MTFCA Forum

Chill Well portable, rechargeable, cordless room AIR CONDITIONER in their Model T sedan ? They’re only $85 and this summer is shaping up to be HOT and dry... Just looking for recommendations. Thank you

Do not think for $85.00 it has life in it. Ice cream stops would be a better alternative.

Hank

This guy did it for $3.95. That’s what the spray foam cost him. He already had the major components.

Looks like Rube Goldbergs car!

To cool the air, it has to draw heat away from it. That heat has to go somewhere. It looks like the Chill Well dumps the heat out the back of the unit, into the same space it is trying to cool. I suppose if you point the cold side at your face, your face might feel cooler, but anybody on the hot side is going to feel even hotter than before.

Kind of like trying to cool your house by leaving the refrigerator door open. If you stick your head in the refrigerator, your head will feel cooler, but overall the room will get warmer.

I believe those are known as evaporative coolers. Basically just cycling water down filter media with a fan blowing air thru it. They have no heat exchangers like a traditional A/C unit so they shouldn’t make any extra heat. If they are any good I don’t know. But I could imagine it would probably blow cooler air at you if you got over heated. You would probably need one for each occupant. Iam not sure how it would keep up to a running T in high heat with the windows up. But hey nothing wrong with experimenting. Might be a life saver. Give us a review if you do!

Auto air coolers used to be a common sight when I was a kid. They were a big cannister type device that fit in the vehicle side window and were held in place by the window. You put water, or water and ice in them and they had some kind of pad-like lining that absorbed the water. The road draft or a small fan would push air through the unit and into the car. They probably worked very well in Arizona and West Texas. They never worked very well in more humid areas, and I doubt if one would be much good in South Texas unless you kept putting ice in it . Dry air and higher elevations aided evaporation, and thus cooling. I think these may still be available somewhere. Old ones most all limed-up and rusted away years ago. If you can find one, you could probably install one on a T sedan or coupe. Driving 20-30 MPH with one in the passenger side window and the driver side window rolled down about an inch or so would provide a cool cross-draft.

Try searching 'auto evaporative cooler" or "auto swamp cooler". The devices I am thinking of look sort of like a small jet engine attatched to a vehicle's side window. I foound a bunch of pictures of different ones installed in various old vehicles by searching "auto evaporative cooler" on DuckDuckGo.

Any evaporative cooler requires an outlet for the air passed through it. To function well, the cooler must have outside air available, and a window or vent open somewhere in the enclosed space being cooled to allow that volume of air to escape. Otherwise, the humidity in the enclosed space goes sky-high and cooling effect is lost. Evaporative coolers need to pass fairly large volumes of fresh air to be effective.

Gentlemen:
the old evaporative coolers for cars did work well here in dry Colorado ... usually put in the front passenger window and would open a rear window just enough to get a flow thru effect ... would go thru several gallons of water a day ... always an optimist ...Gene French

The ChillWell is a small evaporative cooler. It could not be expected to work well in a humid environment unless you put ice in it. It would not work well in a car under any ordinary circumstance. It would have to have a very powerful fan to do much cooling in a car, even at altitude in a dry environment. These devices appear to be intended to cool a small area, such as a person's desk or small work area. To be effective, a dry, ventilated environment would be a necessity. Water would need to be replenished frequently. Adding ice would increase cooling effect temporarily, while increasing cost substantially. The window mounted type auto cooler could be effective in a closed Model T under some conditions. As long as the car was moving at a good pace, it might do a good job in a dry environment. Powering a high volume fan in a Model T would be problematic with any stock Model T electrical system. Without a high volume fan, any evaporative cooler would be near-useless in a stop and go traffic situation. In a hot humid environment, like Houston or Miami, you'd get very little net cooling effect. A window type unit might be of some use in a lowland humid environment if you were out on the open highway and moving at a good rate of speed.

Have you tried one of these? 1941 Plymouth, Arizona desert. It was in the right front window. Mom may have gotten a little cool air, as she was sitting right beside it pulling the strings to keep the cloth wet. But my little brother and I, riding in the back seat, were dying of the heat.