Hey the growers. I’m having some heater issues with my grow and looking to make a DIY evaporative cooler but I have some questions to ask if anyone could help. I found 5gal bucket coolers but I wanted to up the Scale. So using pics and info I found on the net I’ve brought a 60L bin (instead of 5gal bucket) I already had the aspen matting from a smaller cooler I made. A 450L water pump with halo ring around bin. And I have a 6” and a 2 speed 4” inline exhaust fan I can use (when I decide which one). So my question is can I use a big 100ish Litre tank as a reservoir under the cooler? And would it be best to cut the lid and slid the bin down a bit or cut a hole in the bucket and lid and let it recirculate? I want to keep the water in the reservoir as cold as I can Is there anything I could use to keep it cool? And not frozen 10 bottles a day. I found these water cooler fan + radiator for a cpu could something like this work? Here’s my cooler so far.
Thanks for bringing this up, never heard of it and will have to do some research maybe for future reference.
I have made a cooler using a 5gal bucket inside another bucket for a reservoir but I can’t seem to find another like what I’m doing. I might just make it and see how it goes
Don't bother cooling the water first. Doing that is a net energy loss and without insulation around the bin the water will gain heat faster than you could cool it. I'd do as you said and cut a hole in the lid of the 100L bin and drop the garbage can in. Looks good.
Righto thanks, I weren’t sure if I should cool it or not. But your right it would be pointless cause it’s summer here in Aus and my garage/grow room doesn’t have windows so it would heat up quick. I might try and insulate the tank some how. I ended up cutting the hole in the lid for the 6” fan. And I decided to add another layer of aspen matting. I’m guessing the more wetter then matting is the cooler it will work? Cause I Have a 290L/H, 450L/H, 700L/H, 1000L/H and 2400L/H pump all in my stash I can use.
If anyone is following or interested I finished my evaporative cooler tonight. I ended up using the 2400L/H pump and after test running it I realised it wouldn’t be powerful enough. I made a water ring that goes around the top and drill a hole every 1cm. I’m not sure if that’s too close? And that’s why my pump wasn’t strong enough but I ended up running the 1000L/H pump on the opposite side of the ring. It wets the matting well know. Measuring the temp of the air coming out (yes a bbq thermometer lol) I got 23C not bad when it’s 30C in my shed. This was only after 5mins of running. After a few more tweaks or swapping the aspen matting to form I think it will do ok. Not sure if I’ll plumb it into my tent or use it cool the shed.