Ease Desert Air Cooler, Honeycomb

Details

A three sided honeycomb desert cooler for dry heat, and the page starts with what it will not do. Evaporative cooling works by putting water into the air, so it cools when the air is dry and it stops when the air is wet. Between March and June in Delhi, Jaipur, Nagpur or Gaya it takes 8 to 12 C off the air at the outlet and 3 to 4 C off a room. Once the monsoon arrives in those same cities, and all year in Mumbai, Chennai or Kochi, it adds humidity and cools almost nothing. It also has to be blowing at an open window or door: in a sealed room the air saturates and the cooling stops. Two numbers get inflated in this category and we will not inflate either. The first is air delivery, normally measured dry, with no pad or a dry one, which reads far above what the machine does when it is actually working. Ours is measured with all three pads wet and the pump running. The second is the comparison with an air conditioner. On a hot afternoon a 1.5 ton inverter split draws 1,200 to 1,500 W against this cooler's 190 W, which is where the ten to one figure comes from. Across a whole season, though, that same air conditioner uses 720 units over 1,600 running hours, which averages 450 W, so the honest ratio is nearer two and a half to one. Both figures are ours; only the first one flatters us.

• Air delivery 3000 m3/h (50 L), 3800 (70 L) and 4500 (90 L), all measured with the pads wet and the pump running
• Water use 4 to 5 litres an hour (50 L), 5 to 6.5 (70 L) and 6 to 7.5 (90 L) at 40 C and 25 percent relative humidity, so a tank runs 10 to 15 hours depending on variant
• The water you stop consuming as the humidity rises is exactly the cooling you stop getting. They are the same physics and there is no way to have one without the other
• 190 W, 220 W and 250 W total by variant, including the pump. About Rs 1.52, Rs 1.76 and Rs 2.00 an hour at Rs 8 a unit
• Pads are 100 mm cross corrugated cellulose honeycomb, resin treated, on three sides, removable and washable. Aspen wood wool is the cheap substitute that channels and rots inside a season, and it is regularly sold as honeycomb
• Pump is a 24 W submersible, 1800 litres an hour at 2 m head, behind a clip on side panel with a plug in connector: a five minute swap with no tools, at a published price
• Copper wound induction motor, 18 ohm winding resistance at 25 C, direct drive blower
• Ice chamber, castor wheels, auto fill float valve for a hose feed, and an empty tank cutout
• Spares held 7 years, on a spares bank bought with the first production run, a seven year supply clause with the maker, and the pad frame, louvre and panel tooling held in our name
• 2 years comprehensive, 5 years separately on the motor
• 54 dB(A) at 1 m on full speed and 42 dB(A) on speed one, measured in a room with a background below 30 dB(A). A desert cooler moves a great deal of air and it is not a quiet machine
• Left out: no glued panels, no sealed pump housing, no tonnage equivalent, and no claim that it will cool a humid room
• There is no Shuunnya service network. A claim is answered by sending the part, and the pump, pads and float are all owner fits. We do not promise a turnaround, because we cannot keep one yet