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1

Cages / Re: Active cooling (peltier cooler)

« on: July 02, 2011, 07:51:08 PM »

A swamp cooler is also called an evaporate cooler, you fill it up with water and then this water evaporates. As the water evaporates it turns from a liquid to a gas, this takes energy. The energy need for this transition comes from the air, causing cold (and wet) air to come out.

Most AC units and all refrigerators are compression coolers. They take a gas (something like freon) and compress it, causing it to get hot. The gas is then cooled by outside air to room temp, then let to expand. As it expands the gas cools and then is used to cool the room air. Messing with the internals of a compression cooler is a bad idea, you don't want a freon leak.


I just want to emphasize that I know about chinchilla heatstroke and this idea is more of an idea/experiment, I do not intend to use some unproven device to cool my chinchilla. I have a thermometer near the cage with the probe in the cage, and it will alert me if the temperature rises above 70 degrees.

2

Cages / Re: Active cooling (peltier cooler)

« on: June 30, 2011, 09:34:04 PM »

The way the house is arranged an air conditioner really wouldn't work, there is no way to discharge the hot air well. Swamp coolers don't have a hot discharge but raise the humidity and I've heard that chinchillas prefer dryer conditions.

A compressor air conditioner uses a lot more electricity than this little thing would. An air conditioner can use upwards of 2kW while this thing will draw just ~100 watts.

I can build this cooler for about 120-160$
25$ for the cooler element
45$ for the power supply
30$ for the thermostat
+ costs for the housing to put it in.

I think what we're going to do for now is try the refrigerated slabs, and if that doesn't work out then I'll try building this cooler.
Although I have a design problem I have to work through first...

3

Cages / Active cooling (peltier cooler)

« on: June 30, 2011, 02:26:00 PM »

Hello all, I'm soon going to adopt a little girl kit so I'm trying to get everything ready for her.
My biggest concern is keeping her cool. I live in California (near the coast) and it's the middle of summer in a house without AC. I've heard of people keeping their chins cool by using a marble slab that they chill and put in the cage, but this doesn't seem like a good solution to me. I would prefer an active solution, but I haven't been able to find any off the shelf solutions.

I'm thinking of solving this by building an actively chilled box, or at least a box with an actively chilled floor.

Now a traditional refrigerator is out of the question, the bulk and noise would be too much. But there are other ways to cool, like a peltier cooler.
A peltier cooler is basically a plate that you run electricity through and it cools one side and heats the other.

A friend of mine has a spare cooler (once used to cool a computer) that can easily move 70 watts of heat from one side to the other, and keep the cold side 60 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the surrounding area. (for reference I calculated that a chinchilla produces less than 20 watts, and probably less than 15)

Has anyone here ever heard of someone using a peltier cooler for a chinchilla? Is it even worth the effort?