Car Cooler
 

I was looking at how the Aptera Type 1 uses the solar panel to power the AC/Heat Pump even when the car is parked to keep the car cool and I had an Idea.

What if you took a cheap 12v solar panel and connected it to a somewhat large blower fan that took hot air from the cabin and blew it across the engine. You would use a larger fan than those things in the infomercials. The idea is that if you can keep the interior cooler, the AC will work less to get the car cool. Also by blowing the hot air across the engine, it could possibly raise the temperature of the eninge 1 or 2 degrees and help a little with efficiency.

The obvious benefit is that, you can get into a somewhat cool car.

What does everyone think, would that yield any real gains in fuel economy?

I don't know about the prospects of running more efficiently, but if you blew the hot air through a radiator with the intention of heating up the coolant, you might get faster warm ups (but only in the summer, really).

However, I would be very interested in the potential to keep my heat trap a little cooler...

Hm, definitely a very interesting idea. I am going to look into the solar powered heat pump. The weather here reaches almost 100F every day during the summer and that makes the inside of my car, even with the window shaders and the fact that I have a white car, it still gets up over 130F easily while I'm at work. One of these little beauties could keep it under 100F which would be very pleasant to step into

What I think would be great idea or home or car for cooling is the technology of the absorption refrigerator/freezer. Like they use in campers. It runs off an electric heating element, or off propane. Uses heat to create cold. If you could concentrate the heat to the boiler tank, it would be like free cooling. The hotter the sun beats down, the cooler it would get inside. Maybe it could be adapted to use engine heat too.

Your large blower fan would turn very slowly, and not move very much air :-)

I guess I should clarify that I would connect it to the car's battery, the solar panel would trickle-charge the battery and a micro controller would turn on the fan as needed. So, the fan would not always be running but, the power produced would be stored in the battery to power the fan in bursts.

I am not so sure that this would work, I was just looking to see what others thought and if they had any further ideas.

Well I have seen a solar powered gizmo that cools your car's interior by a fan exchanging inside air with outside air. I googled and found this: Heartland America: Solar Auto Vent SPV TWI-7001
They also listed one availiable at Home DePot their site was down for maint.

Just noticed that on the same page they sell a "Fuel Optimizer" magnet thingy.

Upon further research I found one on Amazon, and the reviews were not good. People said it was a piece of junk. The idea is good, but the one on Amazon was too small, and poorly built. The fan did not move air. I would say wiring a solar panel to your vehicle's blower fan might be a mod that could be worthwhile if...

The solar panel could be hooked into the system in a way that would power the blower, and the vents stay open with the car off, and the solar panel is big enough to turn the blower, and could be hooked in such a way as to not send electricity to the car battery and overcharge it. Yeah that is a lot of ifs, but if you covered all of them I suppose it would help.

Another possible way would be to wire the car's blower to the battery directly with a switch and solar charge the battery, but you would have to take steps to make sure that you didn't overcharge, or drain your battery.

Later,

Allan Greenblazer

I bought one of these gizmos at WALMART two years ago. It did not work right out of the box. What a POS.

taking a junk car plower fan and heter core box you could easly build this in your hatch or trunk and then pipe the suction side to the top of your cars roof,(you wan to take the air from the top as heat rises) then blow it out of the car .. the car should then suck in fresh air from the cowl vent.. it might just work .. youll need some decent powered solar cells those blowers take some decent power.

here is a 12v blower assembly.. draws 5.1 ampt , thats 61 watts.. 80 watt solar panels are $400+ bucks..
Surplus Center Item Detail

How about just cooling the driver's body instead of the entire interior of the car? I've been thinking about that lately...

Google 'Good Vibrations Motorsports' and use their search function to look up 'Kool Vest'. I've talked to a couple sportsman drivers who've used them.

I have also seen versions where a simple cloth vest has lined with 50ft or so of small diameter tygon tubing, sewn into the lining. Cold water is circulated through the vest by a very small submerged 12v pump that resides inside a lunch-sized icechest. a 32 degree vest might cool off your commute home

I could come up with an old phesant hunting vest, a cheap 12v RV water pump, and a used igloo or playmate cooler. Just need tygon tube and some no-leak quick disconnect fittings.