/c unit.
The internal electronics of our digital control
are powered by two AA batteries, therefore these delicate components
are not subject to line voltage spikes, etc. To replace these batteries
simply remove the four #1 Phillips head screws on the face plate to
access the batteries.
You will find a reset-able breaker on all of our
equipment - safety is our primary concern and we strive to make our
equipment as fool proof as possible.
Our unique and time tested heating element does
not "burn" the air - it never gets red hot because it is
in the direct discharge of the blower motor - these elements are actually
mounted inside the blower chamber and have a controlling temperature
sensor that affords one a "post purge" feature (the fan continues
to run until the element is less than 110°F after the element is
de-energized) and two high voltage, high temperature safety
shut off temperature sensors wired in series.
With a Flagship Marine a/c there is no need for
the troublesome reversing valves and component wear and tear for heat
- the many benefits of electric heat far outweigh the slightly more
efficient reverse cycle heating systems, and you will find the reliability
and simplicity of a straight cool unit to be a great advantage. Please
visit our "Electric Heat" web page.
The use of rotary or scroll compressors has greatly
reduced the problems with "start up surge"- and we have further
reduced this surge by installing as standard equipment, hard start
capacitors on all units over 12,000BTU's(scroll compressors excluded
- inherently negligible start up surge). Typically, the dinosaur like
piston compressor have a 350% startup surge, the newer rotary compressors
a 150% start up surge (without the hard start capacitor- about 120%
with!) and the scroll compressors a mere 110% start up surge.
Miscellaneous:
Our freeze controls will prevent the compressor
from starting if the refrigerant temperature is below 38°F, therefore
don't think there is a problem with the unit if you test the unit in
February when it is cold - it will not start. Once the return air temperature
is below 70°F, or if you have excessively cold raw water in the
spring, it is a normal function for the compressor to cycle off for
a few minutes occasionally to prevent
ice from forming on the evaporator.
NEVER CHECK THE FREON PRESSURE! There are no hoses, seals or gaskets to leak or "migrate" freon
molecules into the environment - this is a totally closed system that
is of a "critical charge"type, using capillary tubes - even
the small amount of freon lost by connecting and disconnecting the
gauges may affect the units performance. There is no need to ever check
this pressure for if it were to be
low on charge there would have to be a leak and a need for the unit
to be repaired on the bench - this is an almost non-existent situation. |
