Author Topic: Snake oil air con doesnt work?  (Read 2283 times)

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Offline ocsetTopic starter

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Snake oil air con doesnt work?
« on: July 05, 2020, 06:39:51 pm »
https://getpolaire.com/?utm_medium=search&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=10396841229&utm_term=102043749343&utm_content=444760917557&utm_campaign_id=10396841229&utm_ad_id=444760917557&utm_adset_id=102043749343&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIy4Ho5t-26gIVS7DtCh2DNQUYEAAYASAAEgIBdfD_BwE&landing-page-id=298

..surely this doesnt work?...air con only works if the  heat is ducted away from the room?

I mean, the device uses electrical power.....so how can it possibly result in the closed room where it  is placed, to cool down?
 

Offline golden_labels

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Re: Snake oil air con doesnt work?
« Reply #1 on: July 05, 2020, 06:48:16 pm »
Looks like an evaporative air cooler. The heat is transferred to water, which evaporates. Effectively the air is cooler, but also humidity goes up.
People imagine AI as T1000. What we got so far is glorified T9.
 
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Offline 0xdeadbeef

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Re: Snake oil air con doesnt work?
« Reply #2 on: July 05, 2020, 06:55:46 pm »
Trying is the first step towards failure - Homer J. Simpson
 
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Offline Cerebus

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Re: Snake oil air con doesnt work?
« Reply #3 on: July 05, 2020, 07:08:18 pm »
For those who were smoking behind the bike sheds during physics lessons st school: latent heat of evaporation.

For water it's about 2.2 MJ per kg. If you can evaporate 1 kg of water an hour it's equivalent to 630W worth of cooling.
Anybody got a syringe I can use to squeeze the magic smoke back into this?
 
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Offline MrMobodies

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Re: Snake oil air con doesnt work?
« Reply #4 on: July 05, 2020, 07:27:48 pm »
I have seen these before and a simple image lookup shows they are selling under different names and on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Portable-Evaporative-Personal-Humidifier-Conditioner/dp/B07CJN48RN

https://www.amazon.in/ShivTraders-Portable-Conditioner-Personal-Humidifier/dp/B07RPSZ625

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Conditioning-Appliances-Cooling-Portable-Conditioner/dp/B07T3X2BDQ
£52+£5 delivery

Polaire website: £98


I see similar marketting lookalike sites using the same user thumbnails from the reviews see attached picture.

www.BuysTressless.co
www.mylumibee.com
« Last Edit: July 05, 2020, 07:35:32 pm by MrMobodies »
 
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Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: Snake oil air con doesnt work?
« Reply #5 on: July 06, 2020, 06:58:54 pm »
Yeah already old stuff.

Yes it's an evaporative cooler. Yes it blows air cooler than ambiant - provided the ambiant RH is low enough. Evaporative coolers don't work well when the RH is medium to high.
And, this thing is so small that you feel cold air (again if air is dry enough) in front of it, but that's about it. Any room, even pretty small, isn't going to see its global temperature drop a single °C with this.

I've tested one of these actually a couple years ago, just to see. So yeah, if you're putting this close to you, you'll feel cold air if your ambiant RH is low (< 50%). Will you like that? Since it's again very small, not necessarily. It feels colder right where it blows, but it's too small to blow over your whole body (if you get away from it enough for that, you won't feel cold air anymore.)

As soon as RH gets above 50%, it's less and less effective.

These things are pretty simplistic too - just a tank, a small fan and some kind of paper filter which draws water and evaporates it. As you can guess, unless you wash this on a very regular basis, it will grow bacteria and become nasty.

There are larger and better protected evaporative coolers, but they are still not worth it IME. Not that the principle doesn't work, but in practice, you'd need a very large evaporating surface for this to effectively cool even a moderate room, and it would rise the ambiant RH so much that it would stop being effective after a while. The only installations that are moderately effective are those installed on windows and such (so they can draw outdoors air instead of recycling indoors air), but this is old tech. That was how AC was done a LONG time ago.

Don't waste your time on this. Oh, but if you still want to see for yourself, at least don't get ripped off. You can find the exact same cubic model for anything from $15-$20 to $100 or so. If you just want to try one, buy the cheaper ones. They are exactly the same.
 
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Offline Cerebus

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Re: Snake oil air con doesnt work?
« Reply #6 on: July 06, 2020, 07:24:26 pm »
These things are pretty simplistic too - just a tank, a small fan and some kind of paper filter which draws water and evaporates it. As you can guess, unless you wash this on a very regular basis, it will grow bacteria and become nasty.

Hence the American nickname for them "swamp coolers", because after a while they smell like a swamp.
Anybody got a syringe I can use to squeeze the magic smoke back into this?
 
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Offline newbrain

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Re: Snake oil air con doesnt work?
« Reply #7 on: July 07, 2020, 11:07:46 pm »
I have nothing useful to add to this conversation, but I was never thanked by treez and this looks like a good opportunity!  ;)
Nandemo wa shiranai wa yo, shitteru koto dake.
 
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