Evaporative Air Cooler Battery Operated Personal Air Conditioner

[Stan]

There are quite a few of these on the market, all are swamp coolers and not air conditioners, but that is marketing.

I like the fact it uses an USB for charging and it appears it can at least drop the temperature a few degrees in the cabin.

Anyway, has anyone used any of these unit and if so, what are your thoughts?

Being a CB the pricing looks good, 30 dollars to 90 dollar range.

 

[squeaky.stow]

Had one of these in my house when I lived in AZ. Worked great when the RH was low, which it is in AZ from Sept to June. Then one day you would come home and your house was like a steaming jungle. As soon as it gets humid, they are useless. 
I would assume that in an enclosed cockpit, that saturation level would happen pretty quick. And I would worry about the corrosion issues with humidifying the inside of my airplane like that. 
No expertise on this topic. Just speculating.

[Yetti]

You can build yourself an Ice box cooler for that price.

[EricJ]

Evaporative coolers don't work well unless the input air is dry, so if it's just taking air from inside the space it's cooling it's continually decreasing its own effectiveness. 

As mentioned, you can make an icebox cooler for not much more than that, or these days you can even buy one already made:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/603150517/12v-portable-air-conditioner-cooler-30

I don't think that one has a pump and heat exchanger like most of the home-brew ones or like a B-Kool, but it'll probably make a difference in a Mooney cabin.

I live in AZ and even this summer when we've had more than 34 days over 110F, I'm fine in the airplane with the B-Kool.  Checklist and startup gets uncomfortable, especially if there are delays, but once the cooler is on I'm fine.

https://www.b-kool.net/

[Boilermonkey]

If you really need one you’ll end up spending more on ice or ice-packs than the cooler...and a deep freeze for the hangar.  We have a home built for our M20C and it takes the edge off the heat in Indiana....but I wouldn’t say it makes it “cool.”

[Skates97]

1 hour ago, Yetti said:

You can build yourself an Ice box cooler for that price.

I resemble that remark! 

My home-made one will keep it cool up to about 85° F outside (which is pretty good considering how hot cabins get in the sun. Up to about 95° it keeps it comfortable and above that you just sweat less.

Homemade AC

To the OP, tint your windows, that is a big help.

Window Tinting

[Yetti]

[Ragsf15e]

When i lived in texas we used icebox (https://switchboxcontrol.com/icebox).  I don’t remember it costing as much as advertised but maybe it did.  It was real hot there, I needed to keep wifey happy if we were gonna use the airplane.  It works fine to cool the cabin during ground ops and departure.  I usually turned it off during cruise.  After an overnight trip you’ll need more ice to use it on  the way home which is sometimes a pain, especially if you used the gel packs on the first flight as they are all warm.

My dad uses one in his house and has managed to rust several things near it even though the climate is very dry.  I stopped using mine in my airplane.

[FloridaMan]

I have a zero breeze mark 2. It arrived recently and I’ll share results. 

[MikeOH]

There is NO WAY I'd want highly humidified air circulating around all my instruments and avionics.  Sounds like a recipe for a VERY expensive disaster.

[carusoam]

+1 for building your own ice box / heater core /fan device...

Swamp coolers are great for a Texas manufacturing building....
 

The excess water being released... where is that going?

If really released inside the plane...

There are many reasons why this won’t be the solution of choice...
 

Looking forward to the pirep...

B-kool is an MS supporter... so if you have a need for something that works today...

 

Best regards,

-a-

[bradp]

I have a frankecooler build.  There’s a major difference that is not difficult to figure out, but I don’t want to repost his plans.  The difference is that the cooled air is not humidified, and the ice tends to say a bit longer.  
 

Video of my setup if you can bear with the video I have no idea how to rotate properly.  
 

 

[squeaky.stow]

17 hours ago, FloridaMan said:

I have a zero breeze mark 2. It arrived recently and I’ll share results. 

https://www.zerobreeze.com/products/zero-breeze-mark-2

Wow! Looking forward to the pirep.  If this works as well as the YouTube video review suggests it is groundbreaking. 17lb battery operated remote controlled air conditioning for your Mooney for 3-5 hours with no load on the engine or alternator and no ice to pack or water to drain. You would need a way to vent the hot air exhaust but other than that.....

[FloridaMan]

You’ll have water to drain from condensation. 

[EricJ]

7 hours ago, squeaky.stow said:

https://www.zerobreeze.com/products/zero-breeze-mark-2

Wow! Looking forward to the pirep.  If this works as well as the YouTube video review suggests it is groundbreaking. 17lb battery operated remote controlled air conditioning for your Mooney for 3-5 hours with no load on the engine or alternator and no ice to pack or water to drain. You would need a way to vent the hot air exhaust but other than that.....

Where does the heat go?    In an enclosed space this is going to make it net hotter than without it.   It'll blow cool air out the vent, but wherever it sheds the heat is going to get warmer.

As mentioned, it's also going to need a drip outlet for the condensation.

[MikeOH]

7 hours ago, squeaky.stow said:

https://www.zerobreeze.com/products/zero-breeze-mark-2

Wow! Looking forward to the pirep.  If this works as well as the YouTube video review suggests it is groundbreaking. 17lb battery operated remote controlled air conditioning for your Mooney for 3-5 hours with no load on the engine or alternator and no ice to pack or water to drain. You would need a way to vent the hot air exhaust but other than that.....

Well, the link you provided says it includes, "heat exhaust system, drainage tube, and remote control," so I think they've thought that much through

[Hank]

10 minutes ago, MikeOH said:

Well, the link you provided says it includes, "heat exhaust system, drainage tube, and remote control," so I think they've thought that much through

Yep, the heat and water are exhausted from the unit, but in the back of your Mooney, where do they go? Heat goes up tomthe roof, water drips into the floor . . . . Not cool! No pun intended. 

[MikeOH]

22 minutes ago, Hank said:

Yep, the heat and water are exhausted from the unit, but in the back of your Mooney, where do they go? Heat goes up tomthe roof, water drips into the floor . . . . Not cool! No pun intended. 

I'm just willing to work a bit harder than others, I guess. 

1) How hard is it to route the drain tube to an exit in the belly right along with all the other tubes exiting there?  I'd think that would be a pretty easy minor mod.

2) The heat exhaust is a little harder. Have to find a an area of low pressure, then fabricate and install an exit vent.  Hopefully, still a minor mod.

If the pireps on this thing come back positive I'll be a buyer.

Edited August 14, 2020 by MikeOH

[carusoam]

Mike,

check the floor in your baggage area....

Dead center, you will find an air vent in the floor...

It will be magical for venting things like hot moist air....

It is something that even M20Js or Long Bodies don’t have...

from the outside, you can see the backwards facing, U shaped vent...

PP thoughts only, not a mechanic...

Best regards,

-a-

[squeaky.stow]

12 hours ago, MikeOH said:

 

1) How hard is it to route the drain tube to an exit in the belly right along with all the other tubes exiting there?  I'd think that would be a pretty easy minor mod.

2) The heat exhaust is a little harder. Have to find a an area of low pressure, then fabricate and install an exit vent.  Hopefully, still a minor mod.

 

That’s my point. You have to come up with a solution to those minor issues, but it shouldn’t be too difficult. Compared to the cost and labour to have any other real AC installed, this should be far simpler.
Other bigger concerns might be radio interference from something not designed/certified for aviation, and the risk of carrying a pretty huge Lithium Ion battery on board. It’s 840 Watt Hours. (and probably made in China) That’s almost 3 times the maximum size allowed in carry-on luggage on a commercial flight. All of the regulations I have seen apply only to commercial operators, but they are there because of known risks. My iPad, phone, Inreach etc., are all carried up front where I can reach them. My emergency drill for a battery fire would be to open the door (or side window) and chuck them out. This thing would be back in the baggage compartment. 
I still love the idea, but I don’t plan to be the test pilot. 
 

[EricJ]

I've flown airplanes with built-in a/c, no a/c, and I've used my B-Kool, all in 105+ degree AZ weather.   I'm hard pressed to find a reason to use something other than the B-Kool (or equivalent), and given my experience with it do not find the portable a/c systems attractive at all, either swamp cooler or vapor-cycle.   The B-Kool is probably no more hassle than those other portables, in my experience, anyway, and requires no mods to the airplane.   When it's not hot out you leave it at home and save the weight. 

The airplane I flew with built-in a/c only had about 200 hours on it, and the brand-new a/c had trouble keeping up and had some reliability and operating issues.   It did take the edge off, but it didn't seem as effective as the cooler with ice + ice packs and a bilge fan.   FWIW, I've run the B-kool during three-hour missions at low altitude (hot) with ice + ice packs and it was still blowing cold air.

Just my 0.02. 

[MikeOH]

9 hours ago, EricJ said:

I've flown airplanes with built-in a/c, no a/c, and I've used my B-Kool, all in 105+ degree AZ weather.   I'm hard pressed to find a reason to use something other than the B-Kool (or equivalent), and given my experience with it do not find the portable a/c systems attractive at all, either swamp cooler or vapor-cycle.   The B-Kool is probably no more hassle than those other portables, in my experience, anyway, and requires no mods to the airplane.   When it's not hot out you leave it at home and save the weight. 

The airplane I flew with built-in a/c only had about 200 hours on it, and the brand-new a/c had trouble keeping up and had some reliability and operating issues.   It did take the edge off, but it didn't seem as effective as the cooler with ice + ice packs and a bilge fan.   FWIW, I've run the B-kool during three-hour missions at low altitude (hot) with ice + ice packs and it was still blowing cold air.

Just my 0.02. 

Does the B-Kool raise the humidity in the cabin?  If not, then that sounds like a pretty good system.  I just assumed that with ice, you were raising humidity.

[EricJ]

Just now, MikeOH said:

Does the B-Kool raise the humidity in the cabin?  If not, then that sounds like a pretty good system.  I just assumed that with ice, you were raising humidity.

Not like an evaporative cooler would, since it isn't using evaporation to drop the air temp.    The bilge fan blows air from inside the cooler to wherever the duct is pointed, and the cooler then draws air in through the air-water heat exchanger (a heater core in the case of the B-kool) that is getting water from the bottom of the cooler pumped through it.   That air can go directly from the heat exchanger to the bilge fan and out the duct, but since there's water and ice (and ice packs if you want it to last a lot longer) in the cooler, it may pick up some water vapor as well.   If it does it's not a lot, as I dump a lot of water out of it when I'm done, so I don't think it's losing much.   I've never weighed it to compare, though.

 

[MikeOH]

Just now, EricJ said:

Not like an evaporative cooler would, since it isn't using evaporation to drop the air temp.    The bilge fan blows air from inside the cooler to wherever the duct is pointed, and the cooler then draws air in through the air-water heat exchanger (a heater core in the case of the B-kool) that is getting water from the bottom of the cooler pumped through it.   That air can go directly from the heat exchanger to the bilge fan and out the duct, but since there's water and ice (and ice packs if you want it to last a lot longer) in the cooler, it may pick up some water vapor as well.   If it does it's not a lot, as I dump a lot of water out of it when I'm done, so I don't think it's losing much.   I've never weighed it to compare, though.

 

Ok. That sounds like a pretty good system if it employs a liquid-air HE.  May have to look into that (it's frickin' 103 right now, nearly 6 pm. No WAY I'd go flying right now!)

Another poster mentioned the Li batteries for the true AC....that's a MAJOR downside I hadn't thought about for that unit

[Skates97]

Just now, EricJ said:

Not like an evaporative cooler would, since it isn't using evaporation to drop the air temp.    The bilge fan blows air from inside the cooler to wherever the duct is pointed, and the cooler then draws air in through the air-water heat exchanger (a heater core in the case of the B-kool) that is getting water from the bottom of the cooler pumped through it.   That air can go directly from the heat exchanger to the bilge fan and out the duct, but since there's water and ice (and ice packs if you want it to last a lot longer) in the cooler, it may pick up some water vapor as well.   If it does it's not a lot, as I dump a lot of water out of it when I'm done, so I don't think it's losing much.   I've never weighed it to compare, though.

 

When I built mine I made a manifold that keeps the air going through it separate from the air in the cooler. It does the same as the B-kool, draws it across a heater core and blows it back out. Even in the case of the B-kool, I can't imagine that it is picking up that much moisture from the water.