Nothing beats the summer heat better than a air conditioner. However, due to the rising electricity costs, not everyone can afford the luxury these days. Engineers are known for coming up with innovative ideas and DIY solutions to common problems.
Well, this engineer decided to make his own Air conditioner out of things readily available at home. The guy posted the complete video of his DIY and goes through the steps needed to make this AC.
Check out the video and try one out by yourself. Give us your comments on the practicality of this design in the comments section below.
This excellent website certainly has all the info I wanted concerning
this subject and didn’t know who to ask.
Can someone pls tell me fast what do we have to use in place of a dry ice. I did not understand it .the salt n water thing.
Built one. It cools the air, at best, about 2 degrees, and only a very short distance away. Literally, of almost no value. He’s probably measuring the temp of the container of ice inside the bucket, or the air inside the bucket. To the average person, ignorant of all the factors related to air cooling, this seems like it should work, but it doesn’t. Well, its 71 degrees in this room, and 69 degrees on the floor, near the bucket. If you feel that’s worth driving to Home Depot, and spending $ on the bucket, fan, pvc, and drill bits, that’s your call.
Out of curiosity, I put a wet wash cloth on top of the ice containers in the bucket, and I did get another couple degrees of cooling. Perhaps combing the ice with some sort of evaporative cooling feature could provide a good result. The wash rag will dry quite quickly though.
THe thing inside the buckek is a styrofoam liner. They are sold in some Home Depot stores. (not mine) They are currently out of stock online. Tried to get parts today. HD doesn’t know when they will be back in.
These things work awesome. If you don’t wanna build it, buy it on eBay
For some applications this works great. Regardless of the overanalyzing posted here, I have found this to be a usable and inexpensive project. That being said, the circumstances I use this in are quite different than the average user attempting to cool a room.
My company provides EMT’s and Paramedics for sports events. Many of our service locations provide little shelter other than an EZ-Up to sit beneath, which basically make you feel as if you’re in a greenhouse. And when it reaches 100+ degrees during the summer months, having a little cool air moving across you can make a big difference.
My version of these is just a little bit different in the building process and only slightly more expensive (maybe $3 per bucket). instead of buying a foam liner, I made my own for improved insulation. I purchased a plastic liner (3.5 gallons) and some expanding spray foam from Home Depot. This provided nearly double the insulation than the standard foam liner. I use 2-3 single quart bottles (frozen) for added surface area. I also created baffles that force the incoming air to take a slightly more leisurely path through the “cooling chamber). My thought is that the longer that the moving air is exposed to the cooled surface, the cooler the air will be when it is expelled. I also mounted my small fan at the PVC pipe, instead of on top of the bucket. This reduces the little bit of heat generated by the fan from entering the bucket as well as slightly slowing the speed of the moving air through the bucket. I cut about 10 1/4” holes in the lid of the bucket, this allows plenty of air intake. I use a small USB fan in each of the buckets powered by a pair of 30 watt solar panels, which also power up my laptop and power storage battery.
I use three of these coolers to blow cool air directly onto EZ-Up occupants and have found that even on hot days, I am getting about 40-50 degree air coming from the cooler. Will that cool even a small room..? Nope, probably wont change the room temp by more than a couple degrees at best, but it sure feels good when it’s 100 degrees outside and that air is blowing on you!
Happy building!!!
Three thoughts:
1.) A device that isn’t removing the humidity out of the air really shouldn’t be called an “air conditioner.”
2.) This device does absolutely nothing to cool the air. In fact, the device actually adds a slight amount of heat to the air via the fan motor. All this device is doing is transferring the cool air from the ice through the holes in the bucket.
3.) During a power outage, you typically don’t have a renewable method of creating ice… so this bucket device is extremely temporary without a massive available supply of ice.
To cool air and remove humidity from the air, you need evaporation and condensation to take place. This bucket device does neither. There’s really nothing you can do to cool a room in your house for an extended period of time without a compressor, evaporator, condenser coils, and electricity to power a blower. Even modern day air conditioners don’t technically cool the air, they simply transfer heat from inside –> outside.
The only long term scenario where this device would work is if you lived in a place that had EXTREME temperature shifts with very little humidity on a daily basis. (I’m talking below freezing at night to uncomfortably warm during the day.)
Andy H. Way to over analize a simple and quite frankly great idea on how to cool off a room. Nobody gives a shit about the technicalities of evaporation, condensation etc when its 100° outside and 115° inside. We’re just trying to stay cool here.
Yeah, but he is right. I’ve tried similar applications and it did nothing. Ever hear of a dry heat?
When blowing air over water you are adding moisture, so making it more humid which make it actually feel hotter. This should be viewed as a quirky project to take up an afternoon, not a legitimate cooling technique.
If you use a sealed ice pack then youre surely not adding to the humidity.
Andy’s comment is absolutely correct. This will not cool a room. You will only get cool air from sitting in front of the unit, your room temperature will not change.
is the liner a strofoam bucket
Where can I find the liner???????????????????????
They use a frozen 1 gallon jug inside. That can last for hours.
He used solar powered fan? i want to use solar solar power electricity. I live in an apartment. Can you suggest some articles of DIY methods, i will seriously try in my home.
Very good idea
What he used inside of the bucket? Cold water, ice or any kind of cooling agent?? If nothing then only an empty bucket cooling room!!!
That is dry ice
This is an excellent idea and application. One question, is dry ice harmful as it contains CO2? Can there be any alternative to dry ice?
Listen… Never use dry ice for an application like this.. Put water and salt in a food sealer bag and just keep a few frozen. Reuse these over and over….. NEVER USE DRY ICE