DIY Evaporative Cooler

>>1172075
if the water is cold it will cool the room down

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>>1172075
I made one of these last year anon, it didn't work for shit.

Sorry for the bad photo. Honestly I don't think it made a difference in temperature and it was even in a small room (around 300sq ft)

One thing that I want to try at some point is to take a box fan, some copper piping, a 5 gal bucket, and a small water pump. Coil the copper pipe around the front (exhaust) of the box fan and run ice water through it. The ice water would be inside the bucket and the pump would run the water.

It may just be easier to buy an actual portable AC at that point though.

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>>1172075
Evaporative coolers work by... evaporation. Water absorbs heat as it turns from a liquid to a gas (several times the heat needed to raise its temperature from the freezing to the boiling point as a liquid). This increases the humidity of the air, which impairs cooling off via sweat. Considering cooling off with sweat alone, it's a wash - the lowered temperature is exactly offset by the increased difficulty of further evaporation. However, heat is also lost through conduction, and a lower absolute temperature increases this loss. This can be pretty significant in your case since the air temp is about the same as body temp, meaning little or no net conductive loss of heat. Circulating air (as with a regular fan) and exposed skin can help increase heat loss through both conduction and sweating.

>>1172075
just buy a craigslist window AC you cheap shit

They work well if tou are in a very low humidity environment.

But they dont work well in a closed room. As they run they raise the humidity level , to the point where they stop working.

So keep a window open.

Thanks for all your advice guys. I'm trying to avoid an AC since I don't want to deal with the spike in energy consumption, and I'll only be staying at my place for 4 more months. Maybe I'll just run 2 fans and wear a wet towel like 1172085 suggested XD

>>1172149
You need to operate the evaporation process so that the saturated air is vented out. The designs shown in the pictures look weird.

Keep in mind that if you get it to work well you risk raising the humidity in the room a lot in which case the evaporator might better also take in outdoor air even if it is warmer then the indoor temperature as long as it is dry outside,

If the relative humidity is anything above 40% they don't work. Crack a window when running it.

>>1172210

Yeah, I read pass it through a window is good.

Wait up... The gallon of freezed water inside the bucket is supposed to be closed. So it can only go from solid to liquid right? The gas can't escape the bucket so the room humidity can't really go up.. What do you think

>>1172279
Well...if you feel cold air coming out the exhaust, you'll probably feel water (from condensation outside the container) that turns into gas...but I think the container is supposed to limit the amount of humidity generated, yeah.

>>1172279
OP's video is not an evaporative cooler. It's a fan blowing air at a frozen jug of water, which would actually provide more cooling just sitting in the room without the fan, since the fan's operation adds heat to the air. Also, if the ice is frozen in your freezer, the work of making the ice produces more heat than the melting ice will absorb later. The point seems to be generating a cool stream of air that you can direct at yourself, not cooling a room like OP wants.

An evaporative cooler causes liquid water (typically tap water) to evaporate into warm air, thereby cooling and humidifying the air without needing the large energy input that a heat pump would need to provide the same cooling.

>>1172075
You're better off finding out the prevailing wind direction and opening windows and throwing a box fan in the window to aid in moving the air in that direction. i.e. if the wind is moving south then throw a fan in the north window blowing in.

If you have two stories open the windows on the top floor to get convective forces going.

If you have a basement, go to the basement.

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>>1172075
>Evaporative Cooler/Swamp Cooler

They work great in very low humidity environments. Otherwise, they increase humidity a lot.

>what is actually pictured which isn't a swamp cooler at all

I have made similar ones like that. I used tubes, pump, and fan to move water through the ice chest. It makes a shit load of condensation too.

•••SPOILERS: It only works for spot cooling where the colder air can blow directly on you.•••

It is worthless for anything else really. IGNORE all other information and opinions ITT as they are irrelevant is you follow the above.

>>1172075
DO NOT IN ANY SITUATION SUBSTITUTE DRY ICE WITH WATER.

I have a whole house evap cooler. For it to work for longer than 5 minutes, you need to take dry air, can be hot or cold, and run that through the wet media. Then, you need to expel that cooled humid air outside after its passed through the room.

I also made one like you posted. I got a 5 degree temp drop in the water. I was going to use it to cool a separate cpu radiator (instead of just room air). Once I did research though, I realized drilling holes in my walls so I could keep it outside, in the hot Desert climate I lived in, would hurt resale value. Only consider these diy ones for open environments with the air blowing directly on you.

You need to add another fan behind it, to help push the cold air coming from the box towards you.
The cold air from the box is not that powerful at all unless you sit right in front of it. - this why people complain about it not "working" good enough for them.

I am in Taiwan, its humid as fuuuuu here. We were very comfortable with ours - for sleeping at night with it working.
we just elevated up to above mattress level, and the cold air hits us pretty good with the help of the fan.

>>1172075
FWIW I run two evaporative humidifiers in my guitar shop and it's noticeably cooler within about 5 feet of them.