I learned a lot too. I built a bucket cooler and used it to cool a six-foot stretch yurt built from 1" R-max
I cut a 12 x 12 window in the yurt to vent the hot air.
My cooler followed the specs on this thread as closely as I could figure out. I missed the part about the inner sleeve of pad material sticking up to hold the drip loop in place. My hole-burning in the drip loop could have been a little neater, but I was getting good flow nonetheless.
I used a toilet flange to attach the duct to the bucket lid, and some aluminum flashing to mate it to a smooth 90° plastic elbow. A short length of heavy flexible dryer duct to go from there into the yurt.
This was intended as a chill space for my camp. The cooler blowed (blew?) a steady stream of air that averaged 65 degrees. We didn't use it very often as this year was relatively cool as Burning Man goes- when the oad was dry, it would take a while for the incoming air to really cool down to 65 or less. The hottest I ever measured the output was 72°. Multiple people in the camp used my yurt to take naps during the hottest part of the day. It worked really well. Though, I think it could probably improve a bit if I wanted to take the time to tweak it.
Since I wasn't the sole user of the yurt and cooler, I installed a float switch to cut off the pump if the water level gets too low. Since the float switches aren't rated for the amp draw of the pumps, I installed relay to handle the draw. I had spares for both the pump and switch. The relay is rated for 10A ans was enclosed in a box so i wasn't too worried about it. Both it and the float could be bypassed if needed anyway.
My float switch came with a bracket meant for attaching to a condensate drain pan. I had to flip the float over to make it work, as they are meant to switch something OFF when the float is raised, and I wanted the opposite.
I used a zip tie to attach the bracket to my evap pad at the correct height to protect the pump. Since my pad is restrained by some wire mesh, that worked out well. We never ran it out of water but I did test it by hand to see if it worked.
Overall I was stoked for the cooler, and learned a lot. Thanks Figgy, you rock.