Cheap DYI water cooled A/C unit!

If your having issues with your temps and your grow space isn't too large, this might be your solution. I was considering a stealthy window intake, but after a little research, I'll try this out first. I'm going make a few adjustments to fit the material I have available, which should make this "build" 100% free and ridiculously simple!

http://m.instructables.com/id/Portable-12V-Air-Conditioner---Cheap-and-easy!/

This is basically it, but not really. I'm going to make a 6" hole in the lid and fit my duct fan in and seal it. Then I'm going to drill a few 2" holes around the upper half of the sides for air flow and feed it directly into my 54"X54" tent. Temps dropped about 2 degrees, which is ok, but I know I'll get better results with a more sealed/controlled environment. I'm currently at 72.5f at 750kw which is awesome, but I'm turning up the lights to 1000kw in the next couple days and I know temps are going to rise quite a bit.

This is version 1.1... Still isn't complete. My dremmel didn't felt like working for very long before quitting on me. I didn't get to cut the intake holes, but the fan and ducting are in place and it works. We'll see how well though when i turn up the lights to 1000kw. I'm keeping the lid cracked to allow for airflow in the meantime. Instead of using a water pump and radiator, I replaced them with a 8" long section of ducting that hangs right above the ice and water. I'm not certain how this will compare to the unit in the link, but I couldn't find a small enough heating coil... I guess I could try using copper to make my own, but I don't think there's enough surface area to see a worth while difference over my tweaked ultra minimal version.

Let us know what that does to your humidity.

What's your entire set up? I was running at 78-84 with my 1000 MH. I have a scrubber that sits at the bottom of the tent and I routed 4" ducting from the output to right over the tops. I left enough ducting so that it's adjustable. With that, I'm running right at 72-78 now.

Common sense is telling me that since the scrubber is at the bottom it's pulling cool air up to around 3/4 the height of my tent, it mixes with the hot air and lowers overall temps including what's getting vented out the top.

I guess all I'm saying is that from what I've seen, you could probably do a fan, whatever size, rigged up at the bottom with ducting that exhausts at the mid-top of the room and get the same result. Cold air falls, hot air rises... mix it all together... lol

All in all I think you did a great job here to meet your needs. I always like seeing home grown gadgets... I have a few too.

Was just thinking, I'd throw some rock salt in there and get that thing a solid block of ice. Probably last a little longer.

I have a 54X54X84 Sun Hut XL tent with a 1000w Hortilux HPS lamp, a 6" 400 CFM in-line Active Air fan, 160 CFM booster fan and a 420CFM Can-Lite carbon scrubber. My temps right now are around 74f @750kw. I'm going to turn up the lights to 1000kw tonight and see if it'll stay below 76f. The DYI A/C has made a difference for sure... I'm thinking around 5 degrees!

Oh yeah, the RH went up a few ticks as well, but not too crazy though.