Figjam Swamp Cooler OR?! Ice+cooler+fan contraption?

[Jordancc]

Hi Everyone! I've seen Figjam's very cool bucket swamp cooler design:
http://burners.me/2012/07/30/figjam-how ... et-cooler/

and was planing on building that. A friend then brought this to my attention:


Which is a standard small Coleman cooler with 2 holes in the lid. One is for a fan, which is blowing in, and the other is for a pvc elbow directing the airflow out. inside the cooler, a block of ice.
Both seem pretty groovy. Anyone try both and have a preference? Thanks!

[VultureChow]

They seem to run on different principles.

Bucket cooler uses evaporative cooling. The action of drawing air through the wet substrate transfers the heat energy of the air to the water, cooling (and humidifying) the resulting air.

The Cooler cooler uses the fact that ice is cold to cool the air. I see issues with this. One is the need to go and buy ice every day. Also disposing of the waste water. Also, you won't get much time with it. It will take less time for it to melt than if you left the block of ice outside the cooler as you are drawing hot air over it constantly.

At one point I looked at the commercial variations of this ice chest cooler available on amazon instead of building a bucket cooler. They got nearly universal negative reviews.

[delle]

Everything VC said, and

Having to get up in the morning to buy ice for the cooler so you can sleep later seems a bit counterproductive, wouldn't you think?

Or am I missing something....

[snardy]

Everything VC said, and

Having to get up in the morning to buy ice for the cooler so you can sleep later seems a bit counterproductive, wouldn't you think?

Or am I missing something....

You could get around this if you used the dry ice double ice chest method of keeping your food cold and freezing jugs of water, discussed here: viewtopic.php?f=280&t=3232

You would always have some large chunks of ice available to drop into your cheap Cooler cooler and it would obviate the need to wait at Arctica in the mornings.

[unjonharley]

The local news built a ice cooler.. Put it in a bathroom for 30 minutes. At the end out the broadcast the cooler was checked.. No difference in temperature in the bathroom


The figjam is a proven cooler for the playa..

[VultureChow]

Even if the ice was easily available, it's a VERY inefficient cooling method. The amount of energy it takes to melt the ice and bring the water up to room temperature is much smaller than the amount of energy it takes to evaporate the same volume of water.

The cooling comes from transferring the energy in the hot air to the water or ice. So you get more cooling from evaporating the water than from melting the ice.

[some seeing eye]

The heat of fusion for dry ice is much less that water. This would be a good science class experiment for kids.

[FIGJAM]

The local news built a ice cooler.. Put it in a bathroom for 30 minutes. At the end out the broadcast the cooler was checked.. No difference in temperature in the bathroom


The figjam is a proven cooler for the playa..

And the ice was completely gone in 45 minutes!!!

[princesslyps]

Thanks for all the great info.

So evap is the way to go. Question...Would it be more efficient to build this from a cooler instead of a bucket?

The concept being that the water would stay colder longer in an insulated cooler as opposed to a bucket.

Do you get cooler air from colder water?

[FIGJAM]

The water will be about 58 degrees no matter what container you use.

The house coolers here are mounted on top of the houses, in direct sunlight, with average temps in the 100+ range.

Some of them are made of sheet metal.

The water in them is still 58 degrees.