Mini Solar Air-Conditioner (a.k.a Swamp cooler)

Step 5 The End

That was the Mini Solar A/C! Ugly but works. Add water to the cloth with a spoon until it's all soaked up, power it up with a solar panel (one or two watts), batteries, or a low voltage power source, and cool your house. Make several of these or a large scale one to lower your power bill in the summer.
Check out my other ible' for electric fire.

Comments

[teenuvibhav]

Verry Good EXP. I like your exepiriment verry much.
Exelent

[jignesh shah]

does this thing work in humid areas, in mumbai we have more than 85% humidity all round the year so it's importamt to know .can anyone please inform me.

[Swix]

no it wont work for you... humidity must less then 50% because of evaporation try to make one like mine: http://youtu.be/jla5s_A11Pc

[Faquad]

does the fan blow UP or DOWN into the cloth?

[ANDY!]

down, where ever the cloth is

[tiabnogard]

Ingenious. I've been looking for something like this, and you sir, are a genius. I have TONS of these fans around here.

[ANDY!]

yay. im still a minor too. not everyday where someone says that.

[anth101]

Can you build me one and send it to me for my B-day............ Its August 27 HAHA

[ANDY!]

sorry. i dont want to pay for shipping ; )

[HellborN-HarbingeR]

Really, better make that 2 then, August 27 is my birthday too. However it's still winter in South Africa so I can wait a while :P

[Coodude26]

I dont get it

[iLikeCoolStuf]

lol!!!

[anth101]

I was serious!!!!!!!!! jk( just kidding)

[iLikeCoolStuf]

k

[Necis]

Nice and simple, even though its more like a swamp cooler then a Air Conditioner. Seeing as I'm in the middle east at the moment and its starting to get hot I am probably going make a couple of these and see about tweaking it a bit. I'll let you know what I come up with

[ANDY!]

ANy thing yet?

[Necis]

no nothing yet, trying to find the right material to make the stand. I got lots of old crates laying around, but no wood working tools. I might have to weld something together.

[ANDY!]

I need some more people to vote for me. I am a kid too so I am impressed how well I did. Really.

[ANDY!]

cool. try using the two crates on top of each other and stick cloth or smth on the sides. then stick a fan on a hole

[radiochemist]

I made something similar using 2 thermal electric coolers hooked up to a 6 volt lantern battery instead of cloth. If you can get any of those and the heat sinks to go with them I would highly recommend it, it works pretty well to keep the heat and electricity bill down.

[uberdum05]

That sounds like it wouldn't work too well because peltier elements have a hot and a cold side. You have a fan hooked to a heatsink on the cold side and a heatsink on the hot side, the heat would radiate away from the hot side to be then absorbed by the cold side again so to make it work you would have to have the hot side outside to be able to cool.

[radiochemist]

I had it so that it was lying flat and the cold side was up, the hot side was in a project box with a fan blowing on a good sized heat sink, and a larger fan blowing on the cold side. It doesn't cool the room, it makes you feel cooler by blowing a cold wind on your face. you can also use a water cooling system for a computer

[ANDY!]

I heard of that but it said it was sorta inefficient

[WhoTookMudshark]

I hope that you realize the net gain of this system is an overall heat GAIN. Unless you go to great lengths to route the hot portion away, this is not a very swell idea.

[HowardParr]

Not so...because of the latent heat of vaporization. It takes a lot of energy to transform 212 degree water to 212 degree steam. So, how this system works is by removing that heat energy from the air and transferring it to the water. As the water evaporates, it utilizes the latent heat as it changes from a liquid to a gas - the water remains at the same temperature, but contains more energy.

[WhoTookMudshark]

Radiochemist's idea had no vaporization, though! Unless I am missing something.

[HowardParr]

Nope...Sorry...I missed something.

[middlenamefrank]

Howard, you should have stuck to your guns, you were 100% correct the first time. Just because water isn't at 212 degrees doesn't mean it can't evaporate...did you ever hear of the law of partial pressure? As long as the humidity in the air is less then 100% (which it usually is), water can be made to evaporate into it, and in doing so, absorb a lot of heat. That's what a swamp cooler IS. I don't think this mini cooler will do much to affect the temp of an entire house, but if you park it near you and point the airflow at you, it could easily make quite a difference in how comfortable you feel. That's subject to having DRY heat, as opposed to WET heat. If the humidity is high it won't work as well, but in most places it should work very well. Good going ANDY! But quit shouting, geez.

[middlenamefrank]

Okay, I just noticed this is under radiochemist's post, not the original author's. Sounds like we're all on the same page, sorry. :-)

[radiochemist]

yeah you're right, after a while they don't work so well, and I never said it works as good or better than an air conditioner, but it works and it's better than nothing. water works pretty well for storing heat, so you can not only use it to heat a room, if you have a mini heat pump such as a TEC you can use water to cool a room as well. since one side of the TEC is cold, and the fan is blowing over the cold side, it basically sucks any available heat in a room and concentrates it to the other side of the TEC, and the heat is absorbed and stored in the water. When the temperatures of the water and the hot side of the TEC become closer in temperature, the less effective it gets. That's why I say to have a few of them so you can cycle them and let the heat dissipate outside while having a solar panel recharge the battery. I'll make an instructable for it when I get a chance.

[ANDY!]

Tell me if you do.

[cd41]

If you don't mind me asking, what brings you there? Best of luck with your tweaking...