420DB – Bridge A/C and Heat Installation

Yes, essentially your cycling all the air in bridge more than once every minute. If your delta coming out of the unit is 20 degrees, than essentially the air changes 20 degrees every time it's cycled, meaning less than once every minute.

I'm telling you, it's going to be a meat locker if you install it with minimal restrictions on the flow.

Good luck, I can't wait to read about all the sinus infections you will get from going from cold to hot in the summer!! ;-)

I also recommend some cheap meat thermometers permanently in place within the intake and return duct work so you can monitor the performance.
 
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Thanks, I can't wait to do the project. All the parts are ordered and I was told that it's going to take them about a week to put my custom package together. I still have plenty of time as I was planning to start at the end of October.
 
Alex,

Don't you have soccer commitments or home projects you should be tackling??
 
tdschafer said:
Alex,

Don't you have soccer commitments or home projects you should be tackling??
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Oh yeah, way too many commitments. But, it's all about a choice and time management. My kids are enrolled in to soccer that has decent schedule that works for all of us. I'm not spending the whole weekend for the kids games (I have to "live" too). My house projects are only done during the winter months (except the outdoor stuff, of course). Boating season is all about boating projects and time spent on water.
 
Thanks Al. I've been thinking about this new module. It looks like a great feature, I'm just trying to justify the cost for two units. The biggest question regarding the SmartStart module is (in my application), if I'm able to manage the power and only keep two units at the time, then not much is changing. So, then why do I need to spend the money on this new feature? Sure enough, when an A/C unit is triggered the power surges up, but it's only for a second or two and current setup is able to handle it. I'd love to make my equipment more efficient and conserve power, but for now I'm not sure that spending close to $1K (for two existing cruise air units) is necessary. I hope I'm not missing anything.
 
Alex F said:
Thanks Al. I've been thinking about this new module. It looks like a great feature, I'm just trying to justify the cost for two units. The biggest question regarding the SmartStart module is (in my application), if I'm able to manage the power and only keep two units at the time, then not much is changing. So, then why do I need to spend the money on this new feature? Sure enough, when an A/C unit is triggered the power surges up, but it's only for a second or two and current setup is able to handle it. I'd love to make my equipment more efficient and conserve power, but for now I'm not sure that spending close to $1K (for two existing cruise air units) is necessary. I hope I'm not missing anything.
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Your right, these things are typicaly installed on chillers on large yachts. When your spending 15k-20k on just the compressors, it makes more sense. Not bad to have though...
 
Looks like the fun is about to begin. I just got the unit.

The first impression is pretty good. Compare to the Dometic units this looks like a serious and solid unit. It's definitely larger and is not as slick looking, but it feels very solid. Some negative news is that I found few missing parts from the whole order, but I guess it could happen with any vendor. These guys were responsive so far, so I just emailed them with my list of missing items and will see how they'll fulfill the order.

A quick question, where can I get the duct sleeves? Do places like Home Depot or Lowes carry sleeves for 7" and 4" ducts?
 

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Another question, does any know a good source to get grill like this square one?
 

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I wanted to get best performance and thought that one of the ways is to maximize the airflow. So I ordered a long stretch of 7" duct. Now by looking at the size of the duct and the plenums I'm scratching my head on how will I be able to fit all this in.
 
Hi guys, it’s been a while since my updates on the project. I was just extremely busy with tons of projects going on at the same time. Anyway, let me start by posting what I’ve done at this point with my bridge A/C installation.

The first thing I did was cleaned the area from most of the obstructions by removing the table and the captain chair.

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Then I removed the storage box and started getting ready for unit installation. This was the time to make the biggest hole I ever made on a boat (it’s about 20”x30”). There were couple of reasons for this. 1-the unit was just a little too big to fit through the box doors opening. Of course I could have made it slightly larger. 2- The bigger reason was having physical access to the unit from both sides (front and back) while installing it and the control unit.

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There were a lot of details involved in the unit installation like:

  • Finding the best placement inside the box considering all connections (electrical and plumbing)
  • Considering ventilation for return air and cooling the unit.
  • Adding some padding to the bottom to handle the vibration and proper leveling the unit so the condencation will actually drain, not like 2” of water sits on our CruisAir units.
  • If I’ll remember few other points I’ll add them later.

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The next thing was duct work. All the ducts I received were non-insulated. Ocean Breeze just don’t carry any other marine graded, so I got whatever they had with intention on adding the insulation myself.

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Here I'd like to share how I tucked all the wires, hoses and main duct in the stbd side wall.

This is what it looks like when an original cutout access panel is off:

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This is what it looks like with pretty much all the lines getting ready to be attached to the unit:

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I have to mention that I’ve faced several issues when I got all the parts to the boat.

  1. The issue was that my plan A included running 7” duct to the main vent #1 and continue on to the port side vent #2 with 7” duct to maintain maximum air boost. So, as soon as I brought plenums and insulated 7” duct up to the bridge it was definitely an OMG moment. I then could tell that besides plenums being way too big and not what I expected, but the 7” duct would not fit where I had planned. So, I had to come up with plan B, which was bring 7” duct to the main vent (whatever it takes) and then continue on with 4” insulated duct.
  2. The other issue was that I didn’t have all correct 4” plenums for all connections and I had to place another order to OB.
  3. Due to the huge size of plenums I had to give up two additional vents that we planned to be installed right in the storage box T-ing off the main duct to provide air to the seating area by the table. This issue I was unable to fix simply b/c I was determine to keep 7” main duct going to the main vent. I thought that it was more important to run large main duct instead of switching everything to 4” and add more vents. In addition, I didn’t see that was really doable to stick a plenum made for 4” as the space in the storage box turned out to be very limited.
  4. Later on other issues.

After settling for my plan B it was time to get the ducts insulated. I also saw that plenums were not perfectly sealed, so I used the special duct tape to seal everything that had an opening.

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Running power lines and all the hoses was an “interesting” task by itself. I had to open up so many things that I never planned on doing, but sometimes it make sense to take some additional parts to make the job much easier with better results.

Let me share one of those openings, b/c it’s really worth pointing out. I did other projects in the past and knew how to get from salon to the bridge on the stbd side, but never did it on the port side. I had to find a way on the port side, b/c both power lines (one from the panel and another from the unit to the trigger) have to be run on the port side. So, I looked at my options and the troubled area were under the stairs, this is where the wire would end up as in the midpoint. I took the speaker out and was able to fish the wires. However, I’ve realized that this was nowhere close to be good enough b/c I couldn’t get behind the control panel to hook those power lines. The decision was simple, pull the cockpit fridge out. Oh boy, was that a smart decision or what?

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What’s wrong with that picture?
Besides having an excellent access to everything the first thing I saw was some kind of daylight getting thru something. My initial thought was “Wow, what a great thing, SR added fresh air vent for the fridge to get extra ventilation. This is great!”. So, I move on to running the wires and then I look at the hose and found myself asking the same question “what’s wrong with that picture?”. Then, my jaw dropped as I realized what actually was going on.

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Let me explain. The hose is coming from the engine room port side blower. It has disconnected from the exhaust vent and was blowing (when engaged) air from ER in to this confined area behind the fridge and the control panels. The biggest issue of all is that this is where salon has tons of openings to this “closet”. So, you very well guess what happens when the blower is running….that’s right you get everything in to salon. You can use your imagination on the possible causes if this was an older gas boat. BTW, this finding was a huge bullet-point why I like doing projects like this myself.

The next item is the new pump. The minute I received I was thinking that it’ll be some task to fit this thing in replacement for my original pump. The other issue was that OB sent me “manifold” that was unacceptable. So, I had to return it and request for a different one that looks like the original manifold with additional (3[SUP]rd[/SUP]) output. The only extra things I asked them to add were the ball valves. So here’s what the new pump and manifold look like compare the original one.

Original "manifold" which I sent back:

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New pump next to the original pump:

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Then, I had to do some running around to find a trigger to be installed in the empty slot in my existing CruiseAir relay. After several phone calls I was able to get one.

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More updates to come….
 
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Yikes!!! That is one helluva project Alex. It would cause me many sleepless nights which probably explains all of your late night posts!! Great presentation as usual! keep 'em coming!!
 
tdschafer said:
Yikes!!! That is one helluva project Alex. It would cause me many sleepless nights which probably explains all of your late night posts!! Great presentation as usual! keep 'em coming!!
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Todd, you have no idea. My "problem" is that I have certain way how things have to be done and it takes x2 or sometimes x3 the time involved compare to giving the task to other installers. Anytime I move from one "check mark" to another I say to myself "thank God I decided to do this project on my own". For the most part I have restless days and I crash during the night time. The worst part is that this is just one of many project I'm currently doing. My last "real" weekend was in mid October.
 
Thanks Doug.

At this time I'm waiting to get Wedged Grill from SR (apparently I could only find it through them) and I still need to find 4" round Global or Eauro style vents. Then my duct and vents installation phase will be completed.

In the meantime, I'm looking to replace plastic hose barbs (3 coming from ball valves) to bronze. The more I look at it the more I feel like minimizing the plastic parts as points of failure. By some reason I didn't have great success on finding them in my local WM and online. Those are 3/4" to 1/2" barb. I'll take a ride to another WM and other boat supplies store in my area to see if I can get those barbs.
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