Simple and Cheap Air Cooler With Computer Fans

This air cooler is a cheap and easy way to keep a room cool without wasting a lot of power. Useful for those summer days, The build only needs two computer fans(case fans) and a ice reservoir. The cooling is done by a series of two computer fans, one blowing air the ice chamber and another one taking the precious cool air out. It is not as efficient as a normal air conditioner or the HUGE ice chest coolers with a normal sized fan stuck in it. It uses the same concept, but it's like a smaller scale version of it. And did i mention you can run it off solar?

This build is rather simple and all the tools you need is a pen knife or hobby knife for accuracy or dremel for making the cutting process abit easier, marker for marking the cuttings, screwdriver, and something sharp that can poke holes for the screws, in this case a poker(?)

Materials:

Any container. (I had to finish a whole bucket of weird tasting ice cream for this)

One or two case fans. (as long you have one fan to push cold air out it's fine.) (old ones will work too!)

Fan mount screws. (I used two for each fan)

12v Power Supply (Any power supply will do. Bricks,wall wart or the actual computer power supply will do)

Large PVC pipe (OPTIONAL, for directing air the other way so the cold air does not circle around again.)

To prepare the container for installation of fans, trace their outline on the lid using the marker to cut out later. Make sure you have enough space. The container that I chose was long enough for two fans. If your container is small, you can always use one fan.

Once done, poke holes for the screw of the fan by using the sharp object. Then, cut the outlines to mount the fan.

Caution: Don't do this on your nice table, do it on your workbench or something metal. I used a broken CD drive for this.

Now, Add fans to the outside of the lid, and screw them though the mounts.

Just let it sit in the freezer til rock solid. Pretty self explanatory.

Plug into power source and bam, it's works. Cool air is being outputed. But it ain't rocket science, so kinda expected. A̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶p̶o̶i̶n̶t̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶m̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶s̶e̶l̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶n̶e̶w̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶t̶a̶g̶o̶n̶i̶s̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶F̶r̶o̶z̶e̶n̶.̶(̶e̶f̶f̶e̶c̶t̶ ̶w̶e̶a̶r̶s̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶a̶f̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶m̶e̶l̶t̶s̶,̶ ̶s̶o̶r̶r̶y̶.̶)̶

Well it's not much of a proper cooler, some improvements could make this more valuable/practical. Dry ice could be the next level. If you have any questions feel free to leave it in the comments.

UPDATE(14/3/2015)

About me running it off solar, maybe I'll document it.

UPDATE(11/2/2016)

Solar idea scrapped.

UPDATE(11/1/2017)

I'm back(after 2 years). Some minor text fixes. Also, considering making more projects.