Swamp Cooler

I got the concept for the swamp cooler from a video I watched on Youtube.  I wanted a window air conditioner but it uses too much power. The smallest one I found used around 600 watts and 5 amps.  My swamp cooler uses less than 30 Watts. In the video, they used a different type of cooling pad, a different color of bucket, and clear tubing. They also put the water in the bucket first which I think was a stupid idea because the shavings from drilling holes got in the water. 

My swamp cooler is made from a 5 gallon bucket. I used a 2 inch holewsaw and a power drill.  First I tried a 12 volt cordless drill. It worked but not very well. Then I tried a plug-in drill and it worked great. The mess from the wood fibers combined with the plastic shavings looked like frosted shredded wheat :).  It uses an aspen pad which is shredded wood. It looks better in person than it did online. The fan was 4$ . I recommend using a low voltage fan. It isn't designed for damp locations but the risk of shock is low because it is only USB 5 volts. It operates sort of like a computer fan. It appears to be a brushless motor. The tubing was a scrap from my pond project. The part I used for the plug for the easy drain came with the pump for the pond. I added hot glue to make it seal. I used condensate from our air conditioner for the water. Usually most of this water gets sent to my pond through a long garden hose. My bucket only holds a couple gallons of water- I haven't measured exactly.

This project cost less than $40 to build. An air conditioner would have cost at least $120. I could cycle the pump on and off to save power and heat. It does not work as well as an air conditioner. But it works well for the price and energy consumption. To measure the temperature I used a Nubee nub8380 infrared thermometer with laser. The laser thermometer is the easiest way to measure the temperature and it has a back-lit screen. Last night I measured 87.1 input and 79.2 output temperature. Today I measured 91.2 input and 83.1 output. The humidity is 43%.

I made a video about this project. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HanHUI48CdY

easy drain