Homemade Portable Air Conditioner DIY - NO HUMIDITY! - Long Lasting Ice! - The Fan Cannon

This portable air cooler produces no humidity. It's super easy to build and more versatile than all the rest. Ice last for several days depending on your cooler. I call it "The Fan Cannon."

Parts & Tools List:

For 12 volt instead of 120 volt, use the following pump and fan motor:

Buy the following at your local hardware store:
4" abs pipe x 2 ft
3" pvc pipe x 2 ft
Hose barb adapter 3/16" ID x 1/4" MIP
Hose barb adapter 1/2" ID x 3/8" MIP
Compression coupling 1/4" OD x 3/8" FIP
Compression coupling 1/4" OD x 1/4" FIP

Other portable air coolers I have built:

[charlieodom]

Some thoughts on this setup:

First, I'd like to say you are one of the first to use a coil setup instead of evaporative cooling, which is the best way to cool.
Next, you mounted the fan directly to the air tube, which severely limits airflow. The best way to get the most airflow is to use a larger pipe diameter than the fan outlet and the fan flow will suck air in from the extra space around the fan. This is called the Bernoulli principle. The low pressure generated by the air stream from the fan creates a suction in the tube, generating more flow, a LOT more. Think Dyson fan or compressed air venturi.

Also, you would need to insulate or house the water pipes as they will condensate in high humidity. The best way to do this is to put both inside a larger pipe and have it connect to the cooler. As long as the fan is above the cooler, then the condensation will drain back to the cooler.

A step up from this setup, which would require a permanent mount, would be to use a water coil, just like the ones used in driveway heaters and some air conditioners, for increased cooling surface area.

Lastly, I don't know if you have done this in a video or not, but I would like to see a run time on 10lbs of ice (1 bag) showing the room temperature and exit air temp during the test. Maybe do a test outside in a garage or some other shaded area when it is 80 or more outside and see how long the fan will produce sufficiently cool air.

Sorry for the long post, but this is a really great idea and very similar to what I had planned to do!

[stormthrush]

Great concept. Glad to see a low-humidity design; most of these are evaporative cooling ones which are great for the dryer parts of the country but terrible for the really humid parts of the country like the southeastern states. Another design similar to yours I saw used a small radiator instead of the copper piping; that didn't require the tube screwed to the wood or the bending of the copper tubing which would definitely save lots of build time and reduce weight and bulk.

A few other ideas - someone that seemed pretty knowledgeable in the comments section for the radiator build one said that pulling the air through pushing it is more efficient and effective.

As has already been said insulating the lines is probably a good idea. They pointed out the condensation issue but I'd point out that it should also increase thermal efficiency and thus how long the ice lasts.

Longer, more tightly coiled copper tubing would increase the available thermal transfer surface area and thus colder air output much like the radiator idea.

Lastly, if you use a battery powered fan of some kind, such as one of the many affordable rechargable battery-powered camping fans out there, you could greatly increase the portability of this system since you wouldn't have to plug into either a wall outlet or generator or something and could recharge it via USB in a car, solar, etc. I'm not sure if the fan in your current design is variable speed or not, but if it isn't that would be another advantage.

[SarahL]

I BUILT With slight modifications for my needs and some tweaks from some comments in here! But it’s amazing!!!!

[JeffWaicak-kfzl]

I like it. I'm thinking for my application, a camper van, I might go harvest a radiator and fan from a small car at a junkyard.

[Mebeknob]

Cool idea. I’d like to see some temp readings to see how efficient it really is.
Cheap improvement ideas:
1) You could put salt in the water. That’ll drop your “coolant” from 0 to as low as -21.
2) make your coil a series of flat coils (like an old electric stovetop burner). This will maximise heat transfer from the fan. But will also reduce fan output. So you’ll want to find a good balance because part of what makes this feel cold is the evaporative cooling from the fan on your skin.
3) put in a big block of ice vs small cubes. This will theoretically increase the thermal mass and therefore the efficiency.

[uksunny]

I love the vids and your trials and experimentation to get to this model, I will say; you are a very brave man or divorced.

[Bstaylor]

Just made this and the lowest temp I got was 52.5F. It is running in my garage at the moment (86deg F)and there is a puddle of water on the floor from the tube I imagine if you use this in a small space the humidity will lower and there will less condensation. Also I found if you insulate the hoses it does get cooler. 52.5deg F is with the hoses insulated. I will try this in a van tonight and see if it makes a difference.

[MorsCertaMoraIncerta]

Condenstate on the copper tubing. Create a drip tray beneath the copper tubing with a return line to the cooler.

[kululv]

great explanation. great thing to just have at home as a back up in case your AC goes out or to cool the bedroom over night without cooling the whole house down! If you would wind your coil over a 2" pipe you might get even greater cooling because of more coil exposed to the airflow. great also your warning about cutting up your hands!

[Khosenit]

Never seen such easy to understand intructions! Bravo!

[emblemslife]

If your ice is melting faster it simply means it is absorbing the heat at an accelerated rate. As long as that heat is only being absorbed from your conditioned space there is no inefficiency in having your heat exchanger inside vs outside of your ice chest. Reducing humidity makes the perceived climate more comfortable at a higher temperature. The condensation collected by your copper coil should be returned to the ice chest or it will likely evaporate from whatever surface it drips onto. Your supply and return lines need to be insulated as well due to the condensation that will be formed on them until the delta between the water vs air temperature drops.

[beyondborders]

It would have been nice to see a temp from the output of the unit

[jaredcarlson]

Very inventive design! However, since Ice can only absorb 144 BTUs per 1 lb. It looks like he put 3: 10lb bags of ice in. Therefore the max heat the ice is able to absorb is 4, 320 BTUs.
If the ice lasted 3 days running an estimated 12 hours a day, then this is the equivalent of a 120 btu air conditioner. Pulling just 120 BTUs of heat out of the air each hour.
Considering the smallest window ac is around 4000 BTUs or able to pull 4000 BTUs of heat out of the air each hour, the temperature drop coming out of the end of the black pipe can be assumed to miniscule.
It would feel nice blowing directly onto you. However, It will by no means cool a room.

[aronklemz]

I don't know how you get 3 days of ice. I used your model. Bent 50' of copper tubing in a figure 8 style in a box. (I learned the hard way to not use a cardboard box due to condensation on the tubing, very wet at the bottom) Chilled water to the coils at the low side, with return at the high side. The box acts as a diffuser, forced air (a B&D high velocity cage fan) enter at the top, with the air vent to the room at the bottom. I use a 330 gph max pump, but keeping it on the low setting makes the ice last hours longer (but not nearly 3 days. 1 day max). Just my input.

[Andy-dffj]

Due to the closed system, you could actually pump higher than 5 feet because the weight of the water in the return line balances out the weight of the water in the pumped line.
You just need to give it a pressure boost to fill it the first time.

[richardarchuleta]

If you freeze a bunch of water bottles, you can just reuse them also, just a tip that I use to keep the rest of my stuff cold for longer than just ice cubes.

[johnw]

Great idea and something we can all do! Reading down the comments shows a lot of interest in your invention!

[mike-bjdk]

if it works be great for the lake out camping and keep your beer and sodas cold at same time lol

[jmcc]

Ahhh Man, this model is by far the easiest and simplest and best model yet. This one I will be trying . Thumps up

[mgpvii]

Excellent idea. Missing condensate return back to cooler as noted in other comments. If you are not having much condensate, then most likely your output air is not cold enough to draw out the moisture from the air. In that case, lowering the amount of air would help...this would reduce output temperature. Also, since this is a closed system the height doesn't matter to the pump. As long as you start the flow going at a lower elevation, your pump will work regardless of the 5 ft rating you mentioned. Water would then just be syphoning down.