Take a t-shirt laid out flat, roll down from the top until you get to the
bottom of the sleeves.  Tie the rolled part around your head so that the
shirt covers your head and drapes down your neck.  Now you look like an Arab
AND a stoner while driving your VW.  Expect even more unjustified stops.
 But anyway.  Use a squeeze water bottle to soak the rim of your Lawrence of
Arabia headgear.

As I learned when wearing a sandblasting helmet that had air piped to it
from the same compressor that was running the sandblaster, if you keep your
head cool, it doesn't really matter how the rest of the body feels.

Regarding the rotary vane air compressor for air conditioning, it looks like
the guy in the article continued to work on it, he is on a patent
(5087183) from 1992:

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/41865875/Rotary-Vane-Machine-With-Simplified-Anti-friction-Positive-Bi-axial-Vane-Motion-Control---Patent-5087183

It would be interesting to see what he would say about the potential for the
technology.

This google book result says that the device was heavy and noisy:

http://books.google.com/books?id=gpo3V8PPhFUC&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=rovac+corporation+florida&source=bl&ots=_pkvct9Vrk&sig=Gq2LD_11a3PCA0eSyqyVEEaFCM4&hl=en&ei=recQTNDwAcG88gbXq_mqBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=rovac%20corporation%20florida&f=false

mike

On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 12:56 AM, David Beierl <dbeierl@attglobal.net>wrote:

> At 01:43 PM 6/9/2010, Rowan Tipton wrote:
>
>> Which you can do even if you have an a/c and generator for those times
>> the heat is to much.  I don't seem to hear this argument about putting
>> a Propex or other heater in our vans so why do we have it about a/c.
>>
>
> When I was growing up and air conditioning wasn't all that common at
> least in the Northeast, it seemed to have a faint but distinct flavor
> of indulgence and moral decay to it, especially if it was in a
> car.  Maybe that was just my family, but I wonder...
>
> As the fat heat-intolerant owner of a non-AC Vanagon who often drives
> alone, I've come to rely on the blast effect of the quarter-windows;
> and I was some dismayed to find that mother VW has become too
> concerned for my safety to allow me to open the darn things to a
> blast position.  I've concluded there's no practical way to outwit
> them without drilling a hole in the outer door skin, and while I
> think about that I've been known to muse on the possibilities of some
> sort of personal cooling system.  Which always leads me to wonder
> what happened to the ROVAC
> system.
> <
> http://books.google.com/books?id=WwEAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA84&lpg=PA84&dq=rovac+air+conditioner&source=bl&ots=VvTiK97nzA&sig=2MCLGpTq0lnWCCKsLv6nDvNvFmQ&hl=en&ei=DX0QTOeRCcP38AaVwOH-BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CDUQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=rovac%20air%20conditioner&f=true
> >
>
> Yours,
> David
>