jimmyhackers
10 kW
- Joined
- May 11, 2015
- Messages
- 600
a few years ago i made a diy evaporative cooler.
works ok, drop air temps abotu 5 - 7 degrees C.
better than hvac etc as it hydrates the air rather than drying it out. uses waaay less power, was waay cheaper.
it was essentially a ducted fan blowing through a plastic box full of car wash sponges (that have been finned) that get sprinkled in water by a small aquarium pump n sprinkler head.
today i did some tweaking and managed to get it to drop temps by 10-12 C.
essentially all i did was route the water through a small 120mm pc rad before the sprinkler head, and place the rad infront of the boxes output.
despite me being an air con technician a while ago, im still slighly perplexed asto exactly why his addition of a rad has worked so well...
i figure that the main body of water....is sub ambient in tempreture due to evaporation, and this water in a rad is more surface area to interact with.....i thought this would of been counterproductive as it should essentially put heat back into the water.
which it probably is....but then again the hotter the water the more likely it is to phase change....which is the main cooling part.
which again.....makes me realise that this is just another phase change air-con system.
in proper evaporative coolers.....this rad stage is missed out and im not sure why.
bit of a ramble, not really sure what im asking, something like is my rad part a new insight to evap coooelrs? and why arnt more aircon installs evaporative.
works ok, drop air temps abotu 5 - 7 degrees C.
better than hvac etc as it hydrates the air rather than drying it out. uses waaay less power, was waay cheaper.
it was essentially a ducted fan blowing through a plastic box full of car wash sponges (that have been finned) that get sprinkled in water by a small aquarium pump n sprinkler head.
today i did some tweaking and managed to get it to drop temps by 10-12 C.
essentially all i did was route the water through a small 120mm pc rad before the sprinkler head, and place the rad infront of the boxes output.
despite me being an air con technician a while ago, im still slighly perplexed asto exactly why his addition of a rad has worked so well...
i figure that the main body of water....is sub ambient in tempreture due to evaporation, and this water in a rad is more surface area to interact with.....i thought this would of been counterproductive as it should essentially put heat back into the water.
which it probably is....but then again the hotter the water the more likely it is to phase change....which is the main cooling part.
which again.....makes me realise that this is just another phase change air-con system.
in proper evaporative coolers.....this rad stage is missed out and im not sure why.
bit of a ramble, not really sure what im asking, something like is my rad part a new insight to evap coooelrs? and why arnt more aircon installs evaporative.