My idea is not to put the radiator inside the ice chest, but rather to stand it upright in the open air on top of the chest. The box fan is then mounted against the radiator, also in the open air. The box fan by itself would just move air through the room, like any room fan. When you place the radiator next to the fan, the fan will suck air through the radiator, and will then move the cooled air around the room.
Oh, now I understand. Well, I have considered such design at the beginning, but I ended up with the motor blower one once I saw the limitations (some are just my deductions and I could be wrong):
- A radiator kept in the open air will absorb the heat from the room resulting in an air flow less cold.
- Condensation may occur and if severe can block the radiator or the airflow in a noticeable way. I'm not sure if this phenomena has more chance to occur outside or not, but I suppose that when inside a container it will be easier to take over it. With a motor fan, the airflow through the radiator should be stronger and less subject to these issues.
- Condensation generates water that drops on the floor. Nothing that can't be solved with a basket, but a container is more convenient because also act as a drops collector.
It seems that a motor blower is able to generate the coldest air temps, at least said so the same guy above who also built a couple of box fan projects:
.
Unless I'm missing something, instruments also seems to confirm such statement:
I believe that in all of its projects the fan is positioned in the way you described (radiator next to the fan in order to suck air through the radiator). You have to consider that the design in the photo uses a less powerful motor combined with a very cheap small radiator.
The issue with a box fan is if you keep it insulated inside a container it still generates lot of heat. You solve this problem if you remove the insulating container like the project above, but at this point the radiator is exposed to the heat of the room and some of the cold is lost in the road. This should have a much bigger impact compared to the heat introduced in a cold container through an air intake.
I'm not sure if such designs are able to change a room temperature especially when temps are very high. From what I have understood, they seem more suitable to get some gentle breeze of cool air while sleeping given that they are practically free from noise. I was going to buy
this air cooler, but I had to realize that they just don't work and opted to build my own. Of course those are very cheap coolers that have nothing to do with the ones we see here, but the basic design is the same.
The same guy posted a video showing that he was able to drop room temperature by 10F from 85F, but he had to use a 16 row radiator combined with a gigantic and powerful 0.5 meter fan. This one really makes lot of noise and what about higher temps like 95F?
I see very little to be gained by putting the heat exchanger inside the cool box and then sending air through small ducts in and out of the box. The air is in the room, the cold is inside the box. We want to bring the cold out of the box, not send the air into the box.
See the video below, and others like it, for inspiration. In that video Matthias is sucking air through a filter, but here we want to suck air through the radiator instead.
Yes, we want to bring the cold out of the box and, most of all, preserve its temp by keeping it far from any heat source (and the radiator should also be kept away from any heat source). This is the main reason for which I designed two separated containers, but I think I have not explained well if you think the small ducts are for sending air.
With the regular design (everything processed inside the ice chest box) we have to make 1-2 big holes for air intake, plus another one for the blower. Insulation is totally broken in such a way and we can only partially mitigate the issue because the air has to enter in some way. That's why to me seemed much better to leave the ice chest box totally insulated (apart two small 12mm holes used for the communication).
This diagram should give you a better idea (elements are not proportional, but I can only use Paint 3D now):
Top container (styrofoam): 1 or 2 air intakes + blower motor + water pump + radiator + (perhaps) 1-2 gel ice packs (to reduce heat introduced from the air intake/s)
Bottom container (ice chest): gel ice packs submerged in water
The two containers are connected through the twos pipes you see on the right side. The one to the left push the water exiting from the radiator outlet. The one to the right sucks the cold water which is pushed to the radiator through the water pump inlet. There is no air circulation between the containers, just the water and the whole thing is processed in the same way of the "all-in-one" common designs.
The two pipes are connected to the bottom container through quick release pneumatic fittings. This allows me to quickly detach the small container and use the ice chest box as was originally designed for (storage for cold drinks etc).
The reasons for which I'm reluctant to remove the top container and leave the related parts exposed are multiple:
- without the thermal insulation provided by the box, the radiator and all the working parts are exposed to the heat
- More complicated work to join all the pieces together
- Parts can easily get damaged during transport.
- I feel that without a container the blower will suck a much smaller area from the radiator due to the lack of pressure (probably no more than the fan diameter)
My main concern is the heat introduced by the air intake. This is unavoidable because required by the blower motor. I have read that there are several tricks available to reduce the heat, but I have not yet investigated. Do you have something to recommend?
So, now that you should have a clear idea of my design, do you see any flaw?
Adding a box fan could be useless. May be that the blower motor itself is enough to get all the available cold from the radiator, but this is something that I will only know in the field.
Thanks for the video. It's a bit difficult to get an idea because the project has a completely different purpose and use parts that are unrelated for the kind of project I'm building. However, what I saw is the same I previously talked about: the necessity to use much bigger parts included a gigantic fan in order to make things work.
I see so many of such videos before going with the blower motor. Many people that tried both the approaches are against the box fan, but many other people are in favour. It's very hard to understand what is better because there are too many variables and what does not work for someone it could be simply due to some flaws in the design.
Blower motor design is what seemed to me to give more chances of success along with easiness construction and more portability, but I could be perfectly wrong on the cooling performance.
I'm afraid is too late for me to change design because I have already the fan and I certainly don't want to lose the money I had to spend. Frankly speaking, I'm glad to not have the option to change design because this would mean returning back to beginning when I had to do long and very stressful researches.
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