Very interesting setup. So for an interior installation you only need to cutout two rectangular piece and a condensate drain in the floor? Adding one of these to a garage area and piping to the front might be an ideal setup for my build, it's definitely something I'll be checking out!

Edit. Did a bit of research and it appears that this is not inverter driven, but a fixed speed unit. That would probably be a non-starter for me due to the higher power draw requirements. If they made an inverter version this would be hard to pass up!

 

Very interesting setup. So for an interior installation you only need to cutout two rectangular piece and a condensate drain in the floor? Adding one of these to a garage area and piping to the front might be an ideal setup for my build, it's definitely something I'll be checking out!

Edit. Did a bit of research and it appears that this is not inverter driven, but a fixed speed unit. That would probably be a non-starter for me due to the higher power draw requirements. If they made an inverter version this would be hard to pass up!

It’s actually two condensate drains since it’s a heat pump but yes, you cut the holes in the floor and strap this down over them. It plugs into a regular 15a outlet. You also need to supply it with 12v for the thermostat and controls. The entire bottom of the unit is a foam gasket.

Yes, this is a very simple unit with an on/off compressor and two three fan speeds. It only has around 20 amps of starting current it uses under 8 amps when it’s running. I’m going to put a 1200w load on the inverter when it gets here and make sure it can start the compressor when it’s already at 50%.

One thing I learned when I was messing with it is that the thermostat remembers it’s settings when the power is removed from it. I should be able to use the relay on the Victron to turn off the heat pump if it’s going into overload by controlling it’s 12v power. It also has a built in time delay and runs the fan for a bit before starting the compressor so you don’t need to start both at the same time and you can’t lock the compressor from short cycling.

It’s showing some really impressive temperature rise. If the unit can manage this installed in the van and getting 65 degree return air it should be pretty comfortable with outlet temps in the 90’s.

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In a typical example of "its better to be lucky than good" the only place that the heat pump could be mounted happened to be pretty much where I planned on putting it. Something I did not think about before buying it was that you need 11" by 15" for the floor cutout and most boxed supports under a PM are closer than that so you are very limited in mounting the unit if you want to mount it with the long dimension front to back. If you have your bed mounted sideways this is not a big deal but my floorplan does not. I wanted to mount it in front of the wheel well but ended up moving it forward slightly and turning it sideways. I'm going to have to box in under the unit and raise it 4" or so to get it closer to the wall. The return air intake will be facing the wall but I am going to install a filter in the return grate so it should not need cleaning very often.

Under the van the cutout is where I planned on installing one of the tanks but I can install a shorter tank there and still have enough storage to meet my goals. Now that the heat pump is not going in front of the wheel wheel there will be plenty of room for a wheel well tank to make up the capacity without losing much storage at all.

I wanted to bench test the unit under a realistic cooling load so I used cardboard to recirculate some of the units condenser air and simulate both a normal summer day and a really hot one with the van parked on blacktop.

I heated the garage to about 78 degrees to give a reasonable return air temperature. Feeding the condenser 100 degree air the outlet temp stabilized around 50 degrees.

Increasing the condenser intake air to 150 degrees to simulate a hot parking lot the outlet temp rose to about 56 degrees. That's still a 20 degree drop from the return air and the unit moves a lot of air so I tend to believe the 9k btu rating. I ran it there for a half hour and it did not trip on high pressure or current. I killed my Kill-A-Watt (ha) by overloading it with space heaters so to make sure that it did not draw too much over its 1000w rating I put it on the 20amp circuit with a 1500w space heater. I know that breaker trips reliably at 2600w and the heater actually draws 1500w so the air conditioner could not have been drawing more than 1,100w even with the extreme heat.

It's a Christmas Miracle but I am starting to think that the specs on this thing are real and it will actually do what Pioneer claims. Even if 9,000 btu falls a little short of keeping the entire van 72 degrees in extreme heat, the vents will be blowing lots of 60 degree air down on the beds keeping things very comfortable in the back of the van. I'm going to put one vent by the slider blowing forward towards the passenger seat where one of us will be sitting at a desk and the other two at the back to blow cold air over the beds towards the windows since that is where most of the heat will be coming from.

 

I agree about the inverter being less needed, besides a soft start feature, such a low turn down ratio probably would be mostly useless in a van that typically needs a decent amount of heating/cooling or none at all "open the windows." Most people homes with multi speed heat pumps and air handlers aren't gaining much from the tech, they're homes are too inefficient to heat and cool, the system run at full speed mostly. The money saved spending on the tech doesn't add up.

Claims 40db, that's very quiet.. could be useful for many applications being that its not roof mount. That it produces nearly twice the btu as a 1500 watt space heater with half the power consumption and $1000 seems like its worth exploring. Pioneer was a solid company many years ago also, but who knows what is what now a days..

 

I’m not sure about Pioneer as a company. I can tell you that as of a few years ago Dometic is about useless for support on an individual level. Our Winnebago was one of the RVs that got a bad batch of their roof ACs that leaked refrigerant and after dealing with Dometic I will consider their products “as is” from now on.

When I put the HVAC in my parents house a few years ago I did find the multiple speed air handlers useful. I was able to set the heat pump up to lower the CFM in winter to keep the outlet temp at the vents warm. That was one of my concerns with this thing, no one likes 75 degree air blowing on them in the winter even if it is providing heat!

 

So the COP of 2.6 is at a certain (assume the ideal) outside and inside temp and the 9k btus is at the ideal outside and inside temp. I looked but could not find a chart/table of COPs at various inside/outside temps for this model.

Regardless it's exciting to see this option for van/RV heating and cooling.

 

I had the same thought and that’s why I wanted to make sure it produced heat at 20 degrees and could cool at 150. It’s a shame that you can’t gets real data on these sorts of products. Companies like Marbu make claims that are so far out there that if they were true we would all be cutting holes in the roof of our house because they are somehow twice as efficient as residential units with massive condensers!

Maybe someone here is smart enough to spitball BTU from the temp splits and CFM. It was dry in the garage so there was very little latent heat and I get that it was more of an Arizona test than a Florida one but I have a good enough feeling of how it will perform to be the guinea pig and try something new.

 

Thank you so much for getting this thread going. I was considering this unit but didn't see any reviews so it's nice to see this. I'm still waiting for my van so it'll be a while before I can get anything going. Next time you fire it up, would you mind doing a quick video and posting here?

Thanks again!

 

Here you go.

The compressor seems louder on the video than it does in person. When I put it in the van I am going to plumb the supply ducts into a plenum under the row of ceiling cabinets to lower the air velocity. Nearly all of the noise is from the airflow and anything coming from the compressor is going to be silenced since it’s under the bed.

 

So, I think all of these units have an AHRI certificate (independent testing organization) but it only shows the COP at one or two temps. Some manufacturers will show a table/graph for more temps. This information is necessary for proper sizing in a home or even an RV. Maybe pioneer or a retailer has the info and will share if asked.

 

Thanks! I was trying to see if I could put this under my dinette seat (originally planned on batteries there) but honestly it's so quiet that it can for sure go under the bed without issue.

Another quick question regarding the 12v connection. Is that for all functions, or just the heating function as the manually isn't too clear on that. I guess that 12v connection could be tied an allow to discharge wire of an external BMS to shut off the unit before battery disconnection. Would you be able to measure the DC current on that circuit?

Thanks again!!

 

My fluke is at work, the meter at home doesn’t measure DC amps but it’s been connected to a 6ah battery for a few days so it’s not a very high draw.

The 12v supply runs the circuit board and thermostat. It won’t do anything without 12v but that’s kind of nice for controlling the unit. It remembers its settings when you remove 12v so I am going to let the Victron stuff control its 12v supply. When I need to shed loads because the inverter is overloaded I will use the relay on the Cerbo to turn off the HVAC.

 

I have 2 Pioneer split (inverter) HP’s in my house. A 1.5 ton & a 1 ton. They both put out a lot of heat even when it’s below 20°f outside (like right now). I shut my oil burner off, in fact, this winter and I’m heating my whole house with these 2 units. They perform unbelievably well. They are the inverter models, however, but they work so well I’m going to add another one in my basement in the Spring!

 

@GaryBIS Good test - I've seen people test various other HVAC units that way and when you take multiple data points and average them it seems like people usually get around +/- 15% of the actual performance. Even at say +/-25% the data is still valuable; you would easily be able to see if a unit's COP is way off.

What I would be curious to see is the COPs of units at different temperatures, particularly heating in the cold. The COP of air conditioning units is usually pretty good in the heat, plus if you're dealing with heat you likely can get some decent solar production; 3 kWh/day in the summer from my 600W installed is very reasonable, and a 1000W unit at a 50% duty cycle is 6 hours of solid cooling.

Unfortunately, in the cold winter the COP of these units plummets and obviously your solar production drops off a cliff, under 1 kWh/day up north. It's fairly common to see house systems with a COP of 4 at 15C, a COP around 2.5 at 0C and a COP around 1.5 at -15C. Obviously RV systems are going to be far worse than this; I don't think there's a single RV product that has a COP of 4 under any conditions.

It would be great to get a thread going where we all measured the real-world COPs of our various units at different temperatures using the CFM-and-temperature method you mentioned. I would be happy to pitch in a few measurements for the unit I have, the popular Houghton Belaire 3400 (sold whitelabeled by RecPro in the US.) Is anyone else interested in such measurements, or willing to take them?

 

I put the heat pump in the van today since it’s getting hot here. It was 86 and sunny outside and the van was around 95. It cooled it down to 74 in about 15 minutes. I ended up mounting it North South to fit the batteries between it and the wall. I originally was going to put everything (HP, 30g water, inverter, batteries) on the same side to leave the other bench open for storage but it was going to make the right side about 400 lbs heavier. There is quite a bit of insulation left to install so I feel pretty good about it maintaining 75 degrees when it’s actually hot outside.

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And... the RV bench A/C heat pump is $250 off for a low low price of $1200 at the moment... yimmeny it's hard not to collect that needful item, just a few clicks... Nine left in inventory right now and free shipping... Arrrrgh!

I'm really liking that it does NOT turn into a pumpkin at 35* or 38*f as a design to protect it from freezing - the portable inverter unit I have had me maxing it out all day to bank heat then uninstalling it once outdoor temperature / humidity triggered freeze self protection mode and had me then firing up forced air resistance heater(s)...

Best I'd maintain was by morning a ~30*f indoor/outdoor differential while spinning the grid meter with straight resistance heating, that 1.5X heatpump return looks good about then

 

This one can’t freeze because both the condenser and evaporator have open drains.

Modern window units and portable ACs don’t drain the condensate under normal operation, they let the condenser coil sit in the condensate and the fan splash it on the coil to improve efficiency by using the heat energy to evaporate the water. This one doesn’t do that so you don’t have water sloshing around inside the van.

It’s a very simple unit and I like that. I’m also not a fan of the tick tick splashing sound.

 

Hey @dog_house - first of all, thank you for all the detailed info about this unit!!

Got a quick question for you, if you have a minute. When you posted your video, you said it "seems louder on the video than in person". Could you elaborate on that a bit?

Do you think this really does hit Pioneer's rating of 40db (very quiet!)? I noticed in the video it looks like you have it on a higher power/higher fan speed. Is it a lot quieter at lower fan speed?

We are thinking of putting this in our fifth wheel, mounting it in the storage bay. But it'll be located right beneath our bedroom!! (separated by the 1/2-in plywood flooring, and we will have the option to add some insulation to help block sound). Ideally we'd achieve near-silent performance if possible, hope this Pioneer unit can do that. Thanks!

 

Hey @dog_house - first of all, thank you for all the detailed info about this unit!!

Got a quick question for you, if you have a minute. When you posted your video, you said it "seems louder on the video than in person". Could you elaborate on that a bit?

Do you think this really does hit Pioneer's rating of 40db (very quiet!)? I noticed in the video it looks like you have it on a higher power/higher fan speed. Is it a lot quieter at lower fan speed?

We are thinking of putting this in our fifth wheel, mounting it in the storage bay. But it'll be located right beneath our bedroom!! (separated by the 1/2-in plywood flooring, and we will have the option to add some insulation to help block sound). Ideally we'd achieve near-silent performance if possible, hope this Pioneer unit can do that. Thanks!

Did this work. I want to put one in my vintage 16 foot camper under the bed.

 

In person and installed in the van it’s quieter than a typical roof AC

 

@dog_house
Have you been able to use it in some hot & humid weather yet?

 

@dog_house
Have you been able to use it in some hot & humid weather yet?

It's running right now. I turned it on an hour ago with the van temp at 120 degrees and it's down to 80 in the van. It's 93 degrees outside and 70% humidity. The kicker is the van is in direct sunlight and it's a window van with nothing covered. The floor has 1/2" xps and the roof, doors, and walls are insulated with Thinsulate. The pizza oven does not have insulation yet and the bare metal around the windows puts off a lot of heat.

It works well and if someone had a normal van without all the windows it would be frosty inside. If I park it in the shade it will get to 70 degrees. I'm sure that once the interior is finished 9k btu will be enough to keep it comfortable. The dash air is supposed to be 20,000 btu and it is enough to keep the entire van cool so I just need to cut down on the heat load a little more to get the temps in the low 70's. The batteries will run the heat pump on blast for around 12 hours with no charging. We would not park in direct sunlight on purpose and if we did it would be on a trip where the van was already cool and we were stopped for a short time.

For the same money you could stick a Houghton on the roof and probably get better performance but I am still sticking to the original plan of a clean roof. Fitting in drive throughs and getting 21 mpg on the highway is a lot to give up but I am also being realistic if this thing ever kicks the bucket so there is a power wire running to the roof in case it comes to that in the future. It's also possible the the Velit unit gets built one day and is more efficient... a 12k BTU unit with variable speed fans and compressor that can ramp down to increase efficiency would be awesome.

 

You could overnight anywhere in the south east and not get the knock the A/C expands your options, thanks for the review.

 

The fan noise outside also drops considerably when the unit is on low speed.

We go to Florida and Chicago and in both places it’s rather “moist” and does not make for comfortable window open sleeping in the middle of summer. Once the sun stops hitting the black van and windows in the evening the heat pump cycles on and off even on low with the temp set to 70. It’s a great solution for our needs.

 

Love that even Pioneer themselves are sold out of the floor mount unit - guess I should have leapt on one.

If a source reappears I hope folks give a shout out!

 

Pardon Our Interruption...

Here you go, appears to be identical.

 

Similar, not identical...

Pioneer unit claims 19*f heat-pump cutoff, eBay units do not list it.

Also eBay unit heat output is claimed 11000Btu, they add 500w resistance heat into spec, so maybe there is protective heat mandatory once below freezing which could mean many things...

Anyhow - the eBay Zymbo 120VAC RV A/C is close, yet while looking its offered in 24VDC too for a little less money...

 

And... Pioneer eMailed & claims they have it back in stock...

Now only thing, just let me spend the money to nab the next new van...

 

I am totally new and have no idea about electric hookups, etc. I also am trying to understand from the Internet. I bought a 2017 Ram Promaster 1500 that was already finished into a camper. I doesn't have heat or air, so I'm hoping a Pioneer 9000 under bench unit will do the trick. So, since a floor is installed, how can the cutout part of the installation be adapted through the floor to the van floor. I thought I could have metal pieces made to make the two cutouts reach through both floors. Thinking about as I write this makes me wonder if there could be a risk of fire with the wood floor. Please give me as much helpful information as possible, because getting someone to work on improving my van is basically impossible. Thank you ahead of time.

 

Pioneer unit is fine with your wood floor. Liquid fuel you need to be concerned about burner exhaust protection. Where are you located?

 

I live in Ohio. The pioneer is an electric unit.

 

@ballrabbi53 please make an introductory post in the introductory post section of the forum so people may better help you with any questions or problems you may have - thank you.

 

I live in Ohio, am a retired teacher, lady, and am doing all the research I can to upgrade the 2017 Promaster 1500 I bought last year. It was a rough camper build I took patrician walls out, and a barrel water system that was on the roof. It lacks air and heat, and only has the driver/passenger windows to open. I got the van to include my dog and cat. Leaving them in the vehicle when I am home is a major issue.