This is a rendition of figjam's solar Swamp cooler. it works pretty well and is great for keeping you cool when you are in the hot hot heat! This is a great piece of equipment have when you want to be able to cool things down while you are camping or at burningman (like I will be!).

Step 1: Gather Your Gear

Things you will need are pretty simple.

- submersible pump ($9.00): you can find them at your local hardware store. I went to harbor freight and they had a few to choose from! figjam's version uses a solar pump which is 12 volts and pumps about 42 gallons per hour. I loved the idea of having it be completely solar, but when I tried it out, there wasn't much power going through it, and if there is any over cast, it won't work at all. and for 20 bucks i didnt think it was worth it.so I opted for one that I can plug in that I'd 120 volts.

- cooling fan ($7.00): I bought this at Frys. it's a 12 volt 120 mm fan and goes at about 96 cfm. it pretty much means the pumping power. There are cheaper and different ones you can buy out there. I picked this one bc I was going to splice it to the solar pump, but when there wasn't enough power going to it like I wanted it to, I found a 12 volt ac adapter that worked perfectly for it!

- homedepot bucket ($7.00): I bought the bucket and the lid because it's the perfect travel size. Figjam drilled 2 inch holes into the sides, but I just did 1 inch ones and had more of them for air to get into the bucket.

- cooling pads (9.00): homedepot has some and they are pretty cheap. I bought one sheet which was 28th I think. be careful when cutting these because they get messy!

- hose and T connector ($4.00): again homedepot lol. I got these in the lawn and garden area. It's a 3/8 diameter hose and same for the T connector. you are just going to have to cut to fit.

- drainage hose pieces ($14.00): the size is about 4 inches for this. It fits completely over where the fan goes and makes for good air flow.

Step 2: Do the Dang Thing!

1.First thing I did was drill the holes in the bucket. I placed them pretty close to each other and made sure I had plenty of them to go around.

2. cut the cooling pads. I cut them in different sizes. The first is 33 inches by 13 inches. it should let it fit perfectly in your bucket with out overlapping. The second piece should only be 24 X 13 inches. and you will roll this one in tight with the original.

3. cut the drip hose to size, and make it make a circle. This is for the water to floe from the pump and drip into the cooling pads. now you're gonna have to poke holes into the circle of the hose. I had a soldering iron and was able to burn the holes with great ease.

4. connect the hose to the pump. I wanted to make sure the hose and pump worked properly so I tested it out to make sure that everything worked. yay for me!

5. fan and lid. first thing i did was took a marker and traced the inner circle of the drain pipe. After getting the size and spot of where I wanted it, I cut out the piece of plastic from the lid. I screwed the fan on the bottom of the lid so I could save room and have the fan pump the air directly out of the bucket. I took the fan and was able to splice it to the ac adapter with ease.

6. Drain pipe. The pipe and connector fit perfectly into each other. After I was able to get them done, I just glue the pipe to the topside of the bucket lid. i made sure it covered the whole hole and that the fan would only be pumping into the pipe.

Step 3: That's It!

Make sure you test it out and use clean water. but it works perfectly and since mine need to be plugged in, I just use my solar portable generator that I built to power it.

hope you liked it, and have fun out there!