Non-Evaporative Swamp Cooler

[debit.servus]

So I built what TheCamperVanMan described, and created a video of me first turning it on, filling the loop with water, and a short lesson on ice cooling.
It took me five hours to build this, one of which was spent acquiring the copper coil (First was going to buy it as OSH then discovered by searching LOWES website the same size and legnth of copper coil was $1.49 cheaper, so went across the street and bought it there since I am a poor boi needing to stretch the few dollars I have).

After a few hours, notice a few degree temperature drop in the direction the fan is blowing; this is with the amount of ice that is was in the chest in the video linked above.

The condesate dripping from the fan coil like an A/C does, unlike the countless "ice chest air conditioners". One can get creative with the coils and take 1/2" or 3/8" copper pipe and U fittings to build durable square radiators. One could build a low-set up/takedown system using this principle. One idea I have is making a narrow rectangular radiator stick, small enough to fit through the bung of a 55 gallon barrel, filled with water in places with extreme high/low temperature swings.

This kind of loop system has a lot of possibilities. Like in places with extreme day/night temperature swings, one can chill the water during cool/cold nights and store the cold water until the hottest part of the day, providing for some temperature swing air conditioning. Or be used as a heater, boiling water and pouring it in the cooler (be sure the plastic and other components can handle the hot water), providing stored heat for the night. If parked by a river or lake, drop the coil in the body of water with a long legnth of vinyl tubing, with the fan inside the van cooling you down. Or for conventional house dwellers with a pool, use the pool as a heatsink to cool the house during hot summer days.

 

[Willy]

AFAIK, the whole idea behind how a swamp cooler works is via evaporation and no ice needed. ..Willy.

 

[debit.servus]

I don't know what that is properly called but it isn't a "swamp cooler".
...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler

A heater core would be more efficient in transferring the heat than a coil of copper tubing.

According to your video, if you run this on a 50% duty cycle, you will need 480 pounds of ice a day. Wouldn't take long to pay for a generator and window shaker at that rate.
...

Heater core sounds more accurate, for this transfers heat into the ice chest. I put it in the van from 3:30-4 PM to see how much it could cool me on the bed, and it surprisingly put a dent in the temperature (the outside temperature cooling off could have played a role in that) from 84 to 77 F in that timeframe. What really helps get one cool is the dehumidification that the cold water brings to the copper coil.

A heater core doesn't add any more cooling, it's a different shape of metal. One is just using up the ice faster with a better heater core. This is not going to cool a space like A/C but is better than nothing.

This is for those too poor for proper A/C with access to extremely cheap or FREE ice. For those looking to take advantage of extreme temperature swings, and those who are by the river. Otherwise save your pennies for a low-end 5000 BTU Window A/C and HFT genset (or whatever is a steal on Craigslist).

 

[jimindenver]

Someone here on the forum does this and has explained it in great detail. Buildings do it on a much larger scale with chilled water.

A heater core would go through the ice faster and provide better cooling due to a larger surface area transferring the heat to the water.

Now if you had one of these 12v fridges with a quick freeze feature, you might be able to make ice fast enough if you had the solar to support the fridge.

Another thought is one of my customers had a knee replacement done. he had a nifty cooler with a pump and a knee cuff. it would pump chilled or heated water to the cuff. Replace the cuff with a larger pad and apply the cooling affect directly.

 

[Willy]

I don't remember ever seeing FREE ice but that would certainly make this more feasible.

Guy

All ya gotta do is wait til winter, at least where I am. ..Willy.

 

[WheelEstate USA]

Free ice...We have often run into ice delivery guys with broken bags they are willing to give away. Some need to keep the empty bag for their inventory use.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

All ya gotta do is wait til winter, at least where I am. ..Willy.

Hey Willy, we could send those overheated peeps in Arizona lots of free ice (Freight collect, of course   )

-- Spiff, convalescing in tropical Minnesota

 

[RV-Hopeful]

So I built what TheCamperVanMan described, and created a video of me first turning it on, filling the loop with water, and a short lesson on ice cooling.

This is so cool (no pun intended), thanks for sharing it!

 

[debit.servus]

What is the proper name for this? Recirculating Heater Core loop? Heater core?

 

[ascii_man]

Not sure: how about "phase change recirculating split cooler"?

 

[debit.servus]

Not sure: how about "phase change recirculating split cooler"?

That sounds like a great name for the system. How many in favor or calling a system that recirculates water in a closed loop through two heater cores to heat or cool down a space a Phase Change Recirculating Split Cooler?

 

[ascii_man]

Well for heating, you need to drop the "phase change" unless you use steam, which you shouldn't. But there's already an accepted term: "hydronic heater". So maybe "hydronic" should be used in the cooling part also.

 

[debit.servus]

So how about "Recirculating Hydronic Split Cooler"?

 

[ascii_man]

I think the cooling still needs "phase change"; that's really important. "Hydronic" implies recirculation and usually implies a heat exchanger. And it's not really "split" since there's no outdoor component.

So probably "Hydronic phase change cooler" (HPCC). "Hydronic heater / phase change cooler" for a system that also does heating.

 

[ViaVacavi]

I have a strong background in renewable energy, having built everything from windmills to solar water heater heating systems.

The problem with cooling via ice is that the amount of BTU available is surprisingly small, and not cost effective in the long run when compared to other options.  I'll try to explain why:

- 20 lb. bag of ice will absorb 600-800 BTU of heat (depending on temperature differential).  For example, assume that we consider 72 degrees the useful cutoff for cool air, then there is a 40 degree delta (72-32=40).  40*20=800BTU of capacity.  Realistically though, by the time the water in the cooler has reached 72 degrees, our energy would be better spent on other ventilation techniques, so 800BTU is really on the high side of what to expect.

- Assuming that the ice takes 6 hours to absorb this much heat, this would put the actual output of the device below 100 BTU per hour.

- Assuming $5 for a 20 lb. bag of ice (I know this varies by location), this will give a price of about $6.25 and $8.50 per 1000 BTU of cooling.  This is magnitudes higher than
 virtually any other method of cooling available.  For example, even small automotive AC units are 20,000 BTU per  hour minimum.  It would be way more cost effective to run the vehicle A/C for 20 minutes while burning $0.25 in fuel for the same amount of heat removal.

- This is equivalent to about 25-30 watts of power draw to put that into another perspective.

- Taking the conversion further, this is realistically approximately 200 WattHours of power on the high end (0.20 KWH).  If you compare that $5 bag of ice to paying $0.15 per KWH for that 0.2 KWH, you'll see that you just overpaid by $4.97 for the same amount of cooling (Yes, in much of the country you could have bought that same amount of power for just 3 cents!)

I do like the idea of a quick and simple way to stay cool in isolated situations, but realistically it's very inefficient making it a poor choice for permanent installations (and we haven't even yet accounted for the extra gas burnt driving to get more ice, or the power used to move air through the system).  I'm not trying to knock the idea, just trying to put some numbers into perspective.

 

[TMG51]

I have a strong background in renewable energy, having built everything from windmills to solar water heater heating systems.

The problem with cooling via ice is that the amount of BTU available is surprisingly small, and not cost effective in the long run when compared to other options.  I'll try to explain why:

- 20 lb. bag of ice will absorb 600-800 BTU of heat (depending on temperature differential).  For example, assume that we consider 72 degrees the useful cutoff for cool air, then there is a 40 degree delta (72-32=40).  40*20=800BTU of capacity.  Realistically though, by the time the water in the cooler has reached 72 degrees, our energy would be better spent on other ventilation techniques, so 800BTU is really on the high side of what to expect.

- Assuming that the ice takes 6 hours to absorb this much heat, this would put the actual output of the device below 100 BTU per hour.

- Assuming $5 for a 20 lb. bag of ice (I know this varies by location), this will give a price of about $6.25 and $8.50 per 1000 BTU of cooling.  This is magnitudes higher than
 virtually any other method of cooling available.  For example, even small automotive AC units are 20,000 BTU per  hour minimum.  It would be way more cost effective to run the vehicle A/C for 20 minutes while burning $0.25 in fuel for the same amount of heat removal.

- This is equivalent to about 25-30 watts of power draw to put that into another perspective.

- Taking the conversion further, this is realistically approximately 200 WattHours of power on the high end (0.20 KWH).  If you compare that $5 bag of ice to paying $0.15 per KWH for that 0.2 KWH, you'll see that you just overpaid by $4.97 for the same amount of cooling (Yes, in much of the country you could have bought that same amount of power for just 3 cents!)

I do like the idea of a quick and simple way to stay cool in isolated situations, but realistically it's very inefficient making it a poor choice for permanent installations (and we haven't even yet accounted for the extra gas burnt driving to get more ice, or the power used to move air through the system).  I'm not trying to knock the idea, just trying to put some numbers into perspective.

That's a very good breakdown explanation of the limitations here, and to take it one step simpler I would first point out to others:

• There is no such thing as "manufacturing cold."

Heat is energy. You can move it around, but you can't "make" cold. You can only cool something by putting the heat elsewhere. An air conditioner does that with a compressor unit and venting the heat outside. So, when cooling with ice, you can only ever cool as much as the amount of heat that can be absorbed by the ice.

From there on ViaVacavi does a better job of explaining than I would have - just wanted to lay down that preliminary concept.

 

[highdesertranger]

thank you. highdesertranger

 

[ViaVacavi]

I have a strong background in renewable energy, having built everything from windmills to solar water heater heating systems.

The problem with cooling via ice is that the amount of BTU available is surprisingly small, and not cost effective in the long run when compared to other options.  I'll try to explain why:

- 20 lb. bag of ice will absorb 600-800 BTU of heat (depending on temperature differential).  For example, assume that we consider 72 degrees the useful cutoff for cool air, then there is a 40 degree delta (72-32=40).  40*20=800BTU of capacity.  Realistically though, by the time the water in the cooler has reached 72 degrees, our energy would be better spent on other ventilation techniques, so 800BTU is really on the high side of what to expect.

- Assuming that the ice takes 6 hours to absorb this much heat, this would put the actual output of the device below 100 BTU per hour.

- Assuming $5 for a 20 lb. bag of ice (I know this varies by location), this will give a price of about $6.25 and $8.50 per 1000 BTU of cooling.  This is magnitudes higher than
 virtually any other method of cooling available.  For example, even small automotive AC units are 20,000 BTU per  hour minimum.  It would be way more cost effective to run the vehicle A/C for 20 minutes while burning $0.25 in fuel for the same amount of heat removal.

- This is equivalent to about 25-30 watts of power draw to put that into another perspective.

- Taking the conversion further, this is realistically approximately 200 WattHours of power on the high end (0.20 KWH).  If you compare that $5 bag of ice to paying $0.15 per KWH for that 0.2 KWH, you'll see that you just overpaid by $4.97 for the same amount of cooling (Yes, in much of the country you could have bought that same amount of power for just 3 cents!)

I do like the idea of a quick and simple way to stay cool in isolated situations, but realistically it's very inefficient making it a poor choice for permanent installations (and we haven't even yet accounted for the extra gas burnt driving to get more ice, or the power used to move air through the system).  I'm not trying to knock the idea, just trying to put some numbers into perspective.

I just went over this again because I thought I may have missed something, and indeed I have.  I forgot to account for the phase change from ice to liquid, which requires 143 BTU/pound, after which liquid water requires 1 BTU/pound/degree change.  I'm going to use the same points below, only revised to account for the extra capacity from the phase change that was originally missed:

- 20 lb. bag of ice will absorb roughly 3600 BTU of heat (depending on temperature differential).  For example, assume that we consider 72 degrees the useful cutoff for cool air, then there is a 40 degree delta (72-32=40).  40*20=800BTU of capacity, plus another 2800 or so BTU for the phase change from solid to liquid (which takes 143 BTU per pound for ice to melt to water). Keep in mind though, that most of the cooling (about 75%) will happen during the phase change from solid to liquid

- Assuming that the ice takes 6 hours to absorb this much heat, this would put the actual output of the device around 600 BTU per hour on average. In practice, the output will be higher at the start, and lower at the end.


- This is equivalent to about 165 watts of power draw to put that into another perspective.

- Assuming $5 for a 20 lb. bag of ice (I know this varies by location), this will give a price of about $1.40 per 1000 BTU of cooling.  This is magnitudes higher than
 virtually any other method of cooling available.  For example, even small automotive AC units are 20,000 BTU per  hour minimum.  It would be way more cost effective to run the vehicle A/C for 20 minutes while burning $0.15 in fuel for the same amount of heat removal.


- Taking the conversion further, this is realistically approximately 1000 WattHours of power on the high end (1.0 KWH).  If you compare that $5 bag of ice to paying $0.15 per KWH for that 1.0 KWH, you'll see that you just overpaid by $4.85 for the same amount of cooling (Yes, in much of the country you could have bought that same amount of power for just 15 cents!)


As you can see, even the extreme jump the math took by accounting for the phase change of ice into water (literally magnifying the calculated cooling capacity 4-5 times), it's still very expensive and inefficient.  We're still looking at $1.40 per 1000 BTU of cooling via an ice chest, vs $0.04 per 1000 BTU of cooling by purchasing electricity (or maybe around $0.15 in gasoline per 1000 BTU  of cooling if using the vehicle AC).    This is a factor of 7 to 10 times less efficient than other options available, is less convenient and takes up more valuable space.

 

[debit.servus]

I have a strong background in renewable energy, having built everything from windmills to solar water heater heating systems.

The problem with cooling via ice is that the amount of BTU available is surprisingly small, and not cost effective in the long run when compared to other options.  I'll try to explain why:

- 20 lb. bag of ice will absorb 600-800 BTU of heat (depending on temperature differential).  For example, assume that we consider 72 degrees the useful cutoff for cool air, then there is a 40 degree delta (72-32=40).  40*20=800BTU of capacity.  Realistically though, by the time the water in the cooler has reached 72 degrees, our energy would be better spent on other ventilation techniques, so 800BTU is really on the high side of what to expect.

- Assuming that the ice takes 6 hours to absorb this much heat, this would put the actual output of the device below 100 BTU per hour.

- Assuming $5 for a 20 lb. bag of ice (I know this varies by location), this will give a price of about $6.25 and $8.50 per 1000 BTU of cooling.  This is magnitudes higher than
 virtually any other method of cooling available.  For example, even small automotive AC units are 20,000 BTU per  hour minimum.  It would be way more cost effective to run the vehicle A/C for 20 minutes while burning $0.25 in fuel for the same amount of heat removal.

- This is equivalent to about 25-30 watts of power draw to put that into another perspective.

- Taking the conversion further, this is realistically approximately 200 WattHours of power on the high end (0.20 KWH).  If you compare that $5 bag of ice to paying $0.15 per KWH for that 0.2 KWH, you'll see that you just overpaid by $4.97 for the same amount of cooling (Yes, in much of the country you could have bought that same amount of power for just 3 cents!)

I do like the idea of a quick and simple way to stay cool in isolated situations, but realistically it's very inefficient making it a poor choice for permanent installations (and we haven't even yet accounted for the extra gas burnt driving to get more ice, or the power used to move air through the system).  I'm not trying to knock the idea, just trying to put some numbers into perspective.

I just went over this again because I thought I may have missed something, and indeed I have.  I forgot to account for the phase change from ice to liquid, which requires 143 BTU/pound, after which liquid water requires 1 BTU/pound/degree change.  I'm going to use the same points below, only revised to account for the extra capacity from the phase change that was originally missed:

- 20 lb. bag of ice will absorb roughly 3600 BTU of heat (depending on temperature differential).  For example, assume that we consider 72 degrees the useful cutoff for cool air, then there is a 40 degree delta (72-32=40).  40*20=800BTU of capacity, plus another 2800 or so BTU for the phase change from solid to liquid (which takes 143 BTU per pound for ice to melt to water). Keep in mind though, that most of the cooling (about 75%) will happen during the phase change from solid to liquid

- Assuming that the ice takes 6 hours to absorb this much heat, this would put the actual output of the device around 600 BTU per hour on average. In practice, the output will be higher at the start, and lower at the end.


- This is equivalent to about 165 watts of power draw to put that into another perspective.

- Assuming $5 for a 20 lb. bag of ice (I know this varies by location), this will give a price of about $1.40 per 1000 BTU of cooling.  This is magnitudes higher than
 virtually any other method of cooling available.  For example, even small automotive AC units are 20,000 BTU per  hour minimum.  It would be way more cost effective to run the vehicle A/C for 20 minutes while burning $0.15 in fuel for the same amount of heat removal.


- Taking the conversion further, this is realistically approximately 1000 WattHours of power on the high end (1.0 KWH).  If you compare that $5 bag of ice to paying $0.15 per KWH for that 1.0 KWH, you'll see that you just overpaid by $4.85 for the same amount of cooling (Yes, in much of the country you could have bought that same amount of power for just 15 cents!)


As you can see, even the extreme jump the math took by accounting for the phase change of ice into water (literally magnifying the calculated cooling capacity 4-5 times), it's still very expensive and inefficient.  We're still looking at $1.40 per 1000 BTU of cooling via an ice chest, vs $0.04 per 1000 BTU of cooling by purchasing electricity (or maybe around $0.15 in gasoline per 1000 BTU  of cooling if using the vehicle AC).    This is a factor of 7 to 10 times less efficient than other options available, is less convenient and takes up more valuable space.

Yes, this is not a substitute for real A/C; but is better than nothing for those with a free or extremely cheap source of ice.

That's a very good breakdown explanation of the limitations here, and to take it one step simpler I would first point out to others:

• There is no such thing as "manufacturing cold."

Heat is energy. You can move it around, but you can't "make" cold. You can only cool something by putting the heat elsewhere. An air conditioner does that with a compressor unit and venting the heat outside. So, when cooling with ice, you can only ever cool as much as the amount of heat that can be absorbed by the ice.

From there on ViaVacavi does a better job of explaining than I would have - just wanted to lay down that preliminary concept.

Yes, our primitive refridgeration loop heat transfer appliances don't "make cold", but just transfer heat.

Cold is the absense of heat like dark is the absense of light. It might not be possible to slow down water molecules in a reverse microwave but it IS possible to make "anti-heat" (the inverse frequency of heat) and cancel the heat out. We already mastered noise cancelling headphones, using the same principle with heat, light & gravity we can achieve heat cancellation, light cancellation (anti-light) and anti-gravity.

Imagine a cooling device that doesn't require porting to the outside world and is as small as a MR BUDDY, uses less energy than air conditioning; cancelling heat out to get the absense of heat: cold. I am coining this appliance "H/C" for Heat Canceller.

ON topic, planning to make the "12v Hydronic Phase Change cooler" (lets settle the name for this contraption already!) I built multipurpose. One of the planned functions being an evaporative cooler, and sealed drink cooler (cooling sodas via hydronic heat transfer, ice, or evaporative cooling in the desert). Would be cool to take advantage of the huge temperature swings in Black Rock City this year.

P.S.: I have graduated from "A/C and Generator" to "Cooling Arsenal", meaning I am working on multiple means to keep cool as I am not going to swealter if I can avoid it! This is a topic for another thread.

 

[BradKW]

It might not be possible to slow down water molecules in a reverse microwave but it IS possible to make "anti-heat" (the inverse frequency of heat) and cancel the heat out. We already mastered noise cancelling headphones, using the same principle with heat, light & gravity we can achieve heat cancellation, light cancellation (anti-light) and anti-gravity.

You're really putting too much effort into this. It is a proven FACT that by simply combining penguin poop and elf stones into a magic hat, that you can achieve 200 BTU cooling per hour.

Be sure not to forget the elf stones, otherwise you risk just having a hat full of sh**...