home made becool/icebox/articair coolers? -- Has anyone tried an intercooler?

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pj500

Pre-takeoff checklist
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pj500
I'm curious, has anyone tried an inter-cooler instead of a radiator?

Would it work better/worse?
 
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I don't know what in inter cooler is but even just using a radiator, the air at the vent can get Super cold. I am working at getting sub freezing temps on mine.

I think the main issue with these things is just the volume of hot versus cold air. I built one last year that was pushing air 39 degrees at the vent. Was great for blowing cold air directly on you but not all that effective at actually cooling the cabin.

I just finished upgrading to a closed loop system where I can recirculate antifreeze, upgraded to 230 cfm fan (up from 190), and separate chamber for Ice so hot air is not coming back down on it. Added copper coil in the loop to further cool the circulated fluid.

Also with the closed loop, no water directly contacting the ice which means it should last much longer and I could use dry ice and get even colder air. Need to check the math and regs though to determine if it is safe / legal.

This will probably be the most efficient thing around but will probably still lose out to 100+ degree temps during taxi.

So far in playing with these, I haven't had any results I would rave about but it has taught me a lot about wiring (Read: Starting fires) and how far I am willing to go out of my way to avoid buying something that already exists to save a few bucks.

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Youtube has several different videos showing how to make them. It is much cheaper to build your own if you are capable and easily done for under $70.00.
 
Thanks. The premise of an intercooler is the air is run through the cooling container (looks like a radiator), instead of the water. It could sit submerged in the water, or just in the open air.
 
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Bryan, you don't want subfreezing temps. You'll plug the heat exchanger with ice. Common car A/C problem.

But I don't see how you can get melting ice below freezing anyway.
 
MAKG1 said:
Bryan, you don't want subfreezing temps. You'll plug the heat exchanger with ice. Common car A/C problem.

But I don't see how you can get melting ice below freezing anyway.
Click to expand...

You don't even want it too cool either. The problem is then you point it away from your face, and it probably will never cool the entire plane but rather just take the heat off so you want it pointed at you anyways. Since your fuel is very limited, you just run out of ice quicker. Volume could help, though.

On the other hand, I'm still wondering about the intercooler :).
 
MAKG1 said:
Bryan, you don't want subfreezing temps. You'll plug the heat exchanger with ice. Common car A/C problem.

But I don't see how you can get melting ice below freezing anyway.
Click to expand...

Was considering using antifreeze and dry ice.
I don't know how cold dry ice is and I don't know the freezing point of antifreeze.

Was guessing that combination might yield sub freezing temps. Still need to research.

I would guess the biggest impact I have made is 190 to 230 cfm. I don't think the temp has as much to do with it as the volume of air moved.


Edit: Google says dry ice is -109 and antifreeze will get to about -35 before freezing so not a great solution.
Still making this up as I go though :)
 
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I'd try some dry ice in a slurry if ice and water rather than handle antifreeze.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Was considering using antifreeze and dry ice.
:)
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You don't want dry ice. While colder than ice, it has a much lower heat capacity. That means it doesn't absorb as much heat as it melts, so it won't cool the cabin as well.
 
Anti-freeze will not freeze solid but will gel.
 
PPC1052 said:
You don't want dry ice. While colder than ice, it has a much lower heat capacity. That means it doesn't absorb as much heat as it melts, so it won't cool the cabin as well.
Click to expand...

The other thing that is funny about dry ice is when it touches metal, it vibrates and makes a high pitched squealing sound.

Well, throw a bunch of chunks on dry ice on those copper coils, and this terrible sound is emitted.

So benefits with this one will simply be higher cfm, longer lasting due to closing the loop and hopefully some additional few degrees having added the copper coil.
 
You don't want dry ice because it is frozen CO2...

On a different note. I wonder what it would feel like if I ran the cold water through tubing "temporarily" attached to the inside of my seat. Maybe that would work better than trying to cool the air.

Jim
 
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Kiddo's Driver said:
You don't want dry ice because it is frozen CO2...
Click to expand...

What's wrong with that? An airplane interior is generally pretty well ventilated.

However, I think it's overkill.

When my kid turned four, we made a volcano birthday cake. Since we were going to eat it, baking soda and vinegar was out. So was diet coke and Mentos. Water and dry ice are tasteless -- perfect. So, we embedded a cup of water in the top, and when the time came, dropped a few ounces of dry ice in, thinking that was "a little." It looked pretty cool, but it froze about 1/3 of the cake solid.

It's too cold. Forming ice will interfere with this.
 
What about adding rock salt to the ice like they do in ice cream makers?
 
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