Jeff;
Agreed. For the residential market an inverter makes much more sense than multiple compressors. Electronics are cheap at that level. The hacker is faced with a different problem. Inverter HVAC technology is going to be proprietary, and proprietary electronics are the bane of the hacker.
Even something as simple a three phase compressor and VFD are not practical at the DIY level. The wiring is straightforward and the drive is cheap. Three phase compressors are horribly expensive due to the smaller market. The targeted market makes it unlikely we will find them at garage sales or even scrap yards. The few that do come up are 480V from what I've seen. I replaced one last year. The only reason we used a 480 three phase pump was to avoid going through the already loaded 208 transformer.
Then there is the question whether a three phase hermetic will run well at reduced speed.
Thus my renewed interest in parallel compressors. It seems like a hacker friendly approach,
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