Swampy Mighty Kool swamp cooler

[stanw909]

I have considered the ol window AC in the back window with genny option but really only nee somethingt personally cool me of when taking a siesta. 12 volt is really appealing. I await more of your testing. Thanks.

[ChrisAgile]

In the first post xcnick wrote:

The yellowing on top of the cooling pad happened with one hour of use. Jack writes that this is normal. "This pad is extremely unique, as it filters impurities from the air, ...

I think Jack (of Swampy.net) is 'selling the sizzle' and ignoring reality. The pad's they use are unusual -- unusual in how often they have to be replaced. Swampy's website says their pads should be replaced every 100 to 200 hours. Here in the high desert I want to run my MW2 all day and most of the night. Doing the math 24 hours X 4 = 96 hours. That means you might have to replace the pad every 4 days! Indeed, I had to replace my first pad after about 100 hours of use and the pad was dry and very crusty.

The discoloration and build-up of crusty stuff on the pads is normal. One maker of cooler pads says "DURA-COOL can withstand hard water exposure ... and will stop more airborne dust and particulates from entering your home. This means cleaner, fresher air to breath." And

"DURA-COOL traps dust from the air and also collects salt and minerals from the water due to evaporaton. In small amounts these collections cause no problem. However, under some water conditions this buildup of dirt and mineral deposits will eventually restrict the flow of air through the pad."

Because of the usually (uniquely?) small size of the pad used by the Swampy design their pads seem much more prone to this problem. Most of the air in my WM2 seems to pass through an area only a couple of inches across so the crusting up process is concentrated.


Contrast the 4 days useful life with the pad used by the competition: The Kar Kool 312

KAR KOOLtm - use a 6 or 8 inch thick fluted type pad as the wet cooling media, it is the most efficient evaporative cooling media in the world, and it should last for FIVE YEARS, WITH MINIMAL MAINTENANCE! (water quality is a factor)

http://www.nvo.com/southwestsolar/productcatalog/

Southwest Solar tells you where they buy their pads and says their pads can last several years. Southwest Solar has a really funky looking website -- so much so that I wrote them and asked if they were still in business and could I buy a Kar Kool directly from them. The answer: Yes, about $350 shipping included. Big contrast between Southwest Solar and Swampy. Southwest seems much more into making great swamp coolers for a good price than they are in into marketing. Southwest tells you where they buy their pad, Swampy claims theirs are "unique".
(FYI: I have no financial interest in either company. But I do have experience writing technical marketing copy.)

As I said, after about 100 hours of use I noticed the air coming out of the WM2 wasn't so cool anymore. It seems like I had lost about %50 of the cooling effect. I got out my phillips screw driver, removed the four access screws, replaced the pad, replaced the screws and I got cool air again. I mention the access screws because this is another example of the uh... un-impressive design of Swampy's products. Could you imagine having to take out a screw driver to get to the gas cap of your vehicle? Or to replace the dust bag of your vacuum cleaner? Of course not. Once again my $50 shop vac is much better designed in this regard than the WM2. The swamp coolers installed on most homes have latches and those pads are only replaced once or twice a year! I call this sub-standard design.

Also, a mechanical engineer pointed out to me that screws going into plastic threads may not hold up to repeated use.
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Meanwhile, I built myself a swamp cooler out of a 5 gallon bucket and parts mostly from Amazon.com. The fan is a bilge fan, 4 inch in-line blower ($20). I used a small pump ($10) that puts out about a gallon a minute. 10 feet of 4 inch duct host ($20). The biggest cost was the roll of blue Dura-Cool pad I got from a local hardware store ($35). I now have excess pad to build several more of these things.

I tried aspen pads (made from shavings from Aspen trees) because they are cheap ($4.50) but I now have a combination of aspen and Dura-Cool pad which seems to work better than the aspen alone. The combined pads are now 3 to 4 inches thick. I can't say if the difference is the thickness of the pad or the material. The makers of Dura-Cool and other manufacturers claim their products are more efficient than the older apen pads.
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Also, I tried cutting a double thickness of the Dura-Cool pad to fit into the Swampy cooler. Works poorly. The MW line replies on 'wicking action' to draw water up into the pads. Part of the 'secret' of the MW2 is a small pad that wicks well. The Swampy pad appears to be a craft-paper design similar to that used by the most efficient designs on the market.

[jony101]

I built something that looks like the karkool 312 swamp cooler its based on the burningman design using the duracool pads and 2x 120mm delta fans. I used a 24 quart square plastic container to hold everything together.
I'm not sure if it's the most efficient design but I been using it every day for the past 3 months. In non humid days I can get 73 degrees at the exhaust, recently the weather is getting hotter and humidity has been high. Recent 85 degree day with 66 humidity I get about 78 from the exhaust. I usually never see any temp below 73 during the day. In morning or night it might get to 68 basically the same as outside air temp. I don't know about a 25 degree drop on temperature, but using the swamp cooler tables that measure outside temp versus humidty what I get in temp drop is almost what is on the table.

I have it in the rear of my astrovan and run it from 6 am to 6 pm, powered from a 240 watt solar panel on the roof. I like to hang out in my van during my lunch break, the swamp cooler keeps the rear of the van cool. Only reason it does is the entire rear of the van is insulated with 1/4" thick RTECH foam paneling, including a foam door separating the front driver compartment with the rear of the van. Rear temp never goes above 85 degrees with swamp cooler running, uninsulated driver area with sunshade and windows open can get over 100 degrees. I always park in the sun to keep the solar panel producing power.

I also have a 14" rv type roof vent with a vortex fan, which I used before I built the swamp cooler. I haven't used it much lately, in hot weather it just blows hot air inside the van. The swamp cooler feels like AC compared to the roof vent fan. After building the swamp cooler, I continue to perfect the design and even attempted to use the aspen cooling pads (but found them very difficult and messy to cut to size). I stuck with duracool so far and I'm still using the original pad for three months and it looks in great condition.

From my experience the swamp coolers do work if used in a well insulated vehicle with all the windows closed and only a small duct connected to the outside (on my van I installed a 6 inch vent duct in the side of the van). They will have no problem cooling a small area, I only use one fan (1.5 amps) on a regular day, hot days I might need 2 fans. And using flexible ducting to direct the air on you also helps on the hot days. Water consumption varies from 3 to 6 liters a day. I'm kind of curious to see if the celdek cooling pads actually work better than duracool or aspen , the only problem with celdek is the thickness and price (from what I see on the internet the cheapest go for about 60.00). But even a 5 degree drop in temp would be worth it. Maybe someone who owns a karkool can add to the discussion.

[Stumpalump]

I use the little Swampy cooler here in Arizona. It's tiny and it blows cool air. I have mine placed in front of a vent that draws in outside air and I run the Fantastc brand roof fan on low. The breeze from running both thru van is the trick along with it pulling in outside dry air. It's so hot here that any little bit helps. Its cooler sitting in the van than under a shade tree. Is it like AC? No. Is it a God send when it's over 100? You bet!

[jony101]

This is the swamp cooler I built using the celdek evaporator pad. It uses 2x 120mm delta fans, a brushless water pump and I even added a usb charger to charge my cellphone. With pump and both fans running it uses less than 2 amps. The celdek pad is more efficient than the blue duracool pads especially in more humid conditions, at least you can get 5 degrees cooler air. Every bit helps when its hot. The noise level is about 74 decibels, which is loud but I've taken a nap right next to this thing without a problem. I have used quieter fans but was disappointed by their airflow. In hot weather nothing beats the deltas for mass airflow, and you can live with the noise. I put foam around the exterior of the unit to try and decrease the noise level but it didnt work but the foam at least protects from occasional bumps. Trial and error and the building of about 5 different versions big and small finally got this final design.
The intake and exhaust ducts are standard sizes intake 6 inch and exhaust is 4 inch. This is so I can attach flexible ducting and extend the air where I want it. The flexible ducting can be duct tape to the ducts, not the best way to attach but fairly simple and secure.
The interior I have installed dividers to keep the water from splashing around when used inside a moving vehicule. This I learned the hard way when my van carpet got wet on my first design which had no divider.
I have used the endless breeze fantastic fan, and it does keep you cool just by blowing hot air on you which does work. But I havent used it in months, I prefer these celdek based swamp coolers when its hot, even in 60 percent humidity it does keep you cool.

These swamp coolers do work and that's from personal experience using these in the back of my van in very hot days. I can't comment on the swampys or karkools because I havent seen them in action but suspect similar performance but at higher price.
When I refine the design further I might put these on ebay for those who want a swamp cooler and prefer not to build one from scratch. It's not that hard to build but materials and tools might get expensive to build just one. It takes about a day to build one once you attain all the parts together.
The celdek pads have a cardboard type smell for the first few days but draining the water 2 or 3 times and the smell will go away.
These are based on the burningman design but with improvements so it can be used in a moving vehicule.

[jony101]

This is the latest version I have made, it is basically the same but larger it holds 1.75 gallons of water compared to 1 gallon of the smaller unit, it has a bigger celdek footprint but about same performance. The only major difference is this one has a speed control on one of the fans, this is mainly for when mass airflow and noise isn't needed like at night time. this has the same noise level as the smaller unit about 74 decibels.



The intake and exhaust ducts are the same as the smaller unit. I chose 6 inch intake because that is the smallest size you can use that wont restrict too much airflow going into unit. The 4 inch exhaust ducts I use because the 4 inch flexible ducting is easy to find.



the interior of the unit is exactly the same as the smaller unit, except I have more room to arrange things better. In the picture you can see the divider that separates the water area from the fan section area. The divider is what keeps the water from splashing around and leaking out the intakes and exhausts during normal stop and go traffic. Its simple but it works.
The wood paneling is just decorator tape I got at home depot, that is used to cover up the 1/4 foam insulation I used on the exterior of the unit. It makes it look better but this thing I built as a workhorse not for aesthetic reasons. And this one also has a usb 2.1 amp charge adapter, wouldn't build one with out it, its very useful item to have.
The only moving parts are the 2 fans and water pump which are easy to replace. The fans I used are computer server cooling fans which are design to run 24/7 so they well last a long before needing any replacement. This is based on the burning-man swamp cooler design using basically all the parts in that design except heavily modified for use in a moving vehicle.
As far as performance today the temp was 82 degrees, humidity was 36 and I was able to get 68 degrees at exhaust air. Performance varies but I always get some sort of temperature drop. The back of my van was nice and cool with just one fan running and the van parked in the sun. I'm very impressed with the performance of these swamp coolers especially with the minimal amp usage(about 2 amps). It's not AC but it does keep you cool.

[daveb]

Great write ups. If I didn't hate even mild temp, I'd build me a few of them. I like the idea of something like this as more of a personal nighttime cooler. Something better than just a fan would be nice. How long will it last at say 85-90* before it need water?

[jony101]

The small one can go about 3 hours before I have to add about 2 liters of water, the big one about 5 hours before I have to add another gallon. It varies but they rarely consume more than 2 gallons if used all day.
These are overkill for night time use in my area but on the few nights that where hot they work great with just one fan running.
The endless breeze fantastic fan I bought to backup these swamp coolers on hot days has seen very little use since I took it out of the box. Its a nice well built fan but wont replace my swamp cooler. Theres no comparison but the endless breeze would be a very good candidate to use in building a larger swamp cooler with it's sub 3 amp power usage and tremendous air output. Just need to find a larger container to install it in but for me the larger size might be too big to use in cramp areas.
This is a side view of both swamp coolers

front view

[stanw909]

You could sell them through the members classifieds here and cut ebay out. Either way,please keep us posted.

[LenS]

The goal w a swamp cooler is to use water not conserve it. It takes about 9000 BTU's of heat to vaporize a gallon of water. So if you are only consuming 1 gallon every 5 hours that means you have a 1800 BTU A/C unit.