Now that the summer heat begins to tighten, the air conditioners begin to operate at full power. However, they are very expensive appliances with great consumption and that create a greenhouse effect, so today we are going to teach you how to make your own home air conditioning using old PC fans and spending the least money .
We already tell you that the home air conditioning that we are going to teach you how to manufacture, although it is quite economic and cheap, does not have the same performance as a commercial air conditioner. Of course, if you do not have to withstand insufferable heat and you only need to cool off a little, this method will manage to cool much better than a simple loose fan, since it achieves that the air it expels comes out at about 12ºC in the best case (as long as you have done everything right).
Necessary materials
For this project you will need the following materials:
- Your tupper or plastic container that you can seal tightly. It is important that it be made of plastic for greater ease, and that it has a cover that can be put on and taken off. A pot of paint (obviously clean and empty) can also do if it’s big enough.
- A PC fan.
- A fan adapter for connecting via USB.
- Hot melt glue.
- A tube, if it is flexible better.
- Cutter, indelible marker pen, electrical tape and a compass.
- Ice.
How does this home air conditioner cool the air?
The premise is as follows: we will have the plastic container filled with ice. The fan will put air from outside into the container, the ice will cool the air and this, pushed by the fan, will go out through the tube much colder than it has entered.
It must be made clear that, as we indicated before, this system is not as efficient as “real” air conditioning. Keep in mind also that in the first minutes you will not notice much difference, but once it has been on for a while you will notice how each time the air comes out more and more cold.
How to make your own home air conditioner
The first step you should do is measure and mark. You must measure the circumference of the fan on the one hand, something that will be easy for you to use a PC fan since it will probably be 120 or 140 mm in diameter, and mark this circumference on the lid of the container with the compass (you can also do as in the following image and simply place the fan and mark with the indelible marker inside), just where you want to place the fan. Once marked, you need to cut that circumference and glue the fan to it with hot melt glue.
If you use a PC fan make sure to place it in the proper orientation so that it draws air from outside into the container.
When gluing the fan with hot melt glue to the cover, you must make sure that there are no slits or gaps through which the air could escape. To be 100% safe, at this point we recommend putting electrical tape around the entire perimeter of the fan.
This done, you now have to drill another hole, preferably also in the lid. There we will carry out the same process as with the fan but with the tube, which is where the fresh air will come out. We recommend that it be a flexible tube to be able to orient it where we want, or at least it is at an angle so that fresh air does not come out upwards.
Likewise, we must anchor the tube with hot melt glue and we recommend adding insulating tape so that no air escapes from the joint. In fact, in the case of the tube you can put part of it inside (not too much) and put glue and tape on both sides of the cap.
Once this is done, you simply have to fill the container with ice, connect the fan to a USB port and that’s it. In a few minutes you will see fresh air begin to come out of the tube.
Of course this project is subject to modifications: for example, if you have a large enough container you could put several inlet fans, or even one inlet and one outlet if you want. You can also use everything from small plastic containers to mini fridges. How to do it and its magnitude is up to you.