- Small portable air conditioner: this rolling, self contained, compact, portable ac unit cools small network closets and back offices where other cooling solutions don’t fit; this room air conditioner can also be used as a personal air conditioner for residential applications
- 12,000 btu of cooling power: this AC unit delivers 12,000 betas (3.5kW) of air conditioning capacity to protect vital equipment against overheating; this unit uses environmentally friendly R410a refrigerant to comply with worldwide standards
- Self contained design with simple installation: this air conditioning unit has no plumbing or special circuits, and a built in evaporator means there is no need to empty water collection tanks; the unit also dehumidifies and filters the air, and 100 percent duty cycle keeps your environment constantly cool with no downtime
- Optional remote management for monitoring & control: install the optional srcoolnet network module (sold separately) to this space cooler to monitor temperatures, receive alerts, review logs, and control settings from anywhere, anytime, via snmp, web browser, ssh or Telnet
8 reviews for Tripp Lite Portable Air Conditioner for Server Racks and Spot Cooling, Self-Contained AC Unit, 12000 BTU (3.5kW), 120V, Gen 2 (SRCOOL12K) , Black
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Chrisroman –
My office is upstairs facing West with approximately 1500 watts of equipment heat that needs cooling. On triple digit days, like we’ve been having here for the past couple weeks, my office will never get below 85-90 with the central AC alone. So I must have supplemental cooling. I’ve been using an LG 12000 BTU (LP1200dxr) unit since 2010, and it’s a wonderful unit, and can cool my office down to a crisp 60 deg, even during triple digit weather. But we needed it for another upstairs room, where the kids sleep, since the LG is very quiet it made sense to move it to that room. So I went shopping for a new unit for my office. 🙂
I almost purchased another consumer unit, but I ended up with the Tripp Lite SRCOOL12K for a couple reasons.
1. The cool air duct for spot cooling
2. I plan to use it in either a dedicated equipment room or garage in next house, and this unit seemed more suited for those environments.
Initial Thoughts…
The Good
– Unit looks good and blends in well with modern office equipment
– I like the orientation of unit and placement of the cool air vent and exhaust hose.
– Dual air filters are great. My old LG unit only had a single air filter, and the inner radiator would always need a lot of cleaning at the end of the season. I have a feeling this Tripp Lite unit will be lower maintenance.
– VERY powerful cooling. My LG unit was also 12000 BTU, but this Tripp Lite feels much more powerful. It seemed to cool down my office in half the time, and the spot cooling has enough air flow that it could double as a weed blower.
The Bad
– Lack of remote control is a bummer. Especially given the way the fan works see below)
– The unit is VERY loud! After an hour I have a headache from the noise this thing makes from about 6 ft away. This is not something you will want to use in a space where people are working, and definitely not where people are sleeping. Of course, it isn’t marketed for that either.
– The Fan never turns off. Given the performance of the unit, I could probably live with the noise, while its cooling, but the fan never stops, ever… Even in quiet mode, the unit is unbearably loud. If the fan would cycle off, or at least have a slow, whisper mode then it would be acceptable. But even on the lowest fan setting you will go deaf having this thing in the same room with you. This is where a remote would have at least been handy to turn the unit off to help control noise.
Don’t get me wrong, I think this is a great unit. It does exactly what it was meant to do, and is everything that it’s advertised to be. I can see putting this unit in a server room, or garage, or similar location that would ruin a less capable (albeit quieter) consumer unit. And I will probably keep it for that, as that’s the long term plan anyway. This is a powerful portable air conditioner that cools great. I just wouldn’t recommend it for home use, or for spaces close to people working in a quiet environment.
John T –
I purchased this in May 2016 to cool a small 14 x 6 server room that has two ThinkServers and a few switches -enough heat buildup to be a issue but not enough to expect cooling to be a major problem.
The first unit died in about 3 months, and Tripp Lite support was kind enough to ship a replacement unit. This cost me $50 in shipping & a week without cooling but I did learn some things which may help you.
First, while speaking to tech support, I found out that this unit is only designed to run 4-6 hours per day. That could be a problem when it’s 100 degrees outside, the office A/C is off for the weekend, your servers are spewing heat, and the temp is set to 65 on the SRCOOL12k. Lesson: The office A/C is still going to have to take on the majority of the cooling work.
Second lesson. I had the first unit set to “high” and the thermostat set about 4 degrees cooler than the office A/C. I assumed it would cool down & then run intermittently after that. I was wrong. It ran constantly. I believe the issue is that it exhausts so much air from the room that it is constantly sucking in warmer air from the office & can never get ahead of itself. I now have the fan set to low & it seems to be doing a much better job.
Third lesson. If you live in an area where humidity is a problem, run the hose. We bought into the marketing that this would evaporate the humidity in the exhaust. It overflowed on the weekend & made a mess. After that we ran a drain hose & it’s worked well since.
Fourth lesson. The SNMP module for this thing made it a lot more complicated than it was worth. Even after you get past the fact that you need an old in-secure version of java to run it, it seems to get confused. Simple is better. I removed the SNMP kit & am just letting it run with the front panel controls. I’ll find another gizmo to monitor the temp & alert.
Last recommendation: based on the first one dying after 3 months, buy the extended warranty.
I considered numerous residential/commercial air conditioning units but went with this one because it seemed to be designed for the IT environment. I therefore assumed that it would offer better reliability & better controls than the other A/C units, especially with the SNMP module. I was wrong. I have other Tripp Lite equipment that works well but this is tarnishing the brand. I believe I would have been as well off or better off with one of the $400 units from the big box home improvement store.
Summary: When it works it works acceptably well. Documentation is average at best. Some best practices/scenarios would really have helped. Support was good. If you are cooling racks there is likely value in the tubing that they provide to duct air into the rack. If you are just cooling a room like me you can likely get more cooling for your buck with a standard air conditioner.
*** Update ***
The replacement unit died in September 2017. No one fixes them, the factory warranty was over so I filed a claim on the extended warranty. Kudos to Square Trade, they don’t fix them either but they did issue a check for the purchase price. I bought another room air conditioner at the local home improvement store for a couple hundred dollars less than this unit. Frankly the new one is doing a better job of cooling. We’ll see if it lasts longer.
Riaan van Schoor –
Tripp Lite product works well. Better suited to a server room allowing focused cooling towards the server rack. It is cooling better than the 14,000 BTU unit that it replaced. I’m guessing that the old unit was diffusing the output over a larger area rather than focusing on the server rack.
Side note on delivery – FedEx left unit in front of my building 20 feet off the street. No signature, No damage and fortunately, not stolen from my property. That seems risky given the price of the unit.
flipmode –
This air conditioner contains everything you need to cool a server closet. Before installing this unit the room that houses our IT gear would routinely reach 88 degrees, clearly not good for your equipment. After installing this unit the server room stays at a cool 67 degrees. Our server closet is about 200 square feet with one telco rack worth of equipment in it. It comes with all the necessary parts to vent the warm air and condensation to a dropped ceiling. Our dropped ceiling is about 12 feet above the floor, and there was still a few feet of pipe left.
Do not install this unit without venting the hot air, your server room will overheat quickly! Once the exhaust vent is properly setup all you have to do is plug the unit in, turn on the power, set the temperature and wait a few minutes to watch the temperature drop. The other portable air conditioners I was looking at were not designed to vent to a dropped ceiling, this one is and it was exactly what I needed.
Full disclosure, I have only been using this product for a few days.
Fernando Martínez Gallardo –
Be aware this unit ships only with a US plug and you will require a converter if you want to use it in the UK. This information is not supplied by the seller.
Crossxmaq –
Triest bien
Robert –
Requiere drenaje y en las fotos no lo indican. Pero buen producto.
Agradezco el servicio de envío, es muy bueno.
Robert –
Just Tested SRCOOL12K . Lowest setting 63F/17C this beast expelled lots of hot air via exhaust. Only thing that seems to be out of place is the Adjustable Exhaust Panel which I don’t blame Tripp Lite.
If this unit last more than 2 summers then it’s better than those no name brands at your hardware store selling for half the price . Note the Duct Adapter that vents hot air that fit on unit leak hot air into the room, maybe thin strip of weather stripping could help seal the leak.