Home Made Air Conditioner
Long time reader, first time poster. Here goes...

A couple of years ago, a friend and I were going on holiday to Zante, lovely greek island, in the summer. To save money we had gone for the cheapest apartment, and consequently we were facing the prospect of spending 14 days in an un-air-conditioned apartment. But I had found the perfect solution.

I found a link (possibly on these very pages, I forget now) to some ingenious fellow who had made his own air-con for about £15, from an electric fan, some copper pipe and a small electric pump.

So, on the day before we set off, I managed to find and purchase:

1 electric fan (£8) - tescos
10m of narrow copper pipe (£10) - this was tricky to track down, ended up at an engineering works that makes compressors.
A small aquarium pump (£7) - aquatic / fish shop
Several meters of silicone tube £1 - aquatic / fish shop
Loads of small cable ties (~£1) - Halfords

I then stayed up almost all night bending and attatching the copper pipe to the front and back of the fan in a lovely tight double-spiral shape, then connecting the tubing and the pump. The thing was a work of art, it really was!

Being by now exhausted, I stuffed the whole lot, more or less untested, into my suitcase and went to get a couple of hours shuteye before leaving for the airport.

I must admit, I was a little nervous at the airport, having this rather odd looking arangement in my luggage. God knows what it must have looked like on the x-ray machine, but no-one questioned it.

So, we got to Zante (also known as Zakynthos, which I strongly recommend if you get the opportunity. Lovely place, and the best olive oil in the known universe, get it from the roadside sellers up in the mountains) and come evening, I dutifully unpacked my amazing air-con device, rubbing my hands in glee at my ingenuity and cunning. Our apt did have a fridge with a small freezer section, so we had been able to freeze some water. Filled the sink with water, tipped in the ice, put in the pump, connected all the tubing and SWITCHED ON, baby!

Sitting back in anticipation of an arctic blast of icy cold air, I soon noticed that something was slightly wrong. What could it be?

Was the water circulating properly? Yes, plenty of flow there.

Were the coils cold yet? Yes, they were very cold, water condensing on them readily.

The whole thing worked exactly as it had been designed, the only problem was that the guy who posted the original pics on the internet was a crazy, deluded fool. Having extensively tested this since returning home, I can state with authority that blowing air over a coil of cold copper makes less that 1 degree of difference to the temperature, unless you put in thousands of very thin fins (which you can make cheaply from cut up beer cans and solder on, but I can also state with authority that this takes a VERY long time)

Still, we had an awesome time, and having an electric fan with us saved us the £5 per night they wanted to charge to rent us one.

Length? £1 per meter to you mate.
(SquidFish, Thu 24 Jul 2008, 14:13, 1 reply)

I remember reading that article on making the air con
and being suitably impressed with it looking like a ramshackle, steampunk style, cooling device.

Shame it didn't work as well hoped, but totally fair play for making one!
( LemonEntryMyDearWatson This time, Moriarty, the hand is on the other foot, Thu 24 Jul 2008, 14:22, closed)