1954 DIY Hybrid Air Conditioner Run From USB, Solar Or Battery
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- čas přidán 22. 08. 2024
- You can get the STL files from here
www.tinkercad....
and the feet I got from here
www.thingivers...
but they are included in the Tinkercad drawing - The drawing might change a bit as I do a bit of redesign
Here in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, I use my swamp cooler the entire year, except during our annual monsoon. It works great.
I've made many of these and find that ice in a large block offers the best results. Not the freeze packs they simply don't last more than a few minutes before they warm up! I used to freeze a block in an old ice cream tub. And there's so many variations you can make, great to see you covering this especially as yes they do run from a modest 12v solar panel.
Cheapest way would be to fill a sealable plastic bag with water and freeze it. If you get desperate later on, you can put some broken ice in your drink!
I agree, the thermal transfer through a plastic case is poor.
and how much energy did u expend to obtain the ice? (OMG nothing the freezer makes it, yeah u just made the compressor work more to keep the temeperature at the set lvls thus expending more energy then a dam Mecanical AC)
@@Xeridas incorrect mate. There is already thermal mass in the freezer which helps. There is also a great deal of insulation in a freezer which prevents ingress of heat. Air conditioners on the other hand use brute force and have little to no insulation meaning they run their motor a lot more.
Thanks for sharing
When I was a kid growing up in Georgia my grandparents had the whirlybird vents on the roof of their house but they also had an attic fan that forced air up from the house through the attic and out the whirlybirds. At night the air outside would cool down slightly but it would still be hot inside. So you crack open all the windows and turn on the attic fan and sleep so good with the cooler air circulating.
nice - thanks for sharing mate
a second set of the freezer blocks in the refrigerator would mean you could just swap out ad infinitum.
This is what I do. Except I used the freezer packs that come with frozen food deliveries. The curved tubes also increase the surface area.
You can make a super simple version of this by propping them up on a coolig tray infront of a fan.
yep - my thought exactly mate - and let's face it everyone who has a freezer runs it 24/7 and they are at there most efficient if the freezer is full of something
If the deep freezer is in the garage, if it is in the house you're just moveing the heat behind the freezer. Not out of the living space.
@@johnschneider931 lots of folks in the UK keep their freezer in the garage mate - and isn't that a problem for any kind of air conditioning and not a particular problem for this kind of cooling?
I thought they're only at their most efficient when the full contents is currently frozen, not when freezing things?
But they're definitely not inefficient by any stretch. I've rotated these/free freezer packs out during the last heatwave we had. They melted before the others would refreeze, but using 3 sets kept the cooling going the entire time.
Here’s an idea. You take a bouncy ball, cut it in half. That gives you two rubber feet. Cut up a bunch of these, and you glue them to the sides of the freezer blocks. I would say three per freezer block, all on one side. That way, you have the spacers is built in. All you really need is the cut up and glue up a cardboard box to make the container. Use enough layers of cardboard, and you’ve got a insulated container. You’re welcome.
Worth noting that you're essentially turning the freezer's heat pump into an A/C. There's two gotcha's for that.
1. The freezer is *not* okay with running the pump into cooling 100% of the time, it *will* break if you keep swapping out the packs.
2. The freezer output needs to be diverted out of the area you're in, otherwise you're heating the house to cool one spot in it. Which is fine if you air out the house, or it's only during the hottest hours of the day. But keep it in mind.
It's a nice idea for dealing with intermittent heat however, I've done something similar by having a regular fan blowing over a bowl of ice when the weather suddenly turns. I got a second hand 3d printer for free recently, hopefully I can get that working and make something similar. If nothing else, upgrading the fan with better fan blades would be excellent.
I’ve always wondered why we have developed a better system for residential interior waste heat. Living in the desert southwest we almost never have to heat, even at 40°F due to heat from PCs, cooking, water heater and the refrigerator but summer cooling is rough financially.
Pumping the waste heat outside during summer seems like a good idea, if you want to live in a vacuum otherwise you simply have hot outside air entering to replace the exhausted air.
Need a heat exchanger and now we’re talking about real engineering.
About a decade a go, there were a few companies that used this concept for whole house cooling. They would freeze the ice packages at night, when electricity rates were lowest. Then they'd use them to cool the house when electricity rates were highest. Add a little solar power for the fans, and you'd be saving a lot of money on electricity.
it's still on going as an idea mate - it was first used in the 1950s
If a vapor compression heat pump is used to cool the "cold battery" you also benefit from higher efficiency, due to a lower temperature difference at night.
You can do the same with heating - run a heat pump at daytime to store heat energy for use at night
@@miroslawmoczyrog heat pump + sand battery would be the equivalent.
A moister trap in the base would help to collect the condensation from the moist air in UK weather. Great video.
Great idea!
I suspect over time they'll be condensation dripping of the ice blocks and pooling in the bottom. A slight slope and a drain hole, to a container, would take care of that.
I live in the upper Chihuahuan Desert at 5000’ elevation. Evaporative cooling works a treat for me! I also fight Multiple Sclerosis and I’m very heat sensitive. I use phase change materials (a type of wax) that help draw heat from within my core in a vest that I wear. It keeps a constant 54°F until it melts but I can recharge it by immersing the packs in ice water. 20 minutes later, I’m back in business for another hour or two.
I told this to Robert in his previous video, but he did not take it serious and asked ME to create it. As if we all are so creative? I was hoping his chemical knowledge would pick this up. 1kg of paraffine melting equals 2kw(h). That's huge foor cooling. But you already know!
nice mate thanks for sharing
it's not that i didn't take it seriously mate - but read through the comments and see how many folks suggest i do something - i am but one man - it would be great if some folks helped out and you are a bright guy
@@ThinkingandTinkering Robert, to be honest. There are thinkers and doers. I am only the first one. But I do know what you are saying, and appreciate it.
Some early volkswagon beetles had a window hung air cooler that worked on the same principal. It had water in it. When air passed through it it cooled the air and was directed into the vehicle via a duct. Very advanced & ahead of its time. One could probably be found on the internet if one tried hr=ard enough to find one ! Very cool ! (No pun intended )
swamp cooler 👍
This is an amazing design. I suppose since water will condense, possible modification for this may be a canal to collect it all and maybe run through the hose to some bucket or outside
yes i was thinking of something like that
Or possibly to a storage where a wicking device that crosses the exit that can be lowered to add evaporative cooling once the carts are expended. Hybrid- hybrid? But only in fairly low moisture environmen's.
Yeah, just throw this condensation away! And later, when you need demineralised water, go to a shop to buy some.
Mother Earth will love you!
Wow. I suggested this in his last video and he's already prototyped a version well in excess of the original concept. The man must never sleep.
Hahaha, should have patented it.
Ha, I dislike patent law and would much rather see people develop and iterate on ideas freely.
3 hours a night mate if i need it or not lol
@@ThinkingandTinkering good for us then, and well done on the chassis. I was thinking vertical slots from the top allowing for easy swaps, but your way keeps them enclosed much better.
@@ThinkingandTinkering Wow, no wonder you are so productive! I need 8 hours of sleep and don't have enough time in 16h to do everything I'd like to do.
Might have to build my next lab on a solar dirigible flying west to lengthen my days by a few more hours ;-)
Brilliant, thank you. I have an old wooden sail boat, and this has inspired me to adapt this with a hose from the bilges (always cool due to the water temp in UK waters) to move the cooler air around the boat in hot summers. We don't have a freezer on board, so ice blocks is not feasible (though I will try this at home for sure).
Just use radiators. If the water is that much colder you get all the benefits anyway.
After the first view from China I expect these simple but amazing devices will be in the online shops in one month. Super idea!!
And a handy dandy Diesel powered refrigerator to freeze the ice blocks to begin with...😂
?
Ew, diesel, no! Mine runs on salmon. My region is fortunate to have a large system of hydroelectric dams. They were built starting in the 1950s, unfortunately before science discovered salmon use those rivers. Retrofit fish ladders and hatcheries helped, but still the salmon population can't keep up with other protected species like otters and tourists. So, certain groups frequently demand we breach all the dams to save the salmon. Therefore, my home freezer runs on salmon.
While on the road, I freeze the ice blocks during the day while driving. That freezer uses a bit of energy from the engine alternator, which uses... hmm... diesel.
If you use TPU filament or PETG filament, you could print ice-packs in whatever lattice shape you wanted. I think they're just full of water and propylene glycol.
I have something very similar I bought of Amazon, instead of ice blocks you have some fabric fins that you soak and then freeze, it also has a reservoir above that drips water down on top of them. Works a treat for a few hours
i have similar, you can either use blocks frozen or fill the water tanks and it drips water infront of the fan to cool the air as the water vapourises ? swamp cooler style.
The freezer blocks last barely 20 mins but the water drip works for hours although it's not as cold (obv) as the frozed blocks
Smaller, maybe a smaller single ice block - stitched into ducted shorts 🩳 - the man's best friend in UK heatwaves 🫣😁
Brilliant stuff 👍
cheers mate
Bear in mind that those blue ice blocks do expand slightly when they are frozen, so whichever ones you buy, you might want to add a bit of leeway to the slots that hold them.
Do a test freeze first and then measure them.
Just exchange the liquid for saturated brine with a dash of ethanol. It will not freeze anymore.
You may be interested in the ceramic core based energy recovery ventilators (ERV) that use a fan on a cycle to heat/cool the core, and then reverse it to extract/deposit the energy (and I think humidity, otherwise they're just an HRV). I've bought a ceramic core to see if I can replicate one as it doesn't look that complicated (a fan...and a core....but it does need to be a reversible fan).
If you're interested I can dig out the link to the core -- I've not proven mine is the same one as used on these $400-1000 devices, but I think it's very likely I'd love to see a video with some data collected on how well they actually work too...
Keep up the great work, it's amazing that you share everything you do.
Lol USB rule number one:
You must flip the USB plug at least 3 times before you plug it in.
lol - yeah took me a while to work that one out lol
Thank the Lord for USB-C; it's reversible, so now we only have to flip it over once or twice. 🤓
Fans actually heat air. The fan while moving air about the room actually excites the air molecules. They bounce about hitting walls and lots of other air molecules. When the molecules hit each other and there is a transfer of energy in the form or heat. This can be reduced if the fan has long blades and rotates very slowly.
in that case the wind should heat the planet but it doesnt really does it
Looked very smart, I want one :-) Last summer I started freezing lots of plastic water bottles and using a fan to blow accross them. Seemed to work quite well but do find get a lot of condensation, so thimk you will need a tray underneath it. Positive effect is after you tip the water away its also working as a dehumidifier :-)
Just wanted to let you know, besides all the inspiration you are sparking in many of us I guess... I really like to hear you whistling while tinkering. It makes me smile each and every time.
lol - cheers mate
I designed one using a 12 volt freezer so it freezes the ice at night and then used as an AC unit in the daytime. Design is on my channel.
the blocks wont leak but they will drip with condensation, if you dont have a drip tray it could leak, you could add a drip tray and then some wicking so any condensation then forms an evap cooling instead of a puddle on the desk! :D(depending on the humidity of the air I suppose)
Having 6 in the fridge and 6 in the "thing of beauty" would be continuous cool providing the freezing time was shorter than the melting time.
I really appreciate all your great videos, Sir Robert! Thank you! I would love to see or build one of these with peltier devices and a solar panel...
Here in Arizona, all I use is a swamp cooler. The volume of air brought into the house is massive. Leaving a window open some at the furthest part of the house is important. The ice cooler made here may drip a bit, might want to set it on a cloth. Arizona Mark
i was wondering about some kind of drip tray - but we will see - cheers mate
That's hilarious - after watching your video yesterday I thought exactly the same today and arranged 5 into a long tube - I dubbed my 'cooling cannon' with a fan at the far end :)
very nice mate - great minds eh lol
Many truck drivers should take an interest in something like this. "Company drivers" live in equipment assigned to them by their employer with no control over the equipment. Those same trucks usually won't idle overnight, because the company wants to save money on fuel. I've spent hundreds of hours figuring out ways to avoid sleeping in the heat, with mixed results.
I had something like this many years ago. I made a coil of copper tubing and connected that to a box fan. Put the ends of the tubing in a tank of ice water and pumped the water through with a small aquarium pump. A solar fountain pump works fine. The fan could be run on solar as well. It worked great for personal cooling.
Bravo good sir! Great project, insightful information. Cheers from South Texas!
cheers mate
I run a box fan at night in my bedroom, here in Malaysia. Most nights it's adequate but some nights are too hot. I think I'm going to get a plastic box at the $2 store, make slots for these ice blocks then create a rectangular funnel to direct the fan air, through the blocks, to create an A/C. 😂 Great idea! 🎉
I actually came up with a similar design, except I used 330ml plastic water bottles instead of freezer packs. Probably less efficient but I liked the idea of finding another use for the plastic. Oh and I used a ruddy great desk fan. A PC fan is a much smarter choice lol.
I've been playing with the idea of making a solar powered air conditioner/atmospheric water harvester using peltier cells and silver heat sinks. I would deploy the device on my desert land to cool an earthen home and generate drinking water. I've considered a larger scale version using solar thermal to power an absorption refrigeration system similar to the propane fired systems found in RVs.
Look into the EcoFlow Wave 2, it is 6,000 BTU’s and will run off less than 400 watts of solar and can heat as well.
@@melissasmess2773 thanks for the tip I’ll definitely check it out :)
i have done something similar mate
The feet are cool
I have been wracking my brains , trying to place who you remind me of. and it just struck me.
Ronnie Barker back when he was on open all hours . also love the two Ronnie's especially the
"my black berry is not working" sketch! 🤣I am an American, but I love the British TV programs.
I no longer have cable, so I catch a few full eps or scenes from these shows here on you tube now.
and have branched out looking for new ones I have never seen before.
I have subbed your channel, and really enjoy your ingenuity.
thank you for great content 😀
Beautiful stuff as always. There is tradeoff between coolness and duration, which can be managed (roughly) via ice pack surface area to volume ratio. Designs will vary depending on personal preference. (10C is nice, bit I'd probably trade a couple degrees for an extra hour before recharge.)
I could use this. It's not too bad to have two or even three sets of cold blocks to change it out while outside with the kids. We easily reach triple degree heat (farenheit) with super high humidity here.
i would keep blocks ready and swap them over for sure mate
Your channel gets more and more interesting thank you for your time
thank you mate
Those ice blocks can be heated in boiling water and use as heaters in the winter. I think there are some gelly flexible ones that can be heated in a micro wave . Please take due care either way
Great idea. That would turn this into a dual purpose device - heating and cooling.
cheers Rob.....i reckon putting the fan on a modified usb mini fridge would be worth exploring too
Great idea
RMS, you can also use silica gel or molecular seive as a dessicant to remove the water out of the air. You can bake the dessicant in the sun to recharge. And it doesn't even use the power of the refrigerator. Cheers!
I've always said 'GOT-TA LOVE A MAN THAT Whistles❤❤❤
That is a great idea but you need to freeze those that consumes energy (and produces heat) in your refridgerator. Sure, that is a nice way to get the cold from there you another room, but does not chill your house in total.
Nice 3d-printing project anyway!
To be honest Robert, I would like to see you expand on the method of cooling via water and/or methanol under light vacuum with materials that adsorb these. Then being heated by solar energy to regenerate the process in a closed loop process to remove/move heat energy.
Hint, you already did a video on the basics of this concept...
The research indicates some countries like Egypt using this method to make large amounts of ice.
It is not as time and space efficient as modern air conditioning, but it's more energy efficient then it modern air conditioning since it uses solar energy. Also less polluting
Great job Robert, thanks for sharing 👍
Thanks for watching
In cad programs you can interface a square duct to a round duct using "LOFT".
In my cabin i used to freeze 5L cans with window wash for cars in my deep frezer , cheap and do the face change at -18C, just remember to collect the condens water...
Blow over them wit a fan :)
*Phase change
nice
you could create a plastic penguin and funnel the air through the beak and make the box hexagonal. I'm sure people would love hexagonal penguin kits, the hexagon slots into the penguin and inside the hexagon the ice blue thingies are put.
Part 2, beautiful!
never been a airco person, but that is a thing of beauty. Know some people that could use this. The only thing is how to make it 🛏 bed side.
Hi Robert. Thinking to do a similiar thing, but using a peltier cells system. Perhaps you can test that idea to. Love all your ideas mate.!!!!!
It would work better if the air were forced to go around all the blocks rather than just passing over top of them. If there were a path the air had to follow to get around all the blocks before being allowed out at the end, it would be much colder.
I will give it a try. Thanks for the inspiration.
Go for it!
@@ThinkingandTinkering Akkupacks 3,6l just bought.😁👌Tomorrow I will look for the case.🙂
Adiabatic cooling. They swamp the air. The icebox cooler in an icebag. Last year the aircoolers with 4 L resevoir were in every supermarket in humid North Wester Euro for 40-50 euro. The small cube ones from 10 euro upwards.
Those freezer blocks used to use gel, now they use a liquid. And quality has gone down so seems might burst before xx years. Sizes do vary by source.
@7:00 AWesome design 😀
Downside that I see (please correct me if I'm mistaken) is that most residential refrigerator/freezers are rejecting heat into the living space (and a good deal more than the cooling power of the blocks) and it's a total home loss.
That said, a brilliant way to move the heat to where you don't care as much.
here in the uk a lot of people keep the freezer in the garage mate
Another "cool" design!! I would guess that you could make some Carbon Fiber cloth heating elements and use the same or similar design as a small heater for the cooler months. I really enjoy these videos!! Thank You!!!
Cool idea!
Adding aluminum heat sinks. may make a slightly noticeable difference in cooling. It will not last as long, the air may possibly be a couple degrees cooler, attach the aluminum to the cooling blocks with a good thermal transfer epoxy, by adding surface area, the ice will melt faster, a few 6x6 mm square bars of aluminum could be a good compromise. To help cooling , yet still maintaining run time, possibly double the number of bricks, this can be used in winter as well, add a couple sleets of wood, then add bricks from the oven, about 250° for 20 minutes, or with food while cooking, or placed in the sun, in a glass box, or concentrated sun, the wood is important to prevent melting, maybe use aluminum tape to reflect the heat away from the plastic! Also making an aluminum plate that allows the brick, both hot and cold, to sit on it and bev bent up, over the outlet. With holes and/or slots cut into it, to act as a hear sink, in both directions,!!
nice ideas mate - thanks for posting
Great Work Earthling. I Want One !
Bless Up
lol - cheers mate
Just threw one together using a single pc fan and a plastic takeaway box. Works great with ice. Got a gel pack in the freezer so I’ll find out if that’s any good.
I use the chillmax products for fan/ cooling (they are cheap enough in the local supermarkets), you just fill a reservoir with water and the fan blows the air through- the drawback with these is that the fans are noisy, so I was thinking, maybe if I print up some suitably sized toroidal fans and give it a go. (then I can compare the noise levels)
where do you buy them mate? That is a good idea
@@ThinkingandTinkering It turns out these are the gel matts. In Europe generally sold for Larger dogs to lie on. Well they absorb you body head within second to saturation and then are basically little warm plastic blankets.
@@ThinkingandTinkering the chillmax airs contain a 5" or so pc fan, but the chillmax Air Go's look like you can just swap out the blades easily, Asda generally have them, they are a JML product, so at the back near the DVD's (in Canterbury)
they also contain a little water pump/ metering device to slowly feed water to the felt? water dispersion filter, they will run for many hours on a tank of water.
@@grendel1960a awesome - thank you mate i will check it out
One gentleman who specializes in computer fan research has proved that those fans are, in fact, NOT all that efficient.
To avoid a bunch of steps, you could just climb directly into the freezer.
Feels great on hot Summer days. Not as portable I must confess.
this is great rob another super little project
im thinking my friend in her hot office under the desk
quiet fan is essential
can you tell me approx. how long your 6 pack lasted (ii know depends on ambient etc) just a rough idea
would it last to lunchtime ?
Also would could capture moisture, as a dip tray for the air moisture could be needed. Making a dehumidifier
i agree we will have to see i think
Air conditioning is simply the action of removing thermal energy from one space and placing it into another space.
Stay cool Robert!
Just brilliant :)
cheers mate
One problem is if your freezer is in area you want cooled, the heat is released inside from the freezer to same area, that can be displace some be freezing at night, when when it's less of a problem. Something like a ceiling fan only cools wet stuff like sweating skin and the heat of the motor in an empty room is warming it more. If a hot pan is put under a fan it will dispace the heat faster, but it's still in the room.
lots of folks in the UK keep their freezer in the garage mate
@@ThinkingandTinkering Even at 66, learn something every day. Here in the US, almost all are in the kitchen, though some keep "the old one" in the garage and a deep freezer or chest freezer in the basement or garage.
i've had one i bought on amazon for a few years (under a tenna), it works fine for about 15 mins then the ice pack is melted and needs changing, it came with 2 but it takes way longer for it to refreeze than it does to melt so you end up waiting hours to reuse it, mine simply has a small sponge under the freezer pack to catch condensation.
😅 use blocks to cool the room. Put the warm blocks into freezer to cool. The freezer puts all the heat back in to the room.
I'd put it on top of a towel or something if you're going to run it... Those blocks might not leak, but they will condense water on the outside.
A cooler version of a fan heater.
lol - for sure
cool one Rob. Most probably there will be some condensation, partially offset by evaporation. I do not know if it needs an" evaporation tray" or not
i was thinking that mate - i don't really know as i just made it - but a good point - cheers
You're entirely correct. The reason that fans dont have much cooling effect in humid air is because it makes it harder for sweat to evaporate from your skin, your built-in thermoregulation system. But if you cool the air, water will condense out, and you get a double whammy - you've made the air physically colder, and you've reduced the humidity, making sweating more effective as a way for your body to regulate its temperature. You do, of course, need to prevent the water condensed out of the air from getting back into the air, which can easily be achieved by collecting it in a water tank.
@9:30 I am sure that the icepacks will still collect condensation on their exteriors.. Did you design a collection chamber and drain plug below the icepacks?
would be cool if you can slowly create a cooling and air conditioning playlist.
You mentioned damp. I know someone who by accident bought a cactus plant and cured a damp window problem. I speak the truth.
Very cool! I curious as to how much condensate will form over a full charge (freeze) run. Love this video!
Is it that hot over there? Here we need to use oven mitts on our steering wheels!!!
that is hot
And any moist air condensate drips on the desk.
add a tray
It would be nice to do some maths on this to estimate the amount of cooling for a given volume of room and also the energy required to freeze the blocks
So basically you are using your freezer to cool your workshop😊
Since you're already using the fridge to cool the blocks,
use that fraction of electricity that cools the blocks,
to run some Peltier devices, and you never need to swap
out the blocks?
give it a go mate
Now you're getting somewhere.
Would be good to see if atomizer or aroma diffuser would be good in some set up here.
You could make them white bits stackable to add more cooling blocks then it be like a sausage dog 😂
Very good to see your reaction to the cool breeze Robert. Now could you please measure a room's ambient temperature & provide the drop in temperature over the span of time the blue ice thaws in one cycle?
This is only going to be good for personal cooling. It won't do much for whole room temperature unless you already have outstanding insulation
something this size isn't going to cool your house mate - it's a personal cooler
Love it!
cheers mate
Amazing device much needed with the summer at the door.
Can you please put a link to fan modification video?
very cool
cheers mate
Awesome
Very Cool😂
cheers mate
Im sorry Robert but when im looking at your usb air conditioner and especially with the feet you chose, all I'm seeing is you cooling your face in front of a dogs backside😂😹🤣
The rounded head, the squarish body and those beast feet 😂😹🤣👍
Cheers on another fantastic video 😉👍🍻
lolololol - brilliant mate - cheers lol
Hey Rob, how feasible do you think it would be to use a pair of balloons, in cans, connected by a hose, with pistons controlling the expansion and contraction of canned air or some other low vapor pressure liquid? Could it work or am i missing something? 🤔
This is a really neat idea, but my only concern is that you're effectively getting net zero cooling if the freezer is inside the house. Otherwise you're just heating the house using the freezer to get some cooling back using this. If the freezer were outside, then I think you'd a better chance of actually doing some cooling.
lots of folks in the UK keep their freezer in the garage mate
@@ThinkingandTinkering That's wonderful! Convenience aside, I've never thought much for how freezers/refrigerators wind up adding to heat during the warmer times of the year... Sort of like venting your dryer into your house. It's fine for the winter but not so much summer. But your cooler would work nicely with the freezer outside.
Also, thanks so much for replying! Love following your channel and all the cool ideas your share! Can't wait to see what's next!
I do love your channel, but I have to say I really enjoyed it more before you started using 3-D printer as a person who can’t afford a 3-D printer. Most of these projects are out of my range. Please don’t take this as a knock to the channel what channel is fantastic it’s just an observation I thought I would put to you maybe building something without using 3-D printers thanks for all the content
So *COOL!* 🤭