Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

Well, my car won't have anything A/C related on it, except for the "intercooler" (yeah, the thing in the dash that I don't know what its name is).

Now, that intercooler deal has an inlet and an outlet. I was trying to figure out a way that I could hook up a bottle in the back of the car and run a refrigerant through the core to essentially give me A/C on demand, but be removable as well.

Problems:

Routing the exit. Do you put a slight restrictor (to not make the ---- completely blow through the core too fast) and dump outside the car, or can you think of a way to re-route the refrigerant?

Refridgerant. Say it's a 10# bottle in the back of the car. What type of refridgerant would work best, and how could I use it efficiently to the point where the whole tank isn't a 10 minute cooling of the car? I'm not looking for a year long system, but something that I could turn on and off as needed on a hot summer day say during a 2 hour drive.

The idea seams pretty simple, but I'm having trouble with the details. Where's the thinkers at? Maybe CSairconditioningADDICT?

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

Refrigeration is the removal of heat. Not the addition of cold. You need the "freon" to pick up the heat and remove it. You would need a condensing unit in the trunk that exhausted the condensor to the outside. Its adding a ---- ton of weight, not worth the time to build, probably will never work right, and a waste of your time to try.

If you wanted to, you would need to size a condensing unit to the evap and area cooling. You could use a thermostatic expansion valve or an accurator if you knew the size. If that is the case, you can run R404a and make that coil in the -20 range easily all day. In theory, you can make your car a freezer. :P Not to mention trying to power it.

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

What Dave's trying to say is that a large heatsink bungee corded to a bag of ice in your passenger seat would be safer, cheaper, more reliable, and cool the car better.

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

Tyler may be onto something.

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

So seeing the blower on one side of this core and my vents on the other side led me to think if I just send something cold through this core I could blow myself, cold style. Exactly like an intercooler.

Am I thinking completely wrong, or should I just rock dry ice and a scented tree in the blower?

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

Yes, you are completely wrong.

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

You got the right idea, but refrigerant isn't cold on its own, it's the expanding and condensing of it that makes an AC system work (as if I even know how an AC system works) so you can't just pour it into the core and call it a day. You're underestimating how hard it is to keep something cold running through that core.

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

maybe just a water/air setup?

if yuou want to be a mad scientist than maybe you can put some ice cubes and salt into the mix. :1

http://www.filecabi.net/video/45348570311.html

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

I'd say a spray bottle of water and then roll down your window.

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

ac's work by compressing mad refrigerant.

the refrigerant "heats up" because its so compressed, it doesn't loose any energy, so its "hotter"

this heat energy and compressed refrigerant is taken to the condenser coil, this coil dissipates heat energy thats collected when the gas is compressed


the room temperature compressed air is then taken to the evaporator coil (the intercooler), this coil allows the gas to expand. When the low heat energy gas expands it only has so much energy to disperse across the medium that is the refrigerant so the refrigerant has a net heat energy loss per molecule. This is what makes "cold". that core that the air blows through is just making the ambient air lose enery as the refrigerant is trying to go back to an atmospheric temperature/ an equilibrium with the heat energy of everything in its surrounding environment.

Like dave said, AC isn't some chemical reaction that creates cold, its actually just rapidly removing heat energy from a system. It takes a lot of power/energy to carry all of that heat away, its a really inefficent process. Your best bet is using some gold bond on your nuts and rolling with the heat. I hope that explains it some?

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

First off, if you havent already, tint your windows.

After that, get a bigger alternator.

Do some thermodynamics mathimications and come up with how many peltiers you will need for reasonably cool air.

Hook up hoses to an evaporator core thats stock for your car and put it in your evap box. Circulate cold air created through the peltiers through the evap core. Use a fan to direct ambient air from the inside of the car to the hot side of the peltiers and dump the peltier waste heat outside the car.

im the ------- genius. You can probably do all this for <$300. not sure if it would work or not but it sounds feasable.

If everything worked as it should, you could just click on your stock AC button to engage the peltier array and accompanying fans and cold air would come out the stock vents.

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

It may be easier to just eat hollow points for breakfast. Let me go see..... :'(

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

Peltiers are the least effective way to cool anything. When I was into overclocking a lot of guys went that way.........for a short while.

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

you could try a system like this but it would require you to run an ac compressor and im not sure the gains would be enough to make up for that and have a little extra. plus it takes up space and is heavy.

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uplo...13f5e4e095.jpg

im not a tuner nor have any tuning experience:
what caught my eye with this system is that your air intake temperatures should always stay the same correct?(the pump would always run)

well wouldnt this give you a sort of intercooler spray that is constant?

like intercooler spray drastically lowers your air intake temperatures all of a sudden and the air molecules become denser.
your car was tuned with normal air through the intercooler.
wouldnt that cause a lean condition? or is the temperature difference not enough to make a difference?

with the a/c system you could tune your car for running indefinatly on the same colder air and thus be able to make a finer tune and make more power. maybe?

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

just put the stock ac in it problem solved

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

Exactly, so theoretically steve could run a bottle of co2, no2, or basically any compressed gas that he could run through his core. The compressed gas looses its extra heat energy gained by compression while it sits in the tank before he even bolts it into his car. then he could just run it through the expansion valve and stock core just like a stock system does. but then vent that to the atmosphere. no need for a condenser or heat exchanger or pump. you need all that to recompress the gas, then loose the gained heat, so the system isn't expendable and doesnt need refilled.

I have no idea how efficient it would be, or how long one bottle would last. but it would cool some air for some amount of time, it would just be half of the a/c system. Though I have no experience with that ----, so one bottle could only last 5 seconds, or it could last your 2 hr drive. I have no clue.

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

it would work, but do you really want to drive around with a 3k psi bottle of co2 or something in your car?

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

seriously my friend was just talking about putting a small window unit in the hatch of his integra, not sticking out but sittin in back and piping the exhaust out, and getting a decent sized inverter to run it, i think he said the smaller ones at walmart only need 500watts and you can get 1000w inverters for under $100

we talked about it for a while and it seems doable to me i was even considering it, i think it could be done for about $200 hmt style

a tiny window unit would make your car ice cold in probly a minute

im in the same boat, theres nothing left of my ac, either side of the firewall :3 i use a spray bottle for now it helps

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

why dont you just hook up the regular ac system, than design an intercooler that works on the ac system to supercool your charge air sorta like a water to air ic only with refrigerant , in turn makeing up in hp what your loosing in engine drag and weight.

actually a system was done similar to that on a volvo in a recent issue of euro tuner

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

I was told that car A/C systems requires a big BTU system to cool the interior enough, yet fight with the radiant heat from the windows, so i really doubt the small window AC would work lol

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

That is not going to work. A/C systems work by moving energy in the form of heat. The backside of the unit needs to be separated from the front. Energy moves from the front to the back of the unit. Otherwise you are simply recirculating the energy in the car and the temperature inside the car will actually rise because of the efficiency losses.

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

i figured he was gona make some kind of "mask" for the exhaust/rear of the unit and duct it out the car probly through the vent thing that lets pressure out when you slam your door

some of those units are pretty small, and they kick out enough btu's to cool a room

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

...turn your car into convertable, that'll help,

The whole A/C unit in your window, would be rediculous, the power it would take to power that damn thing, would be ungodly,

I was 10 seconds away from buying a R/V roof top mount A/C unit for my old crew cab truck. he only wanted 200 $ for it,

the Co2 idea is fine, only, there's no way to re-cool the air after going throu the evap. core, even if you could recycle it, there's no way to rebuild the pressure.

They use r-134A and r-12 for a reason .... honestly you could use propane, in your A/C, and it would work fine, if not better. the only problem is it's unstable as hell, and all it would take is one small leak..and KA-BLEWY goes your system.

i saw an old truck the other day with a metal can thing on the pass. window, that you filled with ice, and while you drive down the road, it pushes air into the ice, and re-directs the air inside.. Couldn't figure out who makes it, or where i could get one, but it was the sweatist thing i ever did see,

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

Ya, but rooms are insulated very well. Cars are not, plus the sunlight let's in an ungodly amount of energy.

Also, a high wattage inverter is going to be a huge draw on the electrical system. The alternator would most likely be running near 100% and the battery might not get charged enough.

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

its called a swamp cooler
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Therm...22196542QQrdZ1

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

500w isint ungodly, and if you have a optima or somthin it really wouldnt be that bad on your system

and why the hell wouldnt a box made to cool a large insualted room cool a small uninsulated but sealed cabin off a car? i think it would work way better then normal ac possibly

im sure this stuff could be found cheaper

11"x15"x17" 5000btu cools 150sq ft $99 515w power consumption
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1166840116656

1200w inverter $99
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=93761



then just HMT some ---- make it happen

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

You don't get it. A larger capacity battery is only going to delay the innevitable. If the alternator is not able to keep up with the current draw and is running 100%, then there will be nothing to charge the battery. If you upgrade from a 5 gallon bucket of ---- to a 50 gallon bucket, and the ---- supply is still 10 gallons per hour of ---- less than the draw, then you will still run out. Get it?


The other issue is that at idle and most likely up to 2-3k rpms, the alternator is not going to be able to supply the needed current to even power the invertor. It will just fault out and not rununtil the available current is reached. Most honda alternators are only 60-80 amps. Not really much left over after the ignition and other stuff.

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

Just get some mysters from home depot, a fat bucket of ice water and wire that ---- up nig nog. This is HMT, dont over complicate things.

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

Hook it up like a horse corral? ------- tight! You would probably start a mad jdm trend. Kinda like underglow kits.

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

u can also take out one of the rear window and jam that little AC right there :l

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

Ok, got another idea. This one is even better. Cut a huge hole in the floorboard, in that hole goes a wheel/tire which touches the road. Said wheel and tire will run an array of alternators which will run your array of peltiers and fans.

Next?

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

In English, this is what I'm thinking. If I hid the inlet/outlet hoses under the carpet and behind the plastics, the bottle would be easy as ---- to remove and install whenever. I was just wondering how well it would work for the effort.



Because I have a backwards firewall, and finding the correct lines is further than the nearest junkyard.

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

just quit being a queer about AC and relize you aint gonna get it. if your worried about being cool, just get one of those clip fans that plug into your cig lighter and that be that.

Honestly. I think it would be way more work and BS than what would really be the end result. You paint that nigga yet!

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

get some solid straight line and bend/flair it, negro. hvac supply shops should have it.

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

I give it about 5-6 seconds for a 20oz CO2 paintball tank. That bottle will contain enough gas to cool about 1.8 cubic inches of air, which is about the same thermal load reduction as using the rubber bulb from a turkey baster to blow air on your face. I estimate this approach at about $1,000 per 1 minute of cool.

If you upgrade to 10lbs nitrous bottle, it will probably last just long enough to cool all the air volume in an '89 Ford Festiva, after which it will run out and you'll have to put the windows down for the remaining 95% of your trip. Results may vary with your larger car. This one will yield about $80 per minute of cool.

Now if you really want to keep it cool for a serious road trip you should consider a 80-100 cubic foot Argon tank. I'm sure this will keep even your Escalade interior cool for as long as you have gas to drive, at which point you can also stop and get your bottle refilled. Obviously you might run into some packaging/safety issues, but nothing that can't be dealt with by simply taking less passengers and cargo. This method also happens to be the most efficient at about $20 per minute of cool, plus bottle depost etc if you don't already have one.

That's my expert opinion.

In all seriousness though. The rate at which you would have to discharge any pressurized gas in order to get that core sufficiently cool, you'd run out even a welding tank before the car even started to get remotely cool. I'd scrap that idea and go with the household air conditioner.

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

It's Minnesota; I think rolling your windows down will be just fine.

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

There are some freaking geniuses posting in this thread. The Fred Flintstone underbody wheel driven alternator array was key. I want to see that in action on someone's rig. Seriously though, you could buy one of those walmart window mount ACs and bust it apart for the pump, evaporator and condenser, install it all in the car, solder all the lines up and run that mess off of an inverter. It'd be super clean, extremely efficient, and unique, in an HMT sort of way. Mounting the whole unit in the window might put a little too much stress on those thin sheetmetal cases most of those units have.

After reading this thread I thought: "Just move up north", but then I realized you're in Minnesota. What the heck do you need AC for up there? You could reverse the AC and use the condenser as an in cab heater I guess.

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

Heat pump style!!!

Re: Homemade A/C, requesting thinkers.
 

i vote use a bottle of c02 and spray it through for a burst. All you would need is a tank, hose/fittings, a solenoid and a switch. Very simple