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Heat pumps are known to be more energy-efficient than heaters, and can also provide A/C.
Tents can suffer from internal moisture condensation, which can result in wet inner surfaces during colder weather.
The small personal tent can have a small port onto which the heat pump would be attached.
The heat pump would expel cold and moist air from the tent, leaving the inside dryer and warmer. This would alleviate the condensation problem while also warming the tent in colder weather.
The heat pump could be controlled by a small digital thermostat, and would be powered by a small power bank, which could in turn be fed by small portable solar panel and/or portable wind turbine.
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What do use as your heat sink? Vote pending. |
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Ordinarily the external environment outside the tent is the sink. Your heat pump is trying to either raise or lower the temperature of the tent interior in relation to that sink. |
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In a winter situation, your heat pump would be trying to extract heat from the cold outside environment and deposit it inside the tent interior. However, I've read from various heat pump reviewers that in a cold weather heating situation, it's best to simply have the heat pump ejecting cold from the tent interior, which in that case would make the tent interior the heat sink. That way, the waste heat from the work being done by the heat pump is helping to build up heat inside the tent. |
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Actually, I was thinking of an electromechanical heat pump, since Peltiers are notoriously inefficient. |
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Okay cool. I've got some reading to do. (+) |
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Heat pumps work by temperature differentials. I would suggest the embers of a campfire could provide the hot side. |
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I wish there was a way to big up a comment with a bun or a jelly bean, and disagree with a bug or a crumpled can. Some of the comments are so much better (or worse) than the thing they are commenting on that it is a shame to let them slide without reaction. |
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Yeah, that's what I was originally thinking of before posting this idea. I was imagining placing a thermosiphon coil inside a campfire it to have it circulate some heat transfer fluid to heat a mattress pad inside the tent. But then the problem is how to regulate the temperature, since you don't want to be burned or get overly warm inside tent. Then I thought maybe a thermostat-controlled valve could regulate the fluid flow, but then there's the question of how to power that (separate battery bank aside from the campfire itself?)
Then I went to heat pump, since that's more controllable. |
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But maybe you're right - maybe the best combination would be a campfire and a thermostat-controlled heat pump. |
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So when the campfire is burning hot (too hot for our comfort), then the thermosiphon can be used to heat the mattress pad, and its excess heat energy could be tapped to charge up a battery bank (either via Peltier or Stirling Generator, depending on size of battery). As campfire dies down, then battery-charging from excess heat would taper off, and battery-driven heat pump would take over to push remaining residual heat from campfire into tent/mattress-pad. |
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Furthermore, simply adding rocks into the campfire would provide thermal mass to soak up that campfire heat while it's burning hot, so that it can later be drawn down by the heat pump across the night, as the campfire dies down. |
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If you only extract cold damp air from the tent and don't replace it with anything else then the tent will be collapsed by atmospheric pressure. |
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@ pocmloc: nah, the tent isn't airtight. Otherwise, people would suffocate inside a closed tent. Other reviewers of tent A/C products have said that if you use your A/C heat pump unit as a heater, it's better to keep it inside and have it eject waste heat inside the tent, while only expelling cold. |
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