One of the big problems I face every year is heat which affects the wet plate Ambrotype work in a very negative way. You end up with all kinds of terrible artifacts all over the plates. It is very hard to control and leads to lots of wastage of collodion, developer and silver nitrate, raising costs. The worse part is how difficult and frustrating it is to work in the heat. The interior of FREDDY the darkroom trailer is hotter than the air outside, making things worse. It becomes a sweat shop, that makes shitty Ambrotypes.
To help counteract overcome the problem of heat I decided to try a 12v portable air conditioning unit in Freddy the darkroom trailer. The unit I chose is the Sunjoy Icecove. It seems to have enough power at 2500 BTU to cover my approximately 100 square foot trailer. It will run off its own battery or a Jackery 1000. I have 2 Jackery 1000 units so bought the Icecove without their battery.
I expect to be able to get about 5 hours of cold air at the highest setting but probably more at lower settings. If I could get 8 hours at a mid range setting, that would be wonderful.
As a bonus a local store is selling the unit at a steep discount. It usually runs at $851.99 CAD and I bought it today online for $510 CAD (plus tax). That is a $341 savings. Other stores are still advertising the unit in the $800 range.
Hope thus works for me, with the 2 Jackery's as a power supply. My research seems to indicate it does. On remote location where there is no A/C, I should be able to charge one Jackery with solar panels while I am using the other. The charging time is long with the panels, but it is a viable option.
Note* As a bonus I can use the unit in the RV to help sleep when it is very hot outside. FANNY the class C motor home really heats up under the sun.
Note** Another nice bonus is the the unit can be run from either inside or outside the trailer on AC power or 12 volt.
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| Sunjoy Icecove portable AC |
