He’s thinking about living out of his vehicle for a while so we started talking about DIY air conditioners. This got me thinking about it for camping during warm weather months. YT has a number of videos on the topic, I posted one in that thread for reference. Guy was pushing out air in the low to mid 40’s. Now a tent isn’t insulated of course, but curious if anyone here has ever tried anything like this for tent camping? I know that it works well in a vehicle from what I’ve been told so I’m thinking that it may make for a more comfortable sleep in the hotter months.
Normally in the fall/winter/spring we’ll do remote primitive camping with no luxuries or amenities. And we have a good time. But when summer comes we take a break just because of how miserable it can be in the Florida summer heat. Hammock camping is doable if you have a bug net but it still isn’t ‘fun’. But if something like this made a difference then it would put summer camping on the agenda even if it isn’t the primitive we normally do (figure it would be more car camping close to a site since I don’t plan on carrying this contraption 5 miles out into the woods along with ice).
Anyone try this or something like it? What was your experience?
Nifty idea. I guess block ice would last longest. Crushed ice, crushed ice with salt added, dry ice would all be colder but don’t know how long it would last with hot air blowing over it. Maybe a second bucket on standby. True AC also feels cooler because the moisture is wrung out of it.
which one you want to build? ice cooler one? or evaporative? cuz I build evaporative one, out of bucket, 12v fan, water pump,
I did not try it yet in very hot climate ,so far I tried it in hot 90f+ room, about 15x20 room, I did not notice much difference but I only ran it for an hour or so, than I disconnected pump, filled bucket with ice cubes instead of water, it worked a lot better, until ice melted, I’m pretty sure it would work even better if air was blow thru the ice , so if you have access to ice, build one than works with ice, but make sure you have good drain, water melts ice, it will last longer if you drain water, however if can’t get ice, you need to build evaporative cooler, aka swamp cooler.
mine runs on laptop ps, or 12v or higher source, any battery, draw is less than 1 amp. I installed voltage regulator, and iirc set it to 10 or so volt, but it could be adjusted.
I built one of these DIY air conditioners that I hoped would help cool a small camper and tested it in the drive on a day that was around 90 degrees with the camper in the shade.
Packed it full of ice, ran it off of the campers 12 volt system, the air leaving the ice chest felt cool and was proven to be using a thermometer, I don’t remember exactly how much cooler since it has been about 8 years since the project.
I tried many improvements to the design that included dry ice, an aquarium chiller, frozen 1 gallon jugs and even a portable ice chest that utilized peltier cooling.
While the air was cooler if you held your hand over the vent or directed the air directly at you there was little to no improvement in the ambient temperature within the camper.
The larger problem with this portable A/C is the amout of ice that would be needed to keep it cooling. A packed medium sized ice chest lasted only around 2 hours max, therefore a very large amount of ice would be needed to make it through the night and this was in an insulated camper unlike an uninsulated tent.
it’s been awfully hot in Calif. I live in an upstairs apt, so much hotter upstairs. I have a large fan but it blows hot air around. Since reading the above, I have big plastic bowl with a 1 gallon container filled with freezer cold water sitting in front of the fan, aimed at me. I’ll try anything. Thanks for the tips. Didn’t cost me anything.
dry air feels warmer then wet air high humidity feels much warmer or colder because the air in more tense loaded with water molecules and molecules are what transfer heat thats why for example is vacuum a very good insulator no molecules in it
I get the distinct impression you moved to Florida…
You know, of course, that air conditioning is the leading cause of global warming? Before air conditioning, people would go outside and become acclimated to the big room with the blue ceiling.
No offense. Just kidding. Bugs are a different story!
What you’re describing is a Swamp Cooler, and they suck in a high humidity environment like the parts of Florida SWMBO & I were born in. Maybe if you like “Hot and Drippy” better than “Hot and Sticky”…
Even in central SC, they’re hardly worth the trouble of carrying, except on the very dry days. And if you’re going out for more than a day or two, when the ice melts, you’re stuck with whatever water you have around, which has been out in the sun all day with you.
If you can arrange to have a constant breeze blowing through your screen tent at night, a swamp cooler probably wouldn’t hurt, but the screen tent itself (IMNERHO, of course — I’m just a cheap, lazy SOB who chose to learn to live with “Hot and Sticky”) is probably more worth carrying than a bucket of ice for each night you’re out. Some of those bugs in Florida don’t suck your blood, they rip chunks of flesh right off your bones!
OTOH, a good friend loves to camp from his boat & bought a wee gasoline-powered generator which he uses to run fans. That plus the ~20° drop in ambient temperature at nightfall feel awesome! But it would run the tiniest of window AC units, which would probably last a lot longer than a bucket of ice (per day) would. Not to mention the fresh coffee in the morning… For a lot more cash, about the same weight, and a cool, dry-ish wind (out of one end) for as long as you can feed the genny gas. I’m thinking it would be a lot easier to hump gas into the woods (and store it) than it would ice.
Swamp coolers work good in high temp low humidity areas like southern Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, etc. but would just make high humidity areas more unbearable.
We go to Home Depot and buy one or two of those 4’ x 10’ rolls of bubble wrap with aluminum foil on both sides.
We used to try to use tarps to shade the tent and car and screen house.
But the infrared goes right through even an apparently opaque tarp.
That aluminized bubble stuff casts a shadow right through the infrared range. Whatever’s in that shadow gains no heat from the sun — and loses heat to the clear sky and cools off fast.
I wouldn’t have believed it before I tried it. Learned later it’s an old Sahara trick for making ice — put water in shallow trays exposed to the night sky and shaded all day by rocks, and by morning it’ll freeze.
Can’t say it’d do much good in East Coast summer, if you’re camping in 98-and-98 (temperature and humidity).
But in dry-air conditions it’ll surprise you.
For a lot more cash, about the same weight, and a cool, dry-ish wind (out of one end) for as long as you can feed the genny gas. I’m thinking it would be a lot easier to hump gas into the woods (and store it) than it would ice.