infrared

Infrared Decoder and Transmitter

Submitted by Matt on Thu, 10/15/2015 - 16:10

My man cave over the garage has a mini split installation. In case you are not familiar with mini splits the DOE has an article.

TLDR?

These AC units are common all over the world, except the USA where central air dominates. They are more efficient and easy to install (no ductwork) but tend to be more expensive per BTU.

Through a connection that my father in law has, I bought ading and dent unit for an eighth of the normal price. The unit is a Mitsubishi MSZ-FE18NA with 18k BTUs of cooling/heating capacity. I figured 18k BTUs was ample capacity to stave off the intense Texas summer heat.

Turns out it may have been a bad idea to get a unit this powerful. Apparently these mini split systems never “turn off”; they always run at a percentage of ther capacity so they can allegedly be more efficient by eliminating the powering on and off overhead. Don’t ask me how this ends up working out in the end! Once the set temperature is acheived the indoor radiator is always about the same temperature as the air. So there is hardly ever any condensation that forms on it. Even worse, any condensation that does form  quickly re evaporates. So my cave potentially has a humidity of +20% the outside since the temperature is usually cooler.
In Houston Texas this is bad news because the humidity is high enough!

I researched the issue online. Tons of people are having the same problem. One solution is to downgrade to a smaller unit. Well my unit is already installed, I would have to trade units with someone else and a reinstallation would not be cheap. I had to think outside the box. A temporary fix seemed to be turning the AC off and on manually. When the AC unit detects a significant temperature difference between the set temperature and room temperature it goes into a turbo mode where then the radiator part is significantly cooler and humidity is rapidly pulled out of the air.