NovaBandit
Well Known Member
With the hot weather about to hit us, I thought I'd share the little portable air conditioner I built to keep myself cool for OSH last year.
It's made out of a 48 quart cooler I had laying around, a heater core I picked up at the local discount auto parts store, a boat bilge pump, and a bilge blower. The total investment was about $60. The heater core is held in place with zip ties and sealed with expanding foam. The blower is just held in place with foam. The pump is screwed and siliconed to the bottom of the cooler.
Not pictured is the 20' dryer vent hose that I attach to the blower.
This is how it works:
The cooler is filled with ice, then a few gallons of water. You can add salt to the water to get an even lower temp, but I never did.
The ice water is picked up by the bilge pump and pumped thru the heater core, then just dumped back into the cooler.
I have the bilge blower set to blow OUT from the cooler, so air is sucked INTO the cooler thru the heater core, cooling it down, then blown out the blower thru a 4" dryer vent to wherever I want the cold air directed. The gray box next to the blower on the lid of the cooler is a motor controller I was playing with to control the fan speed. It's not really needed.
Splice the pump and blower motor into a 12v power source and you have a few hours of nice chilly air. It was effective enough to keep me cool in a pop-up camper at OSH, and I'm sure it would cool a cockpit down quite nicely!
I'm going to pull it out of storage and try to keep myself somewhat cool in the garage. It's not going to cool the entire garage, but it'll feel nice to have it blowing directly on me!
It's made out of a 48 quart cooler I had laying around, a heater core I picked up at the local discount auto parts store, a boat bilge pump, and a bilge blower. The total investment was about $60. The heater core is held in place with zip ties and sealed with expanding foam. The blower is just held in place with foam. The pump is screwed and siliconed to the bottom of the cooler.
Not pictured is the 20' dryer vent hose that I attach to the blower.
This is how it works:
The cooler is filled with ice, then a few gallons of water. You can add salt to the water to get an even lower temp, but I never did.
The ice water is picked up by the bilge pump and pumped thru the heater core, then just dumped back into the cooler.
I have the bilge blower set to blow OUT from the cooler, so air is sucked INTO the cooler thru the heater core, cooling it down, then blown out the blower thru a 4" dryer vent to wherever I want the cold air directed. The gray box next to the blower on the lid of the cooler is a motor controller I was playing with to control the fan speed. It's not really needed.
Splice the pump and blower motor into a 12v power source and you have a few hours of nice chilly air. It was effective enough to keep me cool in a pop-up camper at OSH, and I'm sure it would cool a cockpit down quite nicely!
I'm going to pull it out of storage and try to keep myself somewhat cool in the garage. It's not going to cool the entire garage, but it'll feel nice to have it blowing directly on me!
