Cool the person, not the air
Has anyone tried cooling the person (not the air) to save juice, especially at night?
I found this product but wow it's pricey! To add one to every bed would cost around $4000. It does however only use 80-100W vs 1800W or so for our roof unit:
ChiliPad
I'm thinking, could something like this be put together ala an Instructible?
* Put some ice/salt/water in a cooler
* Use a variable speed pump to circulate water through tubing on a mattress pad; Use multiple zones for multiple people
* Run a remote to the bedside so each person can control his temperature
Since it'd be a closed loop, the head pressure wouldn't be very high and you could probably get away with an aquarium-sized pump, and only use a few watts, maybe around 25W. As a bonus, you don't expose the person to EMPs. (My wife and I had weird dreams with an electric blanket and stopped using them. Found out later it was the EMPs.)
I am purchasing an ice maker anyway, so the only add would be the pump, remote, and cooler. Ice makers are more efficient than refrigerators for the same reason: You're cooling water, not air, which is an insulator. They usually use around 160 watts.
Portable ice makers produce around 1lb of ice per hour. I'm ballparking a bed cooler to need around 5 pounds? So 5 hours x 1.3A = ~6AH for the cooling, and for the pump 9 hours x 0.2A = 1.8AH. Call it 8AH total per person when including inefficiencies. Our RV can sleep 8 people, so we could keep everyone comfortable at night for 64AH. That's one battery.
However, to produce 5 pounds of ice per person x 8 people = 8 ice machines going, or at least 4 machines keeping a person busy for 10 hours. That's a lot of work. Maybe my estimate of 5lbs per person is high? Maybe there's a reason the ChiliPad is so expensive? :B
Your thoughts?
I found this product but wow it's pricey! To add one to every bed would cost around $4000. It does however only use 80-100W vs 1800W or so for our roof unit:
ChiliPad
I'm thinking, could something like this be put together ala an Instructible?
* Put some ice/salt/water in a cooler
* Use a variable speed pump to circulate water through tubing on a mattress pad; Use multiple zones for multiple people
* Run a remote to the bedside so each person can control his temperature
Since it'd be a closed loop, the head pressure wouldn't be very high and you could probably get away with an aquarium-sized pump, and only use a few watts, maybe around 25W. As a bonus, you don't expose the person to EMPs. (My wife and I had weird dreams with an electric blanket and stopped using them. Found out later it was the EMPs.)
I am purchasing an ice maker anyway, so the only add would be the pump, remote, and cooler. Ice makers are more efficient than refrigerators for the same reason: You're cooling water, not air, which is an insulator. They usually use around 160 watts.
Portable ice makers produce around 1lb of ice per hour. I'm ballparking a bed cooler to need around 5 pounds? So 5 hours x 1.3A = ~6AH for the cooling, and for the pump 9 hours x 0.2A = 1.8AH. Call it 8AH total per person when including inefficiencies. Our RV can sleep 8 people, so we could keep everyone comfortable at night for 64AH. That's one battery.
However, to produce 5 pounds of ice per person x 8 people = 8 ice machines going, or at least 4 machines keeping a person busy for 10 hours. That's a lot of work. Maybe my estimate of 5lbs per person is high? Maybe there's a reason the ChiliPad is so expensive? :B
Your thoughts?
