What is Digg?64 Comments
- xeroskill, on 10/12/2007, -2/+28way too ghetto for me. nice work though.
- Proginoskes, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13I'm sure that $50 air conditioner would use LESS ENERGY than this rig. How much power does it take to clean and then freeze all that water before you buy it?
(Edit: I just read it. Are we freezing the water ourselves using the fridge? Now you're really screwed, cost-wise.) - robbh66, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11This is a few years old.
- rocke86, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Suggest it as a project. It is practical, educational, and low price, so it is win win win.
- bkool, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Getting is rid of the heat is only part of the reason why you can't feed back into the water. The whole system won't work unless the water exits from a location _lower_ than trash can. Look up how siphons work. They are pretty fascinating.
- asplodzor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Screw Walmart... give your money to a more deserving company.
- davidirock, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I made that last year. This project is great in theory but ONE DETAIL is left out. The copper only specifies the outer diameter. At ACE hardware they don't tell you that there are two different types with the same diameter. You also can't tell the difference until after you assemble it and the air doesn't get cool at all. Make sure that you specifically request the thin copper tubing. It will save you some time and money.
- poipoipoi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8you could also put your feet in 1/10th that amount of water, and cool your blood directly. (but that's not geek enough, i guess.)
- Technopundit, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7You can buy a window air conditioner at Fry's for as little as $50. I'd say it's a lot more efficient and a lot less hassle.
- HobbesDoo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6What a stupid comment. No wonder you're on my blocked list. You always make the stupidiest comments ever. What an *****.
- MisterMooCow, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6You aren't understanding how this system works. The cold from the cold water is exchanged into to the air which transfers its heat into the water. The water is now warmer, and the whole point is to remove heat from the environment, so as you pump out the warmed water you are removing heat from the environment, and that is what cools the room down. If you keep the warmed water in the environment then the whole system becomes much less effecient, if it will work at all.
- lerch, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7neat. Why not re-use the water instead of dumping it out the window and having to re-fill the trash can?
- astrosmash, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Yup, those wonderful slashdot folks dissected this topic last year.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/13/2036200 - bryantee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I saw this a few years back. Still one of my favorite do-it-youselfs.
- node3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@Proginoskes
Not to mention that in order to freeze the water, the fridge will radiate more heat than it removed from the water.
On the other hand, cold tap water is cooled by being underground, so that's something. Also, it's probably acceptable to heat the kitchen in order to cool another room. - p9s50W5k4GUD2c6, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Low marks for 'elegance'.
High marks for a AC solution for Hurricane hit areas.
In this case: function beats the ***** out of form. Clever idea! - patrickweber, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Someone didn't read the article...
"It doesn't rip quite as hard as central air, but for less than $25 CAD I'm not complaining. (and, btw, that's my girlfriend's makeup mirror, not mine)" - astrosmash, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Should have linked to this guy's home page:
http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/~gmilburn/ac/
He's revised it a couple of times since this became public last year. He improved the heat exchanger and now just runs cold water directly from an outside tap to the fan. He also links to a couple of other home-brew air conditioners, including a closed-circuit system. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3here in waterloo, it's been excessively humid recently. very smoggy, so i'll ask him if it still works.
- kKhan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Now what would be useful for me is a way to use a conventional window AC unit without putting it in the window. Free electricity at my apartment, but the janitor checks your window for a unit and auto charges your rent if they see one installed.
- rm999, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This is a good idea for dorms and stuff. I remember at my freshman year dorm we weren't allowed to have ACs. There was, however, a big ice machine down the hall. Would have come in handy during the few weeks it was hot during the school year.
- steveng, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Our school could use one of these, it was 97 degress in Chemestry the last week and we are in school for 3 more weeks.
- 15charmaxwtf, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Rather messy :)
Oh, and nice make up mirror - tw0bit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2than you would just end up with room temperature water, unless you keep adding ice. but also, you would have to raise the trash can so that the siphon works... they can only go down
- vvaduva, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6Lame lame....and very old news - not to mention ice is not exactly the cheapest thing around.
- Leofan7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That's really neat. I'll have to try it our for the heck of it.
- linuxrebel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Where are you going to find FEMA after a hurricane?
- jetblackstrat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Maybe it's my lack of understanding of the Digg system, but if he's blocked, how do you know what he posted?
- Inferno52386, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I install hand rails, as well as gates, fences, and other custom metal jobs, and I must say...that is one P.O.S. hand rail....
- bossm4n, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Why would it cost $25 bucks everytime you wanted to use it? Just ice and water to refill it. Exactly how much does ice cost where you live?
- silvalynin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i don't understand why some of you are mentioning freezing the water as a cost factor.....I mean, you keep your fridge on anyways, don't you? So how does it cost more because you're putting bottles of water in the freezer now?
And why would it cost $25 each time you use it? You can re-use the tubing and clamps....so you would just need some new zipties (unless you really open them the proper way instead of cutting them). So it would cost you only a few bucks for the zipties, and that's only when u disassemble the whole thing and put it back together, which i'm sure isn't what would happen each and every time you use it. Anyways...yea i'd rather spend the $25 extra for an A/C.
Oh and kKhan, you do know that they sell floor-standing A/C's right?
http://www.target.com/gp/browse.html/602-2232405-1290201?node=13588141&AFID=Google&LNM=standing_air_conditioner&ref=tgt_adv_XSGD0426 - wbrendel, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I tried this out once. It was moderately effective, but it was definitely NOT worth the hassle. The only real use for this is as a learning tool. Go buy a $50-$75 AC at Walmart and save yourself the hassle.
- mediaphile, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2i read this about 2 or 3 years ago, and if i remember correctly, this was determined to actually use more energy and cost more in the long run than a cheap AC, and the heat of the fan's motor warmed the room at too high a rate for the unit to be at all effective.
- johndi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Just a guess, but he probably wasn't logged in at first. Then logged in to make the comment.
- salmonmoose, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's better to leave your freezer/fridge filled with bottles of water than empty - they don't disipate into the room like the air in the fridge will.
- if you leave them in there all year, and use them sparsely, they probably won't end up costing that much. It's an interesting system, I don't know how well it would cope with REAL heat though, once it hits 43c even reversed cycle AC seems to do very little :) - raindog469, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Before our complex installed central air, we were forbidden to have air conditioners in the front windows, and the wall units in the back of the place were barely powerful enough to heat the rooms they were in (e.g. one of them vented INTO A CLOSET.) Sure, there are stand-alone A/C units with little ducts or hoses that can go out a window, but they're closer to $500 than $50.
I'd be willing to bet the complex wouldn't have been able to stop me from running a tiny tube out the window, though.... - carpespasm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1aside from the homebrew look and the coolant staying liquid the whole cycle, it's pretty close to the layout of a regular a/c
- publicXuse, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Is a low budget swampcooler. A swampcooler goes for 15 bucks and would use the same energy as the fan I would imagine.
- tw0bit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2i would assume that the system uses a siphon, and it is impossible to have the siphon going back into its container
- Solidcell, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2win win win win win
- diggeddugg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Well thanks to FEMA, there's plenty of ice after a disaster ;) - running a fan on a generator - feasible, running an AC probably less so...
- geeXP, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1We created something quite similar a few years ago when I was in the army. It made living in a tent in the middle of the desert much more bearable. And of course we didn't have the option of just going out to buy an air-conditioner.
- logost, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2interesting idea from last year and similar comments but neat none the less
- i3rYs0n, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Two Trashcans, and then put ice in the old water to cool it back down, switch the hoses, start the siphon, repeat
- tylerni7, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I think they are mainly saying that a freezer would make more heat than that would be able to cool. Besides that, creating it in a freezer would use quite a bit of electricity. (Say 100 liters of water, decreased 30 degrees celcius, that's about 350 watt hours and remember conservation of energy, all that heat you take out needs to go somewhere...). Also, while the initial cost will be a little bit higher, I think most people think you'd just buy more ice every time you want to use it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Wow, someone invented the swamp cooler a few decades after it was invented.
- carpespasm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1besides, depending on the bad happening in the area (like a hurricane) there's plenty of water to be found.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Better idea: just stick your head in ice water, repeat as necessary. you're welcome.
- rtimmons, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1...do you get how refrigerators work? If there's nothing in them, they take virtually no energy to keep cold. But if you put a bunch of hot/warm/not-freezing liquid in there, it's going to cost energy to remove the heat from the liquid.
there is a cost-versus-work-done ratio there. - blackax, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1wow now that is some old stuff one slashdot about a year or 2 ago.
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