My first-gen Insight wasn't equipped with air conditioning. There are lots of things you can do to stay cool instead of A/C, like keeping a sun shade in the window while parked, driving with the blower fan on or a window down, dressing in athletic gear to wick the sweat to its surface, painting your car white, and tinting your windows. But sometimes, that's not enough. The last time I took an 8hr trip in a 100°F car, I ended up with a minor case of heat exhaustion. Though to be fair, that was in May, and I was still acclimatized to winter.
This time, before setting off on a 1500mi round trip to Hybridfest, I rigged up a simple, effective cooling system:
I love my icewater-cooled seat cover! I cut an old wool blanket so it would slide over the headrest and cover the back of the seat. There's 14' of vinyl tubing sewn on to it, and a washer fluid pump running to a cooler of ice water. Unlike A/C, you can use it in addition to all the aforementioned cooling methods, which gives it a huge efficiency advantage.
The only pump I could get in time for my trip was a washer fluid pump. I run the pump for four seconds to fill the seat cover with cold water, then I let it sit until my back no longer feels cool. That could be anywhere from one minute to fifteen, depending on sun, wind, and humidity. I left the hoses long enough to reach my trunk, but the cooler fits nicely in the passenger seat and holds my gatorade.
The only time it I was uncomfortably hot was in a construction zone near Chicago where traffic was moving 0-20mph, so having the window down was only intermittently helpful. It was 99F and 65% RH in the car, and the ice water wasn't enough to keep me comfortable, so I had to sweat it out until I got back up to speed. I can only imagine how sweltering it would have been without the ice water.
I used about 25lbs of ice on a very hot day during the 8 hour trip to Indiana, 10lbs on the 6hr trip to Wisconsin (didn't turn the system on until I got to Chicago), 20lbs from Wisconsin to Indiana, and 10lbs from Indiana to Buffalo (85°F, partly cloudy, windows up, excellent gas mileage, very comfortable).
If you don't mind fussing with ice, or if you have a long trip coming up, I highly recommend this mod.
I liked how you did this and ever since seeing it at the Green Drive Expo and how you set it up and used it, I've been thinking of doing something similar.
My plan is to take a cooler, use a similar pump used intermittently but make it a sealed system with copper tube coiled in a smaller cooler that I can just freeze a few large ice chunks entire cooler and have the sealed system circulate the water through similar lines that you are using. This way I can put more ice versus water quantity and have the coil towards the bottom. This would allow me to carry a smaller cooler, smaller quantity of ice and water and since it could be a solid chunk of ice, hopefully would last longer for the smaller capacity of ice/water mix. I have air conditioning but I can't even maintain lean burn at 50mph with it and so I just simply haven't used it. I cycle it once every couple of weeks to keep things functional but that is about it. I shall soon mimic your aero mods too but I won't be paining my car directly or making the changes permanent but I will not use tape either. I'll make a thread on that when I get the chance to get a start on it.
@MN: I hadn't thought about a copper coil in the cooler. That would save me from having to prime the system (washer fluid pumps are not self priming). But if you let it sit, the water in your coil will freeze.
@MT: There's a guy on Instructables or someplace who cut up the lid of a cooler and installed a few 12cm fans. He says it provides a nice, cool breeze. Unfortunately, it's also a wet breeze.
The problem with cooling the entire cabin is you've got the windows up and you're working against the same amount of sunlight that turns your car into an oven when you park without a sunshade. Ice consumption, or fuel consumption in the case of A/C, will be very large.
In an ideal world, I'd have an electric A/C compressor off an Accord or Civic, with a R134a-to-water heat exchanger for an evaporator. The water would be plumbed through one or both seats. You'd see modest electricity consumption, you could still use the blower and the windows to stay cool, and you wouldn't need to deep cycle ice cubes. And yes, you'd need to drain your seats in the fall and refill them in the spring.
@MN: I hadn't thought about a copper coil in the cooler. That would save me from having to prime the system (washer fluid pumps are not self priming). But if you let it sit, the water in your coil will freeze.
In an ideal world, I'd have an electric A/C compressor off an Accord or Civic, with a R134a-to-water heat exchanger for an evaporator. The water would be plumbed through one or both seats. You'd see modest electricity consumption, you could still use the blower and the windows to stay cool, and you wouldn't need to deep cycle ice cubes. And yes, you'd need to drain your seats in the fall and refill them in the spring.
I thought about the water in the coil, my first thought was 'I *could* use antifreeze or a very thin oil, but I quickly dismissed this idea because a leak would destroy anything that got the spray. Then I thought I could design a system that cycled on a basic electronics timer using a MOSFET or a relay and that way as long as I didn't unplug it, I wouldn't have to bother myself with the thought of it freezing too much or with concerning myself with cycling in the cold water.
R134a to water exchanger seems overkill to me, big, heavy, massively oversized cooling capacity. My thought is to use a small peltier cooler to do the same job. There are 12v coolers/refrigerators that you could put a small sealed container of water inside with sealed tubes running out and it would keep the water cold, no ice filling needed(could be used daily), be silent or at least very close, lightweight, and relatively small. It would use less power than an refrigerant-based cooler but more than a pump circulating ice water but either way much better than cooling the entire car via any method.
Wow..... When I use to depend on a powered wheelchair to get around I had a similar setup. I had a cooler that you plug into 12 volts and it stays cool or warm.
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One inspiration for the seat cover was a liquid cooling vest as used by some militaries. Here's one that was demonstrated to keep subjects doing physical work for 100 minutes in a 45°C (113°F) environment without a rise in core body temperature.
Cobb, I'm glad to hear you got your mobility back. Was your setup thermoelectric? I thought about Peltiers, which don't require you to change out the ice every day, but the cost is prohibitive. Also, how would I cool the hot side of the Peltier? A finned heatsink inside the seat? :-P
"I thought about Peltiers, which don't require you to change out the ice every day, but the cost is prohibitive. Also, how would I cool the hot side of the Peltier? A finned heatsink inside the seat? :-P"
It depends on how much 'cost prohibitive' is. There are small dorm-room style refrigerators that use Peltier coolers to operate that go for under 50 bucks. The coolers I think might be around the same price for a small one. I'm not sure how well it will be up to the task but it would be a decent trial and error setup if I tried it. The heat coming off the Peltier wouldn't be a big deal with your window-open drive like you did for Hybridfest. I'm thinking with my full-speed vent on that even though the interior temp is slightly higher, the tubes should keep me cool enough to not be too concerned.
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Icewater-cooled seat cover.
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