I have two soleus lx-140's in a 300 square foot room. That's 28,000 btu's of cooling. I'm cooling a music studio that gets unlivable without a/c and i was cooling this room with a window unit at 28,500 btu's before the two portables. the window unit was more than enough and even turned off at times after quickly reaching temperature desired 74 degrees. However, the noise of the unit and the air exchange were bringing on unexceptable interferences with our production and recording. The two portables barely crack 93 degrees running full blast all the time! They are both installed correctly and dual hose exhausted. Is there any additional tweeking i can do to these things to make them actually cool with 14,000 btu a piece?
G'day mate. I have built several professional studios, dozens of rehearsal rooms,and learned to use split system A/C's to achieve cooling required. Recently built a constant temp room for a guy out of Fridge panels, for a 3m bed printer. He decided against my advice to fit a Panasonic portable air con, that was a waste of time also. he had 2000 watts of gear in the room, and 1000 watts trying to cool it. Didnt seem to be effective as a split system for the same wattage. This in fact tell me alot about your unit. They use 980 watts on cool cycle. That's not near enough to cool a large room. I used 1100 watt window style air cons for band rehearsal rooms, and with they just cooled the room enough to take the "gasping for air" edge of it only, but didn't get it down to cool temps. With outside ambient temperatures getting over 100 degf , and 5
musicians jumping around with several kilowatts of of amplification, may do for a bedroom in summer heat, but not what you are trying to do. You need a unit that at least matches your power consumption of the gear in the room, plus about 100 watts per person in the room. so say 2000 watts of electronics, and 5 people means 2500 watts of cooling power needs to be used to cool the room successfully. Thats the formula I have used in the past to get it right.
How does your power consumption/cooling power add up.
Happy to talk more about my experiences with this, just ask away :)
cheers
regards
robotek
Whilst this solution sounds simple, have complete faith in it.
As the room is already completely sealed, it needs a steady source of air.
Get a decent ventilation system installed, with a fan. This will be cheaper, though its simple it will provide an extra source of cool air aswell as ensuring he air is freh.
It will provide circulation and should (hypothetically) be a solution
Good luck and dont forget to rate the problem
Yes, you have hit all of the right points.
But in simple terms, air is like water, you can only move as much out, as you take in. So if the room is sealed, it does not have an air source to draw from. Even though the units have the exhaust port set correctly, they do not have a source to draw from. If the room is completely sealed, if they exhaust only, it will begin to create a vacuum in the room. Since these units are not powerful enough to create a negative atmosphere, they simply do not provide any cooling.
I use a portable Sharp unit in my server room. I do have a fresh air feed to the room, through a separate system. I have done a number of server rooms, and they are never completely sealed, they have air feed and exhaust systems. They just are not usually visible.
The reason the window unit worked so well is because it could draw outside air. With the way you have described these, no, they will not be as efficient, because they can't draw outside air.
So how do you fix it?
You can do like I did in my server room, and have a fresh air, filtered supply pumped into the room (or just in front of the cooling units).
Or, (and this is going to take a little engineering) put the cooling system in another room that can draw exchange air, and duct the cooled air into the room. Here again, you will need to have an exhaust system that will remove the hot air from the room.
If you baffle the supply line correctly, you will eliminate sound transmission.
The units you have, are good units, and very similar the Sharps I run.(they are probably built by the same people).
I have not found any recalls or complaints about the units.
Did you check the air flow and how hot is this air being blown passed the compressor. If they are good units performing to specs those are the only two variables that would make the big difference. Check the ducting (especially the length) those blower motors may actually be getting hot themselves.
Also are you getting good air circulation in the room. The units need to blow the cool air up towards the roof so as to get good circulation going. Your window units had the advantage of height to get to the warmer air for cooling.
Regards
Hi,
If you haven't cracked a window open I would do that as it would keep the units from pressurizing the room because there is no outflow With no outflow there is no efficiency by the A/C units. The fans run but no air is really passing through. They are just pushing air that's in front of the unit. This is typically the problem with in room water coolers too.
The amount the window is opened should be equivalent to the intake area of the A/C units but slightly smaller. So, if the units are intaking air that is 40 sq inches, the window needs to meet or be open slightly smaller than 40 sq inches.
I hope that makes sense to you, you seem pretty smart and capable of grasping this rather simple physics issue.
Regards,
Worldvet
Try to turn OFF the Music Mode Only.
Turning on Music Only Mode will disable voice and data calls..
Regards
Sorry wrong post. Please disregard my post. Sorry about that.
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I guess I need to elaborate. The Room Needs to be sealed. The portable units have two motors on them, hence my naming of the model number. One to bring fresh air in to cool the compressor and to exhaust the hot air and water coming off the compressor. The other motor circulates the air in the room past the coils and through the dehumidifier. No need to worry about pressure or humidity. The model again is a soleus lx-140. Paying for uninformed advise is almost as bad as paying for these air conditioners. Also, I've gone to trouble of insulating the exhaust hoses. I guess I'm wondering if there is a known defect for this model, or an adjustment in instalation or even a modification to the unit itself that i can perform. Soleus has been less than helpful as they have not answered any emails and everytime i call them i can't get through or there is no answer. Furthermore, I've been told that i can't return to the store or to the manufacturer. So, any ideas on how to get these bastards to put out 28,000 btu's, without rebuilding them with completely different parts from brand new units made by their competetors, are welcome.
Thanks.
think of it as having to cool a server room. The room must be sealed with the unit inside and no air exchange. The unit has the ability to further cool the condensor with the water pulled by the dehumidifier.
all of the above are covered. I've got the units off the ground with the intake for cooling the room about a foot from the ceiling. it's a basement studio and i've got the compressor intake a few inches above the ground off the side of the building. so the air coming in to the compressor is as cool as it's going to get as far as outside air goes. I taped and insulated the hoses and checked for leaks as well as positioned them so that they make a 90 degree turn off the rear of the unit and go two and a half feet straight out of the room. The the turn lock collars on the unit end of the ducts are made with fair to poor quality control but there is no way they are leaking enough to make as much of a difference in performance from the window unit as they are. Also, being in the basement means additional humidity, which works as an advantage for this particular model. The fan blades are aluminum and the extracted water from the built in dehumidifier is sprayed onto the compressor when it heats up. As the exhaust hits the compressor it picks up any water vapor and spray and expels it with the hot exhaust from the compressor. So, i guess that leaves me with only one answer brought to us in part by our proud sponsor: Deductive Reasoning Incorporated. The units are not "good units" that "work to spec"? Hopefully someone might know of a design flaw that can be corrected on these things. I'm not an electrical engineer, or any kind of engineer for that matter, but i am somewhat confident handling the repair guided by one of the experts. Thanks for your time and knowledge guys. Hopefully i can save myself the eleven hundred i spent and an additional large amount for the price of another replacement. Again thank you for your expertise and efforts. _Brian_
also, is there a way i can maybe alter a window unit to run without exchanging outside air with the air in the studio while also dampening the noise of the window unit?
why would there be negative pressure? one motor pulls air from the room in through the back of the unit and cools it then pushes it back into the room at 177cfm. it is doing that fine. the other motor is totally contained seperately with in the unit functioning to pull air from outside to cool the compressor, and with out mixing with the indoor air as there is no need, then push it right back outside. it is not air exchanging! it is air conditioning! it's like a mini split with an intake and exhaust for the condensor instead of it being outside. Bringing in outside air is not an option fellas. Can it or can it not be done?
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