There's gotta be a better way

[orange4boy]

I believe the correct term is soooper geeenius.

[Shifty]

I have 2 I ideas that might help.

The first is a 2 tubes filled with some sort of desiccant you can push through air through. While one has air from the interior of the car going through it the other has hot air passed through it from the waste heat of the engine. Not exaust just heated air. This will dry it relative to the local humidity. When one is saturated then the air flow switches and once the new hot dry tube comes down to local temperature interior air is passed through it.

If you can be near a outside plug then a very small ac unit might be used to precool your vehicle using grid power. That will help reduce that initial heat blast.

[EVDRVR]

Here is the product info for the window tint I had put on my vehicle.

Made by Madico and it was dealer installed. Tint is their ONYX 35

Have had it in since 12/07 and so far I'm very happy with it. I didn't lose much night visibility at all and the heat rejection is very noticeable. Well worth the 180.

Whoops! Guess the attacher grabbed a big file will be curious to see how that turns out. Still figuring out the how to on this forum.

EVDRVR

[EVDRVR]

OK, the small reject print says 127 kb didn't see that until it was gone.

Can do.

EVDRVR

[WheresMyGas]

Originally Posted by Daox

Amazon.com: Wagan Universal-Fit Air Circulating Ventilated Seat Cushion: Automotive

Had it. It's better than nothing. It's only a few degrees. After a year the foam that leaves a gap(for air) broke down and now can't reach the upper back. The foam now creates dust and blows out of all the vent holes.
Hot= still sweating
warm = feel comfortable
cool = feel chilly

[Tango Charlie]

Thanks, WMG.
So it's a porous foam that the fan forces air through?
Bummer that it breaks down after time. Guess you'd have to consider it a wear item and replace it when it started breaking down. Sounds like you used it year-round. If I only used it during summer months, maybe I could get two seasons out of it.

[Tango Charlie]

Shifty, keeping the humidity low is key to being comfortable in the heat. I like the 'outside the box' thinking...

[hondaworkshop]

Originally Posted by WheresMyGas

Had it. It's better than nothing. It's only a few degrees. After a year the foam that leaves a gap(for air) broke down and now can't reach the upper back. The foam now creates dust and blows out of all the vent holes.
Hot= still sweating
warm = feel comfortable
cool = feel chilly

Some seat covers I've seen for $10 at autoparts places have springs inside them... very long 3/8" coils, laid sideways inside as a supportive matrix. You could cut that old thing open, dissect the foam, and transfer over the springs from one. It would provide good airflow.

[jdub]

Thermoelectric couplers (or peltiers as they are sometimes called) use the Peltier Effect to heat pump (by consuming a small amount of electricity) temperature from one place to another. The great thing about peltiers is that depending on the orientation of the voltage, they can cool AND heat within the same setup.

peltier based personal refrigerators have been around for several years, and there are several patents for using peltiers as a "personal heating and cooling" solution. Several new luxury cars are also coming with these units as options.

I believe this is where the solution to the problem lies. The portable peltier based refrigerator that I have runs off 12v, consumes a nominal amount of wattage such that it can be used via an accessory plug and gets the internal temperature down into the 30s when switched into cooling mode.

Perhaps a seat cover containing 2 large peltiers with the leads connected to an accessory plug (with a switch to change from heating to cooling) would possibly be an ideal personal cooling solution for this.

While this will not cool the entire cabin temperature, most of the heat and sweat you produce when inside a car occurs along the contact point of the seat. Turning that contact point into a cooling plate will help you feel cool even if the cabin temperature is in the 80-90s (which can even be accomplished on the hottest days by ventilating the cabin as soon as you get in by driving the first few miles with the windows open.

Seems like the perfect solution to me. I saw a story in one of the street rod magazines a few years back about a kit for rods to do this because they are most times very cramped in terms of retrofitting an under dash unit. I have spent some time looking to dig up that tech article but have not had luck yet. I believe it was either Street Rodder or Rod and Custom...

Anyway, I will keep looking but I wanted to mention this so others could investigate/evaluate as well since it provides all seasons comfort for nominal electrical consumption.

[Bicycle Bob]

The trouble with using Peltier junctions in the seat is that the heat has nowhere to go, and now there is more of it. If you are going to have to ventilate the seat anyway, natural evaporative cooling may be sufficient. If not, there are more efficient ways to pre-cool the air by a factor of four or so.
I'll be investigating the efficiency of just compressing air and cooling it back to ambient, or perhaps adding evaporative cooling, and then expanding it again to provide a flow of cold air. Just using a 12v tire inflator would probably not be very efficient, but it might concentrate the cooling effect enough to make up for that, and offer a savings over whole-car cooling.