In-room air conditioning.

[Illuminati]

Ok, if you're like me, you're inside all day. And with the cost of living skyrocketing, it's becomming harder and more expensive to cool your home in the summer. I have come up with a simple (so simple you'll say "why didn't I think of that") and easy way to remedy this for your room if it's small enough and you have a few dollars to spare.

 

All you need to do is take an aquarium pump and some aquarium tubing from a pet store or big conglomerate store (walmart), and a 6-volt battery if you get the kind that uses batteries like I am.

 

Get a deep bowl, a flower vase works well. Fill the vase with water, and add a tray of ice cubes, just guess, the more ice you use the longer it will take before you need to change the water. Hook it up so that the outlet is tubed and the tubing goes to the bottom of the vase, where the inlet is not hooked up to anything and is just sucking air.

 

Once you attach it to the batter, the pump will kick on and start pumping air into the vase. The air cools down to the temperature of the water and graduately cools the room. This will probably take an hour or more till you notice a difference depending on the size of your room and if you have any air leaks or if you have an un-shaded window (window without shades to block the light).

 

This works best at night when you're trying to sleep. Or running before you sleep.

 

I'll supply some pictures when I have a chance.

 

This was completely my idea, so, copyright!

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Aquarium pumps aren't designed to pump air, so I'm guessing that it'll burn out the electric motor rather quickly with the decreased resistance.

[Illuminati]

You could probably just switch it out with an aquarium air pump.

 

The kind that pump bubbles through the tank.

[JustStuit]

It might actually cost more to freeze/buy the ice and buy and run the pump, plus I wonder how much the tiny air bubbles will lower the temperature of the room. I'm guessing it will cost more money/time/efficiency to lower the room to the same temperature than an air conditioner but I could very well be wrong.

[ecoli]

why don't you just get a fan? That's what I use. No air conditioning in my house... and I'm still alive after 18 years.

[Louise]

The only kind of fan I have is a pocket one, and I'm still alive, too. Blasphemy. It's cheaper than everything up there.

 

(it probably helps that I don't exactly live in an extremely warm climate, either.)

[mooeypoo]

While your idea is great, there is this nice utility that actually was built to this purpose, and therefore will probably work better through time.

 

http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/gear/60ad/

 

It's also on the same point of freezing water, only this one is using a frozen bottle, so more ice, less water, lasts longer. I'm actually thinking of buying it.. surely the cost of the thing is less than what i'd pay for a/c on all the time.. This is New York.. I'm goin to die of heat in the summer....

 

~moo

[Klaynos]

*wonders about how much heat the pump would generate*

 

I find opening windows and doors (to allow air flow through my room, shut all the other upstaris doors and open a window on the other side of th house)

[GutZ]

I was kind hoping for some cyrogenic reaction based system but...

 

No seriously cool idea, but I dont like having open water and electricity, maybe I am alittle too precautious but I'd rather spend the money.

[swansont]

This was completely my idea, so, copyright!

 

All copyright means is no one can copy and distribute what you wrote. Ideas are not subject to copyright.

[GutZ]

Ya, you need to make it work and then patent it.

[mooeypoo]

but since it already exists (hence the link i gave), the "patent" is no longer yours. Sorry :\

 

~moo

[padren]

It sounds like the key innovation in your idea is to abandon more traditional thermal transfer methods (heat sink blades extending from circulation pipes etc) and cool the air instead by passing it through one bubble at a time in the liquid coolent body.

 

It may very well be more effecient, and is certainly simpler to construct. The airflow would also naturally accelerate the circulation of the coolent.

 

 

 

The only problem I see is with the system for keeping the coolent cool. The heat produced at the back of your fridge to produce the ice will be greater than the cool released by the melting of said ice to its previous state temperature.

 

 

As far as I know, evaporative coolers are the only kind of cooler that does not need to expel a greater amount of heat, and they only work in low humidity.

 

 

 

I am sure though, you could get a nice cool localized effect in the area you want with the device you describe.

 

If you were to glue some rubber tubing to a weighted baseplate in a snaking pattern, poke a whole bunch of small holes in it, then connect the airpump's tube to that, you could probably get a larger number of smaller bubbles, increasing the surface area to volume ratio per bubble and increase the degree to which the air is cooled.

[JesuBungle]

How about an in window air conditioner? eh? eh? Idk, that's just the route I'd go.

[Illuminati]

Heh, I knew you guys would be the hardest to convince.

 

And that copyright thing was just put in there as a weak joke.

 

But, thankyou for the idea's, I really like the one padren suggested.

 

And it was ment for your room only, I am only 18 and I still live with my parents (waiting to go to college in the fall), and to be honest, I could really care less if it costs more to cool the ice and to have the heat from the cooling go the the rest of the house. I've told them numerous ideas to try and up the efficiency of our house but they pretty much refuse to listen, so I've given up and am only worried about myself now.

[1veedo]

I might actually do that, or buy the thinkgeek thing for bandcamp. The dorms aren't airconditioned.

 

I'm going to try putting aluminum on the windows this yeah but I dobt it will do much on the fourth floor. I've got used to it though, kind of like ecoli.

 

Btw if you open two windows and set a fan facing outside you can circulate more air. Freshmen never understand the concept for some reason. That's probably why we stick them on the 6th floor, all by themselves.

[Odnam01]

air cooling would be a good idea to look into. Patening the idea after it works is a must . but to find a way to make it work first is a must.

[bascule]

I think ceiling fans are a nice, energy efficient way to cool your home

 

I have mine on right now

[Pangloss]

Fans? I wish! As I write this -- at 2:30 A.M. local time -- it is 79 degrees Fahrenheit (26 C) outside and 61% humidity!

 

(Of course, that's our afternoon high in the dead of winter, so I can hardly complain.)