Introduction: Cold Air Fan From Reused Plastic Bottles

About: Well not much to know about me really. Name is Tait live in Alabama. I enjoy all sorts of hands on projects; Woodworking, electronics work, alternative energies. I'm currently in school for my AAS in electroni…

This is an instructable on how to make an extremely simple mini cold air fan and alternative to cooling off. This will help you to recycle & reuse some stuff you have rather than throwing it away and it ending up in a landfill somewhere. You more than likely you already have all the items laying around that are needed for this project and I have made this to be so simple that anyone could do it. This is a pretty good thing to have , especially if you happen to be the only one wanting to cool down in the room. You can also use this to help keep something cool be it food all the way to electronics. I know there are others out there people have done before this one but again I tried to make this fan in its most simple form. 

Step 1: Gather Your Materials

First thing you want to do is gather up the materials that are gonna be needed for this quick and easy project. 
  1. Small sized cylinder container. I used a plastic protein shake container.
  2. Plastic water bottle
  3. Battery - mine is a 6V NiMH rechargeable battery from a RC truck.
  4. Fan from a computer 
  5. A few small screws 
  6. Electrical tape
  7. Ice packs
  8. X -acto blade, Razor 
  9. velcro
This picture  only shows the three main components here but the others are needed as well.

Step 2: Cut Holes in Lid and Container

     After you get all of your materials gathered you want to go ahead and set your fan you have found and set in on top of the lid and cut a hole out of the lid to match the size of the fan. After cutting this hole out go ahead and attach your fan to the top of the lid with either some small screws or maybe you just want to glue it up there, anything to make the fan stay in place. Don't forget when hooking the fan to the lid you want to have the fan facing so that it is pulling in from outside and blowing it into the container. 

     Next you want to take your water bottle and trace an outline of the bottom of it onto your container.At this point you want to go ahead and cut out the bottom and top of your bottle, as well as the hole that you traced into your container. Go ahead and put the bottle into the hole and tape in into place.

Step 3: Hook Your Battery and Lid On

     Next you can attach your battery to your container. This part is optional if you want to keep your battery free or connected in some other way it would't hurt anything. I just used some velcro straps to hook the battery to the container so that it would be hooked , but I could still take it off to be able to recharge it as well. 

     Depending on the lid you may have to attach it back on somehow, fortunately mine was able to still screw on and off of the container which comes in handy. To hook the battery to the fan  I just use some electrical tape to hold the wires from the fan to the battery leads. Again I am doing it this way to keep it simple so that anyone can do this and not have any problems with it. 

Step 4: Fill With Ice Packs and Enjoy

     The last thing left to do it get some ice packs that have been sitting in the freezer and set them down into your container. I filled mine with some ice cubes as well as the ice packs to help out. The good thing about the ice packs is that you aren't wasting any water by reusing the ice packs. Truthfully you could always re-freeze the water from the ice cubes when they melt ,either they will both work fine. 

     Now all that is left to do after filling it with the ice packs and ice is to hook the fan up to the battery and enjoy the nice refreshing cool air of your new mini cold air fan. I hope someone out there enjoys this. As with any of my instructables all comments and criticism are welcomed and wanted. Now save some of those plastics from a landfill and build you some mini cold air fans. 

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