Small / Desk Air Conditionner

[NaniSalmon]

Hi all,

 

Quite of an odd topic to post here but I'm taking a chance. Any one knows any decent small/desk air conditionner good enough to cool a bedroom? I already have an AC in the house but it doesn't quite reach my bedroom where my PC is. There are a bunch on amazon for like 50$ - 70$ but the promo/pictures look so cheesy I'm not convinced of the product quality. I don't mind having to fill it with water or somthin' as long as it's not something that needs to be EMPTIED(or anything as inconvinient as a window AC unit). My PC runs quite hot (70C-80C) when gaming so I'm trying to compensate a little but on that.

 

Budget of 100$ max plz.

 

Thanks all.

[Bitter]

They're either trumped up swamp coolers which only work in dry air and push humidity into the room and increases the apparent temperature (humidity makes it feel hotter than it is) or they're a peltier which gets hot on one side and cold on the other and so actually make the room hotter overall. What you need is a regular window unit or unit that ducts hot air out a window vent tube.

[SorryBella]

7 minutes ago, NaniSalmon said:

Budget of 100$ max plz.

Just get a huge portable fans with wheels and make it exhaust to a window. At that budget youre basically looking at inefficient "Portable AC" or fake AC that uses ice packs to cool the air.

[Roswell]

As said above, real air conditioning requires exhaust to the outside. Portable units exist that have a hose that goes outside secured by a plate you place under the open window.

[NaniSalmon]

2 minutes ago, Bitter said:

They're either trumped up swamp coolers which only work in dry air and push humidity into the room and increases the apparent temperature (humidity makes it feel hotter than it is) or they're a peltier which gets hot on one side and cold on the other and so actually make the room hotter overall. What you need is a regular window unit or unit that ducts hot air out a window vent tube.

Yeah... With the thermodynamics basics I have that's probably what I was expecting... I would have been surprised if there were some sort of moagic happening there. I can't fit a window unit due to the kind of window i have and also I ain't got no place for that. Well thanks for confirming my concerns about those things.

[NaniSalmon]

1 minute ago, SorryClaire said:

Just get a huge portable fans with wheels and make it exhaust to a window. At that budget youre basically looking at inefficient "Portable AC" or fake AC that uses ice packs to cool the air.

yeah I actualy have a big fan bringing in air for a better cooled room of the house and a small USB fan on my desk helping a bit.

[Bitter]

3 minutes ago, NaniSalmon said:

Yeah... With the thermodynamics basics I have that's probably what I was expecting... I would have been surprised if there were some sort of moagic happening there. I can't fit a window unit due to the kind of window i have and also I ain't got no place for that. Well thanks for confirming my concerns about those things.

Here's a 27 minute video explaining all the reasons they don't work.

And here's 17 minutes about why the single hose portable units suck.

 

[CerealExperimentsLain]

13 minutes ago, Bitter said:

They're either trumped up swamp coolers which only work in dry air and push humidity into the room and increases the apparent temperature (humidity makes it feel hotter than it is) or they're a peltier which gets hot on one side and cold on the other and so actually make the room hotter overall. What you need is a regular window unit or unit that ducts hot air out a window vent tube.

Yup.  From a physics stand point, you have to understand something: You can't 'make' cold.  You can only remove heat.  Your fridge?  It's removing the heat from the air inside and actually radiating that out, plus some additional heat due it not being a 100% efficient.  If you were to open your fridge to 'cool the room', that's a closed heat making circuit in your own kitchen.  It'll just make the room hotter.

This is why window AC units have to be in a window, they need to exhaust the heat.  Central air units are outdoors for the same reason, to exhaust the heat.  Portable AC units have one or two hoses that have to be window mounted to exhaust as well. Think of 'Heat' like a liquid.  There is no machine that makes 'dry'.  There are machines that cause evaporation, which just puts the water into the air as a gas instead, but the water is sill there.  For small amounts of water this works, same thing for small amounts of heat, you don't 'cool' it you really just 'dissipate it' so it's more spread around.  If your basement is flooded, then you need to pump the water out of the building.  Same with heat.

[Donut417]

22 minutes ago, NaniSalmon said:

window AC unit).

Windows AC is the best thing you can do, outside of a Force Air system that would work thru the same air ducting as your furnace. Assuming you have forced air heat. 

 

You may also look at a ductless system or Split system I think they are called. You will have equipment that needs to be installed outside and you have the conditioner unit installed in the room. The issue with these is both power and refrigerant lines need to be ran between the outside and inside units. 

[CerealExperimentsLain]

12 minutes ago, Bitter said:

And here's 17 minutes about why the single hose portable units suck.

 

I watched this video one summer and got rid of my bedroom portable unit that week.  The reason I had a portable there was that the window was not wide enough for a window AC, three of the four window panes could pop out but the exterior left side one, for some insane reason, is permanently part of the window frame and not removable.  So we cut it out with a sawsall. >:D  The window unit works sooooooooooooooo much better and uses less power to do so.

There's still the INTERIOR left side pane that is removable, so it's just not a double pane window on one side during the winter.

[Bitter]

32 minutes ago, Caroline said:

Watching those miniature I thought that channel was cringe, but surprisingly, it wasn't. Nice.

 

 

It's a good channel. His video on Brown is my favorite!

[BondiBlue]

34 minutes ago, Caroline said:

Watching those miniature I thought that channel was cringe, but surprisingly, it wasn't. Nice.

If you're only just now learning about Technology Connections then you have a large catalog of videos to go back and watch. They're excellent IMO, and he has a unique style of humor. 

[Mling]

what is your outside temp and what is your window situation? Are you in an apartment/house/flat?

[Donut417]

One thing thats pissing me off is that they dont make Window fans for small Windows. Everything thing I find needs a Window at least 25" wide. My windows are 21.5 inches wide. FML. Currently using a Window Fan that doesnt fit, I have it crammed in to one side of the actual Window and the other side makes contact with the wood casing around the window. Im only replacing it because its really dirty and compressed air cans dont work. The air compressor is buried in our damn shed, and Im hesitant to use Water on it because I dont want to short it out. 

[dizmo]

I think you already know the situation with the AC, so that won't work. You could use a portable unit and put the exhaust into a bathroom, and turn on the fan, but it'll be like a sauna if you need to use the loo.

 

You can also use a large bowl of ice behind the fan. It'll pull the cool air from the ice through.

[akio123008]

I'm in a similar situation. My bedroom is also quite hot in the summer, and sometimes sleeping in it can be afwul.

 

I try to deal with this problem by opening the windows as much as possible after sunset and putting a fan at full speed in one of the windows to get maximum ventilation in an attempt to cool it down.

 

Your best option is to find a way to get the air in the room to move (fans!). Moving air feels colder and is more comfortable. A simple fan can make a 35 degree C room an acceptable environment. 

 

also:

On 6/4/2021 at 3:03 AM, NaniSalmon said:

My PC runs quite hot (70C-80C) when gaming

How about you just leave that PC off and get the hell out of that room.

[Bitter]

Years ago when I live in a shitty apartment the AC went out during a heat wave, I'm on the top floor of a two floor unit in the middle of the row so I'm getting absolutely cooked by the sun all day and fans just are not cutting it, it's like 110F heat index and like 100F actual temp with terrible humidity, and in my apartment it was about 103-105F when I got home from work after the windows were closed all day. Well I didn't pay for water and the cold water was very cold. I hooked some hoses up from the utility sink next to the washer and dryer and ran water through an old car heater core at a slow trickle with a 100MM 110V fan behind it. It blew cold air and condensed humidity out of the air onto a plastic storage bin lid that I angled to drain condensate into the sink. It worked! I felt terrible wasting water like that but I was miserable and needed just a little something to make it bearable. I pointed the cold air at my bedroom so I could sleep a little, I couldn't have my bedroom window open at night because someone chain smoked under my window all night and cigarette smoke gives me migraines.

[CerealExperimentsLain]

8 hours ago, dizmo said:

You can also use a large bowl of ice behind the fan. It'll pull the cool air from the ice through.

The problem with the large bowl of ice is that your fridge/freezer actually produces heat in the process of cooling it's interior.  The heat it produces exceeds the heat it extracts from the interior due to inefficiencies.  So to make ice to cool your computer room, you're heating up your kitchen to an even greater degree than that which you cool the computer room.

 

To go back to my 'Think of heat like a liquid', it's like pumping the water out of your basement... And into your living room.

[dizmo]

1 hour ago, CerealExperimentsLain said:

The problem with the large bowl of ice is that your fridge/freezer actually produces heat in the process of cooling it's interior.  The heat it produces exceeds the heat it extracts from the interior due to inefficiencies.  So to make ice to cool your computer room, you're heating up your kitchen to an even greater degree than that which you cool the computer room.

 

To go back to my 'Think of heat like a liquid', it's like pumping the water out of your basement... And into your living room.

You're aware fridges are usually in kitchens, right? Doubt that's where his PC is. It also doesn't really use any more power, as it's already keeping the interior if the freezer cold. Most people have ice in their fridges. If you wanted to go even further you could just buy an ice maker, which produce next to no heat. You're grossly overestimating the amount of heat a fridge produces.

[CerealExperimentsLain]

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

You're aware fridges are usually in kitchens, right? Doubt that's where his PC is. It also doesn't really use any more power, as it's already keeping the interior if the freezer cold. Most people have ice in their fridges. If you wanted to go even further you could just buy an ice maker, which produce next to no heat. You're grossly overestimating the amount of heat a fridge produces.

A few ice cubes for drinks is not the same as attempting to produce enough ice to keep a room cool.  That said my point is more that your home is basically a closed loop, with solutions like this you're not really cooling things, you're just moving the heat around the house.  And any refrigeration device, unless it exhausts to the outside of the home, will produce at least as much heat as exhaust as it removes from interior of the unit.  So if you're producing enough ice to cool a room, well, that heat, and then some, is basically being created.

You're right that a fridge typically doesn't 'work very hard'.  If you keep it closed most of the time the condenser really only has to operate enough to maintain the interior temperature of a fairly small and insulated cavity. Though efficiency also declines as the ambient temperature of the room goes up.  But if we're now making lots and lots of ice to cool a room instead of a hand full of cubes to toss in your soda every few hours, that's more work for the fridge, that's more load that is far warmer than the target interior temperature that must be brought down below freezing.  In short, yes, a fridge usually doesn't put out that much heat, relatively, because it's typically 'coasting' and just trying to maintain a temp, but we're talkin about now trying to run it up hill and keep bringing things to a lower and lower temp.... All within the closed loop of a home.

 

I'm not saying 'Oh, this'll make your home a million degrees', I'm just pointing out that all you're doing is moving the heat to other locations within the same closed loop and introducing additional heat though inefficencies.

[dizmo]

1 minute ago, CerealExperimentsLain said:

A few ice cubes for drinks is not the same as attempting to produce enough ice to keep a room cool.  That said my point is more that your home is basically a closed loop, with solutions like this you're not really cooling things, you're just moving the heat around the house.  And any refrigeration device, unless it exhausts to the outside of the home, will produce at least as much heat as exhaust as it removes from interior of the unit.  So if you're producing enough ice to cool a room, well, that heat, and then some, is basically being created.

You're right that a fridge typically doesn't 'work very hard'.  If you keep it closed most of the time the condenser really only has to operate enough to maintain the interior temperature of a fairly small and insulated cavity. Though efficiency also declines as the ambient temperature of the room goes up.  But if we're now making lots and lots of ice to cool a room instead of a hand full of cubes to toss in your soda every few hours, that's more work for the fridge, that's more load that is far warmer than the target interior temperature that must be brought down below freezing.  In short, yes, a fridge usually doesn't put out that much heat, relatively, because it's typically 'coasting' and just trying to maintain a temp, but we're talkin about now trying to run it up hill and keep bringing things to a lower and lower temp.... All within the closed loop of a home.

 

I'm not saying 'Oh, this'll make your home a million degrees', I'm just pointing out that all you're doing is moving the heat to other locations within the same closed loop and introducing additional heat though inefficencies.

Cool, no. Comfortable for a person? Yes. You're cooling a single spot, not the entire room.

A friends dad did 10 buckets of ice a day. Room didn't heat up any more than any other kitchen I've been in. The load isn't enough to cause noticeable heat.

Same with ice makers. They make 25 - 50 pounds of ice with no noticeable ambient heat increase.

[CerealExperimentsLain]

2 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Cool, no. Comfortable for a person? Yes. You're cooling a single spot, not the entire room.

A friends dad did 10 buckets of ice a day. Room didn't heat up any more than any other kitchen I've been in. The load isn't enough to cause noticeable heat.

Same with ice makers. They make 25 - 50 pounds of ice with no noticeable ambient heat increase.

You can argue all you want, the point is quite simple, it will produce as much heat, and then some, as it does 'cold'.  This is simply the laws of thermodynamics.

[dizmo]

19 minutes ago, CerealExperimentsLain said:

You can argue all you want, the point is quite simple, it will produce as much heat, and then some, as it does 'cold'.  This is simply the laws of thermodynamics.