Evaporator unit for small bus

Abstract

An evaporator unit for use in the passenger compartment of a small bus that includes a low profile cabinet mounted in the ceiling of the passenger compartment against the back wall of the compartment. The cabinet contains a housing having a floor that slants downwardly from front to back and an evaporator coil is mounted in the front of the housing that is tilted rearwardly to reduce the height of the cabinet. A tangential blower wheel is mounted behind the coil and arranged to pass air from an inlet in the floor of the housing through the coil and out of the cabinet outlet. A shroud surrounds the blower wheel that cooperates with a baffle plate to efficiently conduct air through the unit. The top edge of the baffle forms the lower lip of the shroud exit region and the plate extends downward so that its lower edge is adjacent to the bottom of the coil to establish a converging air passage with the rear face of the coil to evenly distributes the air flow passing through the coil. A pan is mounted in the floor of the housing to collect condensate from the coil. The pan is exposed to a portion of the blower wheel so that positive pressure developed by the wheel helps to force collected condensate out of the back of the unit.