Essentially what we’ll be doing is using the power of
evaporative cooling and a fan to bring down the temperature in your
room. In this case we’ll be using ice water stored in a cooler that will
then cycle through a copper loop in front of a box fan. I’ll leave it to
you to head to Wikipedia to read up on how the process works, it’s not unlike
you sweating to cool down. As for myself, I’ve done enough sweating so I’ll let
the air conditioner do it for me. (Note: this is the perfect project to
do some scrounging and modify your design and tailor to whatever you may have
on hand that would fulfill the same function).
* A Fan (box fan is ideal)
* A cooler (you could use a Styrofoam cooler or
whatever cooler you may have on hand)
* An aquarium pump (or a pond pump, the higher the
Gallons Per Hour the more cooling you’ll get mine is a 132 GPH, also be sure
your pump has enough power to push the water to the height required to reach
the top of your coil)
* Copper coil tubing (the particular type of
tubing I used was 3/8″ outer diameter copper coil – 20 feet)
* Vinyl tubing (my pump called for 1/2″ Inner
Diameter tubing about 10 feet worth. Hopefully you get better tubing then
I did; I believe mine is the Autokink brand)
* Reducers and fittings to connect your copper
coil to your vinyl tubing and ultimately to your pump. If you are unsure
a conversation with a hardware store plumbing expert should get you going in
the right direction. They were terribly excited about my project so they
were glad to help. (I used 2 1/2″ to 3/8″ couplers that were then fitted
with 5/8″ threaded couplers and then screwed in two 1/2″ barbed brass adapters
to connect the tubing, finally I used 3 1″ hose clamps to firm it all up)
* Wood for making box fan outriggers
* Zip ties for attaching the tubing to your fan
1. First you need to get the copper tubing laid out and get
your fittings in place. It was a simple matter of 6 screws holding the
protective screen on my box fan so I was able to easily remove it and use it
for laying out the copper tubing. Since the copper tubing was already
coiled it was a simple matter to gradually and carefully bend it into a
spiral. Give yourself some room between each circle for more surface
area.
2. Attach the fittings to the copper tubing. In my
case I needed to solder the joints between the copper tubing and the
fittings. You might be able to find some solderless compression type
fittings depending on your materials and hardware store availability. That would certainly speed things along and would allow you to avoid having to
sweat the fittings together with some form of torch. I prepared all the
fittings by sanding the copper tubing and reaming the fittings. I then
applied some solder flux to the inside of the fitting and the outside of the
tubing. I then proceeded to heat the fitting with my torch until it was
hot enough to melt the solder, then I applied the solder. Repeat this for
the the other end of the tubing.
3. Solder the couplers; Now that the fittings were in place I
screwed in the barbed adapters for my vinyl hose after applying some Teflon
tape to the threads.
4. The vinyl tubing slipped over the barbs and then I added
two screw-type clamps to the barbs.
5. The pump had a special adapter that I inserted into the
vinyl tubing and then again used a screw clamp to secure the tubing.
6. Now is a good time to test your setup for leaks. Fill your cooler with some water, submerge the pump and connect the tubing to
your pump. You then run the other tubing back into the cooler. Fire
it up and make sure it works like you expect.
7. Now you need to attach the copper tubing to your fan
screen. This is a simple process, just plan where you want your tubing to
enter and leave. Layout Tubing your setup and then start attaching it with the zip
ties. I put about 4 for each circle for good holding power. You can
also fine tune your coiling as you go.
8. Once you’re done attaching the tubing to the screen you
might want to build your self some outriggers for your fan. Mine was a
bit tipsy to begin with so I cut up part of a 2×4 about 16 inches long and
screwed to the bottom of my box fan.
9. Reattach the fan screen with the original screws
10. Now you need to figure out how you are going to get your
vinyl tubing into your cooler. You’ll need 3 holes, 1 for the inlet to
the copper tubing, 1 for the outlet and 1 for the pump power cord. I had
a drill bit the same size as my vinyl tubing so it was a straight forward
process, just make sure it’s in the lid or at the top of the cooler, obviously
you don’t want water leaking out.
11. Okay you should be ready to give her a try.
Alright you’re going want to put your fan and cooler in
place, get your tubing cabled appropriately and you’ll want to get some
form of pan or something underneath your fan to catch the condensation from the
coil. Fill your cooler with enough water to cover the pump and then put
in a bunch of ice. I used 3 bags to start. Turn on the pump and
adjust the fan speed. Now bask in the coolness of your own evaporative
cooler.
This sucker does go through the ice so you’ll want to do
something other than buy hundreds of bags of ice. I took a variety of
containers, yogurt, cottage cheese, paint buckets, etc and made larger blocks,
they seem to last longer. Some alternate methods instead of straight ice
are 2 liter bottles filled with salt water. They last longer and are
colder than standard ice. You’ll just want to keep the salt water sealed
so that you are not cycling it through your setup. Also you could use the
freezer blocks that you can reuse.
Source : http://www.4us2be.com
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