Cool growers in a warm climate??

[Pippin]

Looks like it would be a good ideea to make a bad insolated cabinet and use the AC unit to cool the room. LOL

[Magnus A]

Sorry Pippin, that is agains tha law of physics.
You create one cold side and one varm side in an AC unit as in a refridgerator (you have the varm element at the back on the refridgerator). This cost energy in the form of electricity and this is transfered to heat in the end. The energy summation gives cold = hot side then you add electricity that is transformed to a net heating.
This is a clasical physics exam question. Explain why the temperature in a room with an open refridgerator is going up not down!
/Magnus

[Ross]

Magnus, Think about this: If you were to set up a cooling cabinet where the actual condensing/cooling occurs and blow air through this into your orchidarium then back out of the orchidarium through an outlet, then you might avoid some of the condensate issue. The cold fresh air might help avoid condensate on the acrylic. Something to think about?

[Pippin]

I was considering the proper use of an AC unit (the back of the unit outside the room), to cool the room and use the thinest plastc I can get for the cabinet. I think it should work.

[Ross]

Actually, that is the most practical solution I have heard so far (other than my own "move it to the basement" approach

[Pippin]

I thought so.

[Kris]

Have you thought of building a swamp cooler and circulate the air through that? It would be quit easy to build your own with some water pumps and computer fans. This would as well keep the air from drying out. For condensation on the glass you could always use double pain glass.

[Ironwood]

The cooling unit from a portable cooler that plugs into a car would make a nice small AC unit and a thermostat could be added to regulate temp.

[Kris]

Ken I was thinking the same thing but then I realize I use that for beer.

I might play around with a swamp cooler soon; here are my thoughts on how I will build one. Take an old aquarium and some epiweb panels. I would place a few standing up in the aquarium. I would then take a pump and some garden irrigation supplies and turn the epiweb into a drip wall. Then I would make an air tight lid that had a computer fan at one end (sucking warm air in). This would then move the air through to the other side through the drip wall. The air would be cooled by evaporative cooling and circulated back up into the terrarium.

I have used swamp coolers like this in green houses and they work great, and the one thing I like is that they add some moisture back to the air. Another idea I had and will try out is to build a cloud forest planted terrarium. Much like how we use a stream or water fall to heat the terrarium for dart frogs I would cool the environment by building a little river where the water has been cooled before entering back into the terrarium.

[Magnus A]

Hi everyone.
We starting to build up quite an impressive collection of solution.
I find myself looking for potential problems, I am sorry for that and I do not want to be so negative. I find this discussion very intresting and the suggestions that has come up is great. To find out if a potential problem realy is a problem you have to test to see what happens. I just want to point out some pitfalls to look out for.

Ross, I would prefere not to puch cold moist air in large volume into my appartment, I prefere to circulate the air and controll the condensation and humidity.
Pippin, I did missunderstood the setup from the start, but just a comment is that the cold surface of the cabbinet will act as a cooling element an you may get condensate on the outside. If you could controll that, no prolem.
Kris, the swamp cooler is intresting, but I can see potential problems; it only cools as long as water evaporates from the surface, when the air circulates you will get a equilibrum were the water no longer evaporates due to the humidity in the air.

/Magnus