Homemade Liquid Cooling system
 

Soooo... long story short. Made a ghillie and its fucking hot. So, now I am making a liquid cooling system.

Waiting on water pumps (in the mail)
Have the hose already
Waiting on quick connect swivel connectors (in the mail)
Using a Condor Hydration pack and bladder
Sewing the tube onto a form fit Under Armour shirt
The motors for pumping will be held in a modified shotgun pouch on the outside of the hydro pack.
The pack once done will be filled with ice and water which then gets pumped through the tube on the shirt. Cost for extra parts (already had the shirt and condor pack) is around $20.

Quick shot of the bladder with tube connector and hose attached (This will be the water out portion. The water return will be at the top through the lid).

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7381/9...8051af31_c.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5500/9...e524175d_c.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5489/9...93f05bcb_c.jpg

wont the pumps be sorta....loud?

diaphragm pumps are surprisingly quiet

Nope.. They will be in a housing and generate less than 15db of sound.

Can't hear my PC's watercooling pump, it makes less noise than a single fan. And it's pushing 2100GPH...

carrying the extra weight of the water/ice(non-drinking I presume), motor/pump and power might negate the cooling provided. then there's the issue of humping the dead weight when the ice has melted and is pumping warm/hot water through the system. forget the fact you're tethered to that backpack...

Oh you people.
With the quick connects the minute I no longer have cold water cycling through, I pop them off and drain the system than shut it down OR go back to the cooler and get more ice :D

This is cool and a good idea. Just remember, the bigger the pieces of ice are the longer they last.
You can have the same mass of ice, but with a larger surface area it melts faster.
BUT
Even when the ice melts this could still work if done right. As long as you can pipe the water to somewhere cooler than your body it will work. Generally the air outside the suit is cool enough. You will just need a large surface area in this cooler place (heat exchanger) such as a long length of tubing coiled up or other sort of device. As long as there are no dark colours in direct sunlight to heat up the water further it should work fine.

While I salute the ingenuity I question how much cooling those tubes will actually provide; I can't help but feel you'd do better just drinking the ice water.

Liquid cooling vests exist. I am merely building my own because I can and because I don't want to spend the $300+ price tag for one.
The tubing will not be in any direct sunlight and will be tight against my body (sewn onto my Under Armour shirt). I plan on wrapping the bladder in light foam and something like a thermal "emergency" blanket to pocket in the cold and keep any heat out (including my body heat).

You could have lined a vest with those thin flexible ice-pack.

Or just cut air vents in your ghillie like I did.

I have done this but found it too warm. I run HOT because of medication I am on. I sweat my bag off in shorts and no shirt in this weather.
At any rate, I am building a ghetto version of this Cooling Vest

Interested to see your progress on this - please keep us updated. Like you.. I have to give up on airsoft when temps exceed ~80 deg F due to medication/health issues. Last time i went out, and aborted early, was directly attributed to inability to cool.

If you have success.. i know what my winter project for Season 2014 will be.

FYI if you freeze salt water it will reach significantly lower temperatures while remaining liquid. However, if your pumps aren't properly insulated they could freeze lol

Pretty cool idea. My concern is that, once the pump is turned on, your body might experience a large temperature gradient over a very short time frame. In other words, you might go from really fucking hot, to really fucking cold, really fucking fast. Perhaps something to consider.