My parents recently purchased a Mercedes Sprinter van that was built for vanlife. As they’ll be living in it for a while, they had some small modifications they wanted to have done.
EcoFlow AC Unit
Firstly, they were given an EcoFlow AC unit, but no ducting. To get air to the unit, we developed several 3D-printed adapters. The unit is a dual hose portable unit, so it needs to pull in & push out air from outside.
To achieve this, we cut an acrylic plate that would fill the window & had mounting points for both hoses. After ordering hoses, we designed adapters for both the outside air inlet & output.
The front unit was easy to fit, as it could snap onto the mesh housing. It was printed in 2 separate pieces, as the printer bed was not large enough to print it in one shot.
The hot air outlet was far more complicated to develop. It did not snap neatly into place, instead requiring a 3D-scan of the top surface to create a mounting seal. This scan was then used to make a negative of the mounting piece, which was glued in place. This piece was designed to have a magnetically sealing upper half, to allow for removal.
I also created some adapters that thread the hose unit into the acrylic plate.
Finally, to let the acrylic piece sit on top of the window, a simple I-beam shaped strip was printed out of TPU (90). Unfortunately, I don’t have images of these, as they’ve been lost.
This project timeline was very short, as the van needed to be functional in less than a week. This led to some slightly messy fabrication using suboptimal materials, but the AC unit was usable on time.
The unit has not been used, due to several factors:
- Takes up too much space
- Lackluster cooling for power demands
- Van has been used in primarily cooler climates
Despite this, the project was largely successful, as it got the unit usable for less than $50 in materials on short notice.
Door Stop Blocks
The van was fitted with a new rack. This rack replaced the hinges, but did not have the appropriate stop-blocks to avoid it opening all the way. I quickly made some TPU 90 replacements based on online images & educated guesses.
