Canoe wrote:
I've got one low res evaporative cooling chart. According to it, you're showing around 1/2 the drop you'd expect (~9F).
At playa humidity & temps, you should get more of a drop, but it appears there are issues.
Figjam has already pointed out the need to have the pads away from the sides/holes. Your photos show the pads close or at the holes.
Thanks, very useful info re the chart. Was Figjam's comment for me? Apologies, I thought that was following up on a bucket question. My pads do not touch the sides (consistent with that, water does not leak out the holes). But I will see whether I can pull them a little farther away.
Another thing I noticed is that Figjam's holes in the tubing for the bucket cooler are the size of gauge 10 wire... mine are smaller. Water flow looked fine before I attached the pads, though.
Canoe wrote:
To maximize the airflow getting to all of the pad, hence spreading the airflow over all of the available pad (which also increases the dwell time of the air within the pad...), I'd cut a half-inch, maybe an inch, off of the ends of your PVC distribution bar, so the pad is away from the holes. And it looks like you'd benefit from having the front bar cut down the same on each end, to bring the pads away from the short sides of the box.
Is that weather stripping still have the paper on the adhesive? Poor seal if it does.
To test for leaks, with the fan on, wet your finger and hold it near the lid edge to feel air flow where it shouldn't be. Or borrow someone's e-cigarette and see if the vapour is sucked in around the lid.
Thank you, will follow up with results tomorrow! Yes, I did realize I'd neglected to remove the paper backing, so that's the first thing.
About the lid, though, I realized that air getting in there is not actually an issue -- it's no different from air coming in the holes. So the weather stripping at the lip now seems pointless. It's the seal on top of the PVC that counts. I can't see an easy way to test for a good seal there, though.