And, adding to Bill's comments, yes, David, the pump is used to recirculate the water through the swamp cooler filter, keeping it damp and, thus, working for you so long as the humidity is low in both the outside and inside environments.
That's why you must have a way to exhaust the indoor air when using a swamp cooler and need a small supply of dry outside air coming in, too. The cooling takes place two ways: 1. Inside the evap cooler box as the dry air being drawn through the wet filter evaporates water and cools the incoming air; and 2. In the room when the moist air from the swamp cooler is evaporated by the dry air in the room. If you have a single filter swamp cooler, I would think you could rig up a really small mister inside the box designed to keep the swamp cooler filter damp. Like maybe a pump sprayer used in gardening. But you still would want to recapture the water that drips off the filter and get it back into the pump sprayer reservoir. And it would require a lot of maintenance. I haven't experimented with how long a fully pumped pump sprayer will mist its couple gallons of water supply. I have used one as a shower (it stings, but works) in my RV. But for that purpose, I warm the water over the stove flame each day, pour it in the pump container and pump it up. It works. Like I said, it stings when it hits the body. Very little drip because it produces such a fine mist and you control the on/off of the spray wand. But if you had it on all the time, spraying the evap cooler filter, there WOULD be drip. You don't want to waste water when your water supply is limited and -- at the Playa -- is limited to the water you've hauled in. I think Cahosmatic's suggestion of a solar-powered fountain pump for about $20 from Harbor Freight is the coolest solution I've heard so far for an off-the-grid swamp cooler. Am making a trip to the Albuquerque Harbor Freight later this week and hoping to find one while there. Pairing that with a solar powered fan really ups the investment but also makes the thing energy neutral during the periods that the solar fan and pump are working well -- (probably between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. most sunny days). You'd probably like an alternate power supply for late afternoon and evening. -- ken winston caine P.S. Swamp cooler parts and accessories are on closeout here in New Mexico and if I don't grab what I need now to build a new model, I won't get a shot at it again until late next Spring when summer stuff hits the stores again. Not sure if I'm going to get around to building a solar powered swamp cooler until then. My building project takes priority over that. I'll report what I experience once I've done it. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Wiltschko" <b...@wiltschko.org> To: <hexayurt@googlegroups.com> Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 12:58 PM Subject: RE: [hexayurt] Re: Windows and COOLING on the PLAYA I have taken both misters and a swamp cooler to the playa, twice, so here are a few thoughts. You can rig a mister with an RV water pump and misters from Lowe's much cheaper than the products at the link you provided. Even if you add an accumulator (reduces power consumption drastically), an input filter of some kind, and various fittings, it is still cheaper. The downsides: it uses water at 10-40x the rate of the swamp cooler, and it is not suitable for use inside a hexayurt. Inside, the humidity quickly spikes and stays there, and it gets very wet. Bill -----Original Message----- From: hexayurt@googlegroups.com [mailto:hexayurt@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of David Kelso Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2011 9:29 PM To: hexayurt@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [hexayurt] Re: Windows and COOLING on the PLAYA My attempt at a swamp cooler last year was pretty useless. I did the two bucket method from apropropedia. http://www.appropedia.org/Burning_Man_Evaporative_Cooler One major problem was that the water wasn't rising in to the wicking filter of its own accord. Is that what people are using the pumps for? To keep the filter constantly wet? Rather than use a wicking filter, has anyone tried using a mister? Here's one that looks decent: http://www.canopycool.com/ Though I'm guessing it would be much cheaper to find a suitable pump and rig that up myself. On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 1:43 PM, KK <koffeekomma...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Jul 22, 12:33 pm, "ken winston caine" > <k...@mindbodyspiritjournal.com> wrote: >> I have the Endless Breeze, too. And like it as far as 12v box fans go. >> >> Maybe I should pair it with its own solar panel so it's not drawing >> down my house batteries. >> >> Did find specs but did not find prices for the Snap-Fan at the company site. > > Click the big "buy now" button on their front page ;) > > 12" is $309 > 16" is $344 > 20" is $435 > 24" is $608 > 28" is $797 > > Remember, these are US made and probably "industrial grade". > They are meant to be used on greenhouses and real buildings long term. > They move a lot of air compared to all the light duty 12v fans (pretty > much all of them out there). > > At 12vdc the 16" snap fan pushes 980 CFM using only .98 amp. Very > nice. > I think the 16" is the "sweet spot" model. > It beats the Endless Breeze hands down. > > A single large Snap Fan could be used to vent my hexagon greenhouse at > the peak. > > Imagine 5 or 6 floor level vents, equipped with exact flow rate > trickle pads. > Single water pump hooked to container reservoir, small water > distribution hoses to all pads. > Single Snap Fan exhaust in the peak blowing out. > Just like the greenhouse systems with the cardboard trickle pad walls. > Exhaust fan runs between specific temps, when temps fall, the trickle > pad pump slows or shuts off. > The fan keeps running to evaporate water from the pads, then slows. > No wasted water overflow. No wasted power. > Temps climb, fan speeds back up to full...trickle pump resumes. > > A very simple PLC and temp sensors could control all of this. > > It's a power modulating swamp cooler system. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "hexayurt" group. > To post to this group, send email to hexayurt@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to hexayurt+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/hexayurt?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "hexayurt" group. To post to this group, send email to hexayurt@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to hexayurt+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/hexayurt?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "hexayurt" group. 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