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Automotive swamp coolers?
Posted: Sun May 10, 2020 8:55 am
by REDONE
Has anyone in a hot and dry climate (CO, UT, NM, NV, eastern OR&WA etc) old enough or odd enough to have experience with one of these things?
EDIT to add a link to the wikipedia page explaining them for those who might be curious like myself:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_cooler
I know it's not AC, but I'm curious to know what people think/thought of them for highway trips. I like cruising with the windows down, but on adventures like Denver to Ouray for example, running windows down for 6 hours leaves one feeling a little mummified, and rolling up the windows turns the cab into a solar oven. Just kicking around possible solutions to a very non-emergent challenge.
Re: Automotive swamp coolers?
Posted: Sun May 10, 2020 10:32 am
by Stuka
A guy down the street from me used to have one. Here in California, our summer air is super dry. I actually cool my house with an evaporator cooler.
I talked to the guy about it once, he said it worked decently. Certainly better than just rolling the windows down in 100F temps. But that it really required you to be driving and not sitting in traffic for it to work.
Re: Automotive swamp coolers?
Posted: Sun May 10, 2020 3:50 pm
by REDONE
Thanks Stuka!
I also cool my house with a swamp cooler since I live where it's dry enough. My two favorite things over A/C are that I get continuous fresh air and it also serves as a humidifier.
I know that for cars A/C is pretty much superior in every way, but I've got a couple detractors for that route. I have so much Ham radio and fuel injection stuff going on under my dash that I don't want A/C ducting blocking it. Also, I've switched to electric fans and haven't had any temp control problems, if I throw another condenser on the front it's just trying to jinx myself. If I carry through and do something, I'd like to be able to put it on the window or roof for the long, hot drive and then take it off whenever it's not needed. What would be really sweet is if it could cool through the rear slider window and out through the wing windows, while being fed by some ridiculous trashcan-ish scoop on the roof!
Re: Automotive swamp coolers?
Posted: Mon May 11, 2020 6:22 am
by bigun
Aunt and Uncle from AZ had one when I was a kid, worked well for them, but you need a passenger to keep moving the towel through the water. IIRC there was also one that sat on the hump that you filled with water and ice.
I have an internet friend who was living in a van in the desert , she now has a travel trailer, last year I started designing a window swamp cooler like the one I used to have that was built around a box fan. The one I was working on was for 12 volt since she depends on solar for her power
Re: Automotive swamp coolers?
Posted: Mon May 11, 2020 6:31 am
by bigun
REDONE wrote: ↑Sun May 10, 2020 3:50 pm
Thanks Stuka!
I also cool my house with a swamp cooler since I live where it's dry enough. My two favorite things over A/C are that I get continuous fresh air and it also serves as a humidifier.
I know that for cars A/C is pretty much superior in every way, but I've got a couple detractors for that route. I have so much Ham radio and fuel injection stuff going on under my dash that I don't want A/C ducting blocking it. Also, I've switched to electric fans and haven't had any temp control problems, if I throw another condenser on the front it's just trying to jinx myself. If I carry through and do something, I'd like to be able to put it on the window or roof for the long, hot drive and then take it off whenever it's not needed. What would be really sweet is if it could cool through the rear slider window and out through the wing windows, while being fed by some ridiculous trashcan-ish scoop on the roof!
Hmm Trailer life a few years ago had a guy talking about how he had mounted a window unit in his slider on his tool box, and ran it off his generator in the bed of the truck, used less gas and he could leave it running with the doors locked and come out and the truck was nicely chilled