Soft Parts DIY Cooling System

[Vrogy]

So personal watercooling is neat.

There exist commercial personal cooling units- they basically run cooled liquid through a series of tubes sewn into garments.
One was posted recently.

I've googled around, and there doesn't seem to be a publicized DIY version, though seemingly all the components for one are

available. This surprises and delights me.

Specifications
-Cools a generic human unit
-Less than 25 pounds
-Less than .5 ft³
-Runs for a 3 hours (or easy battery changing)
-Is easy to build
-Costs less than 200$
these come with anything you stick on a meatsack:
-Non-Toxic (spills..)
-Comfortable
-Doesn't overheat
-Doesn't overcool

I see a few ways to go.
First, ice in the reservoir; probably won't last long.
Second, evaporative cooling from the reservoir. Might work well, requires a lot of tuning.
Third, unknown chemical concoction in a can. Compressed liquid nitrogen? Might make the pipes too brittle, have to cool the reservoir then pump it through.

My favorite is the evaporative cooling. Nothing exotic involved.
It'd need a high surface area heat sink thermally coupled to the piping system, and a fan blowing across it.
The easiest is probably ice in the reservoir.

Components
-Water pump
Low-voltage, small, quiet, high-flow and high-pressure are ideal
-Tubing
Thin-walled, flexible, durable. A thin plastic should suffice.
-Battery Pack
Probably 12V. NiCd or NiMH should suffice, Li-Poly or Li-Ion would be neat. Off-the-shelf R/C packs are ideal.
-Reservoir
Insulated plastic container, Camelbak might work. Cheap tupperware drink containers seem best now.

To attach the tubing to garments, you can just trace the route beforehand, then stitch it into place. The inside of a light under-undersuit would be a good place. Components in the backpack- the reservoir, the pump, the batteries- can be attached by ziptie, velcro, epoxy, tie wire, etc.

If we can make this happen, it would be a boon to anyone who wears a costume, or has to wear something uncomfortable in hot weather. I know I'd wear it a lot even without armor.. stupid Florida.

 

[jdevries]

The 'srsly' reminded me of this:

But back to serious business :

I'd like to see a person here pull this off. A (kind of) affordable personal cooling unit.

 

[pacbury]

might try this, oh btw, get the pumps that car, well car wishy washy, (the stuff that spurts onto the windscreen to clean) use one of the pumps for that

 

[flying squirl]

ide say oxygen tubing would be the best to use. it has small ridges running down its length on the inside so that it isn't easily blocked when folded. you don't want your pump becoming disconnected/burnt out cuz of a build up of pressure. :\

 

[LaughingCheese]

So personal watercooling is neat.

Ditto!

My favorite is the evaporative cooling. Nothing exotic involved.
It'd need a high surface area heat sink thermally coupled to the piping system, and a fan blowing across it.
The easiest is probably ice in the reservoir.

Oh I see, brilliant; wouldn't even need a liquid, just cool the air in the tubes and send it right along.

W00t!

Components
-Water pump
Low-voltage, small, quiet, high-flow and high-pressure are ideal
-Tubing
Thin-walled, flexible, durable. A thin plastic should suffice.
-Battery Pack
Probably 12V. NiCd or NiMH should suffice, Li-Poly or Li-Ion would be neat. Off-the-shelf R/C packs are ideal.
-Reservoir
Insulated plastic container, Camelbak might work. Cheap tupperware drink containers seem best now.

Thanks for posting this!

I really want to incorporate a personal cooling device in my armor but wasn't exactly sure how to go about it. One thing I was sure of was that the undersuit would need to have some sort of tubing sewn in..

Hmm, now how to tie the whole thing in...

 

[homsar66]

most of this can be aquired in an aquarium shop. I know they have a battery powered pumps and i've used silicon tubing from there before (great stuff, thin yet flexible and soft).

 

[kerotan 36]

I believe something along these lines was discribed in a Splinter Cell book. He uses dials built into his suit to dispurse cold or warm water throughout his suit.

 

[trintlord]

you could also look for images of computer liquid cooling systems, they work pretty much the same way.

 

[mumstheword]

this looks really cool, i also saw this one guy who was gunna make a bullet proof halo suit, and if ya put this in, then it would be a wonderful tool for the military to use g2g bye

 

[Shadow92fire]

no offense mums but to use kevlar, and all the other needed components to make it better than what military already has it would cost upward of $2-3000+ plus military is already working on a suit the has some 500,000 cameras and mini tvs to reduce to visibility of the soldier. anything we come up with they have something better but it is a cool idea of a buch of halo junkies making the next soldier outfit.

Shadow Dragon

 

[Deadguy]

Sorry if I missed it in the jargon being used, but I had an idea last night that might be useful.. What about a simple conduction system? Something along the lines of like 100% exposed wires that run up under the bodysuit and travel to an insulated pouch containing an aluminum foil wrapped Blue-ice pack?

In theory, your body heat would conduct up the wires and "battle" with the cold pack that's simultaneously cooling the wires? Sort of like a heat sink but with direct cooling applied to it to drop the wire temperature, rather than relying on convection.

To make it better, you get a couple of pouches in various locations that can be concealed in the suit, but are also on the wires.

Is that worth the effort? or do you think perhaps those pouches alone might be enough to keep you cool if you only unsulated the side away from your body?

The other method I considered is using a tube system, but having a bladder with one-way valves to circulate water.. (like your heart pumps your blood). Compress the bladder and the water is pushed out of a one-way valve. Stop compressing the bladder, and it refills with water from the other end of the system loop due to the vaccum you created. If 1-way tubing exists, that'd make the system even more effective.

If you put one under each heel, for two separate systems, (or the halfway point of the single system, to aid in the pressure shift) it should provide circulation as you walk... then use a blue-ice pouch or two (somewhere) to cool it.
I'm not sure how much water I can circulate through that method though.. Surely, over time it would make a complete cycle.. but enough to cool? who knows.

You could also do the same thing with a bellows system, pushing air, though I suspect that an airsystem wouldn't do you much good if the tubing itself offers too much insulation.

I'm in Southwest Florida, so it's something that needs to be addressed on my suit.

I thought about buying a straightforward cooling vest, but most of those appear to be pretty bulky.

 

[helios]

W00T! Go Fremen! Deadguy, that system you just described sounds pretty similar to the Fremen stillsuits from Dune. Although those suits didn't pump water to cool, just so you could drink it.

 

[Deadguy]

uhh.. is that good? lol
What do you think.. anything useful, or just a pipe dream?

 

[Xetrov]

i was checking out the premade cooling units, and they fit all of your points that this system should have.

Specifications
-Cools a generic human unit
-Less than 25 pounds
-Less than .5 ft³
-Runs for a 3 hours (or easy battery changing)
-Is easy to build
-Costs less than 200$
these come with anything you stick on a meatsack:
-Non-Toxic (spills..)
-Comfortable
-Doesn't overheat
-Doesn't overcool

cools - yes
less then 25lb - yes
less then .5ft³ - yes
runs for more then 3 hours - 3 - 6 hours
easy to build - just buy it
cost less then 200$ - about 199
non-toxic - yes
comfortable - yes
doesn't overheat - yes
doesn't under heat - yes

so it might be cheaper to buy one and mod it in to the suit

modding would be finding a place in the suit to put the pump battery's and the place for the ice which should all fit in the torsos with out much work.

 

[TheRob]

Where were these premade systems available at?

 

[Xetrov]

Coolshirt

i found it on this forum

Interesting cooling system

 

[TheRob]

Coolshirt

i found it on this forum

Interesting cooling system

Oh alright. That thing? Thought we were talking about computer watercoolers still. Heh thanks for the reply n help

 

[CommanderFluffy]

has anyone looked at how the astronaughts suits are made. they have a complete cooling and heating system that is completely independant. i will find the video it was on discovery. they use a fine fishnet mesh and have the tubes moveing in and out of the fabrick. try that system. and all heat exchange and cooling sould be on the sholders on the mc suit. one side is blowing hot air out (back of suit) and cold air intake (from front of suit)