My air conditioner mod

[Krusty]

Figured I'd let you all know about my most recent endeavour. You see, we have this computer room. The window to the computer room faces the front of the house. We have no air conditioner. Therefore, it's friggin hot. Unfortunately, my girlfriend didn't want an in-window air conditioner to be stickin out of a window in the front of the house to make everything look all ugly. So the alternative was to make the air conditioner look ugly INSIDE the house.. . .

. . . and boy did I ever make it ugly. . .

So here's what it looks like from the front of the house now
http://ieng9.ucsd.edu/~mjordan/ac2.jpg

and here's what it looks like inside
http://ieng9.ucsd.edu/~mjordan/ac.jpg

As you can see, I made some shrouds for the ac vents out of wood and used dryer hose to duct it out of the house. I have 1 big shroud on the back with 2 intakes and 2 small shrouds on the sides with 1 exhaust each.

The first problem I came across upon piecing this all together was that the fan on this air conditioner is apparently quite lacking. In fact, after hooking everything up and running it, it almost felt like the only hot air exiting the ducts were due to convection. So I took a week long break and ordered 4 120mm fans and a 12vdc power supply from mpja.com. I stuck those directly on the window vents to facilitate the airflow.

Everything started working wonderfully. The only problem was that the top of the air conditioner would still get rather hot as I was blocking one vent on the top and a lot of that heat was passing back into the room. My solution there was some insulation tape, which you can see on the exhaust vents and underneath the printer. Well, it turns out that the A/C is now getting a bit too hot again, so there is one more mod to go. I need to put one last shroud on the top to let the trapped heat escape. Once that is through, everything should work nicely.

Just thought I'd provide some pics of my little project and some helpful information for anyone else that may want to do this.

1. Buy extra fans to increase the airflow through the hot side of the air conditioner.
2. Do not block any vents, no matter how small they are --especially the vents on the top.

[JDXNC]

Nifty! thats also a good solution for people who's windows might be too small for a window AC.

[FizzledFiend]

um around here North Carolina the humidity is so high that AC units condensate something awefull. In fact the AC window unit I use I had to use a special rubber plug for drainage. I am not sure of your location, but I was wondering what you plan to do about the water buildup from condensation?

[Mark620]

we would die in the summer if we did not have AC...or at least think we would :p

[DeViL_909]

Yea i hear you on the condensation in NC. Mine is horrible. I actually ran a pipe outside for drainage.

[Drec]

so when ya gonna duct one of the vents to your case?!

[Krusty]

Yeah, this AC has a rubber plug in the back. When I built it, I did not think about that problem. Being in Southern California, it doesn't tend to be really humid really often, but there will be condensation. This particular AC unit has a fan with a plastic wheel around it that is used to pick up water from the drain pan and spit it back out the back to further facilitate the cooling. So hopefully an overfull drain pan will not be a problem. If it does turn out being a problem, it's nothing a little silicone sealant, a rubber tube, and a little bag can't handle. Air conditioners can have catheters too.

As for ducting my computer, don't think I didn't think about that. My system is already water cooled, so I'm content with its performance for now. What really crossed my mind was trying to figure out a way to decrese the active heat load in the room so the air conditioner can keep ME cooler while I sit there all day. I had thought about adding another intake and exhaust so my computer doesn't contribute any extra heat, but I cancelled that plan pretty quickly when I remembered that the days down here in the summer can be between 85-105F and I don't want that fresh, 100 degree outdoor air to be getting pumped directly into my system.

[Moony349]

Duct the AC directly through your rad:)