Vehicle Climate Solutions

Directional Drilling trucks are used to carry water to mix “slip” which lubricates the drill bit. To keep water in the tank, the pumping equipment and water supply must be kept from freezing at all times. The operators would otherwise need to dump the water every day and fill up the tank every day. That loss of productivity has great value and therefore they need a reliable solution.

This vehicle is equipped with a Proheat X30 Fuel Fired heater, a 40,000 BTU heat exchanger to keep the back warm, additional batteries, an inverter, shore power connection with battery charger, and an Idle Management System to monitor the temp both in the cab and the Rear compartment of the vehicle.

Animal Control Vehicles have complex challenges to keep the animals cool or warm at all times however this means that the vehicle will idle extensively to do so while the operators of the vehicles, go from call to call at times or need to catch an animal at large. The vehicle also needs to have good ventilation to ensure that the animals have a constant supply of fresh air and oxygen when often the animals are in stress to find themselves inside a vehicle.

This vehicle is the top-of-the-line solution for Simplicity Air using a complex CAN network of controls to ensure that the vehicle and system work fluidly and with the utmost reliability since lives are at stake.
The system consists of an Idle Management System with a Rear Facility Option to automatically operate and control the rear HVAC system while the vehicle is in service, the Optional DC air conditioning compressor to provide a/c for both the cab and rear facility when the vehicle is off, and a coolant pump to circulate hot coolant to the cab and the animal compartments.

The system also feeds in outside air through a pressurizer blower that climatizes and filters the outside air before it enters the animal compartments. It also includes a large battery pack for extended engine off times and a shore power connection to charge the batteries back while it sits overnight. The operator need not do anything – just set the temperature and forget it.

Utility Trucks can be used for several types of operations, including line repairs, forestry, and sign installation. While the engine typically needs to run while the work is being performed, there is always a lot of waiting time involved, whether that’s to work out the job, get instructions or wait for other operations to occur before the boom can be used.

This application focuses on maintaining the cab heating and cooling while the operators wait and the engine is off. We integrated an Idle Management System for this system to manage and control the idling while adding an Eberspächer Hydronic 5 and the Optional DC Air Conditioning unit. We also upgraded the OEM batteries with Deep Cycle AGM batteries with both starting and deep cycle capabilities.

The 89171450 DC Air Conditioning unit comes with two deep cycle batteries in series to produce 24 volts, and it includes a DC-to-DC converter to connect to the 12-volt system on the vehicle. The DC Air Conditioning unit is tied into the existing vehicle system using a flow control valve, allowing the vehicle to provide air conditioning while the engine is running and the DC system to operate when the engine is off. This vehicle is used for forestry, so we had a custom welded guard installed to protect the DC Air Conditioning system.

Trucking is a crucial service delivering everything – everywhere. That means that some products being delivered require specific temperatures and there are many types of climate control systems for the industry. One product, however, requires a unique process just to be able to unload it. Chocolate while hot is very fluid but let it reach room temperature and it starts to solidify making it impossible to unload from a tank. Typically steam can be used to heat the chocolate through pipes that travel through the tanker but it's easier to maintain the temperature while it is in transit to eliminate the need to use steam. This is done by connecting the hot coolant from the engine to circulate through the piping in the tank. Unfortunately, that means the engine can never shut off and at idle it may not produce enough heat.

With today’s emissions systems on heavy-duty trucks, it's no longer just about the fuel while idling. The emissions control systems are a maintenance item that collects particulates that are unburnt from the combustion process. When the engine is idling, the engine temperature is low which means less of the elements in the fuel get burned off creating more particulate to be captured in the emissions system. With a shortened amount of idle time, the less particulate and therefore less maintenance for the emissions system. The system we installed in this application is primarily the Patriot APU but there are some things about the unit and the installation that differs from a regular APU. The system still provides heating and cooling for the sleeper, 110 Volt power for the sleeper, and battery charging to maintain the battery levels on the vehicle. A unique feature of the Patriot APU allows us to get more heat from the APU than any other APU on the market.

These features include the fact that we use an electric fan to cool the engine compartment that only comes on when the coolant temperature is hot in the engine, while others use an engine-driven fan that cools the APU down even when you need the heat. It also has a second 110 Volt cord that can be plugged into a heat load such as an electric heater or block heater which not only adds the heat from the block heater but also creates more load on the engine creating more heat. The system includes two 3 way valves that allow the coolant to be directed to the tanker as well as the truck engine as required. It can also split the coolant to do both jobs as required. We tested the flow which provides twice what a Webasto 2010 does, and it has a higher temperature of 95ºC.