How To Keep Your Tent Cool While Camping | DIY Air Conditioner

How can we get the tent colder? Comment down below! Thank you all for watching!!!

Also helps to place an emergency space blanket tarp over the tent to deflect the sun, during the day.

Use 2 inch pvc pipes and elbows to create a folding labyrinth of pipe work inside your cooler. Each end of the pipe should project out of your cooler’s long length. Using a 12 volt computer fan at one end to drive the ambient air through the pipe network, you load up your cooler with ice cubes and in a few minutes you have nice chilled air coming out of the opposite end. The benefit is the warm air never touches the ice surface and the ice lasts much, much longer. Even when fully melted the cold water still chills the pvc ductwork and any air pushed through it. This is an old undercover surveillance vehicle trick for long stakeouts in hot cars and vans.

Great for when I'm camping next to an ice machine.

Putting water and salt on ice is actually really smart, because firstly, the water-ice mixture will always retain a constant temperature of 0 degree Celsius, due to heat transfer during the solid to liquid state change. Also, salty water has a lower freezing point than pure water (which is the reason why salts are used on roads in winter to prevent ice from forming). This further reduced the mixture temperature from 0 to below 0, and heat is absorbed from the air during the process. The colder mixture temperature resulted in much colder air being blown out, which accelerated the cooling of the tent :D

I have a smaller version of this for my AZ shop. I use block ice (as it lasts WAY longer) and a styrofoam barrier between the ice block and the lid. I learned if you put AZ heated air directly across ice, it won’t last. The styro sheet is 2” from the shorter walls and it makes it all work much longer.

"It's for the wife and kids".. 👌 sure buddy.. sure.... 😄 Great idea for a video bud, keep these COOL ideas coming!

After reading the comments, even if there are better designs, the fact that it was pumping out 40F air AND it lowered a tent that isn’t insulated in direct sunlight over 10+ degrees is a great proof of concept. Love to see a video with a well-insulated YETI cooler and different pipe design and block ice. Be interesting to see how more effective that would be

You forgot to mention the 4th key element, a power source. When you are out in the woods camping, there is no power unless you drag a generator or batteries charged by solar.

You want a smaller out vent than the fan blowing in. That way you get more force blowing out

Hey buddy your friend manny from Savannah Georgia here , CANNOT TELL YOU HOW MUCH THIS VIDEO MEANS TO ME LOL , finally a cheap way to go camping, and stay cool at bedtime, thank you soooooooooo much, 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

I have some USB charged battery powered fans that would work while camping , for me I have a couple power systems that can run a USB fan for days on a single charge . Might be a fun addition to the family camping gear , I wouldn't use it myself when I am out with just me and the dog but when we all go out I'm sure a couple people in the family would love it . I would probably use a combination of large ice blocks plus cubed ice , maybe even put a couple diverters on the lid to increase the distance the air has to move over the ice before exiting at the vent . I've done something similar in the past by just opening the ice chest with blocks in it and pointing a fan at it but these days battery powered devices are much better than they used to be so a dedicated device isn't out of the question .

Thanks for the video. It's especially good to see the numbers not just your thoughts. I do think some of the other designs might work better. Also, if you have the prep time, freezing salt water in milk jugs or 2 liter bottles works really well. last longer and offers more surface area to cool the air. And they can be refrozen.

Super considerate of a project. Also it looks great with the drier vent. Temps don’t get that hot in NY but a swamp cooler with some frozen water bottles inside of it would be a really great idea for summer beach camping

I made a portable air conditioner for a feral cat a couple of years ago because it was so hot here in Florida. I use the Styrofoam cooler and a small fan even smaller than the one you used. I basically did the same method, however I used Frozen gallons of water. It brought the temperature down on the outside from 100° down to 72 degrees on the output. It kept her nice and cool until the sun went down and she did her thing after that. But every day around 4:30 she would show up just sit in front of the air conditioner and cool off. What I'm getting at is frozen bottles of water worked a little better than ice for me

I built one several years ago. Worked great! I was actually cold in the middle of the night!

You can also freeze gallon jugs of water and put in front of fans. The ice is thick and it takes several hours for it to melt. I had 3 fans and 6 gallons of ice and it was. Oil all night. I live in fl so the outside temp was 98 and I closed my room off. My central unit went out. I survived for 3 nights.

We might have to try this in our bus with solar-powered fans. Definitely would add a fan on the vent side.

That worked pretty well later in the evening. The design options there are endless. I'd love to see a v2 video! Keep up the good work Kenny.

I have learned a lot of new ideas from the video as well as from the comments. Thanks everyone for sharing. Finish Well!