You know that when you push the button marked "AC" you should feel a nice cooling breeze upon your body in short order. Those two letters stand for air conditioning, and it's within this system that magic happens.
At least, that's as far as you know at this moment. You understand the inner workings of your engine, but your AC system is a different monster.
The host of Engineering Explained is here to help you understand that monster and make it less of a mystery.
Here are the basic bits you need to know, if you're a bit too busy to hit play on that video. Your conditioned air starts life as low pressure gas. It's compressed into higher pressure gas, which also causes its temperature to rise. It's moved through the AC system into the condenser, which changes it from a gas into a liquid. From there it's filtered and dried so it can be turned back into gas. The liquid moves into the evaporator where heat is removed and it now becomes a low pressure, chilled gas before exiting out your cabin fans.
Your body receives the cold glory that is a properly running AC gift. On a hot day, your air conditioning system is one of the best friends currently running in your car. Unless you have t-tops... t-tops are still the coolest part of any car when so equipped. Regardless, if you do have an AC system in your car and you want to learn more about it, be sure to click that play button posted above.
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