Need ideas to passively cool a bedroom.

[infrared 3]

Last summer my room that serves as my "control center" became too uncomfortable during the peek of hot Texas summer temperatures. The house has central cooling with an (imo) over-sized 2 ton AC. The room is situated on the west wall of the home. I have several computers with multiple (lcd) monitors and most of them remain on to perform routine task. Relocating them to another room(attic) and routing cables is not an option. The main heat source is a 37" lcd and an aging media center pc. There is also one other desktop and 2 laptops plus a small netbook in the room. The laptops and netbook rarely are used in the bedroom except to charge.

 

I need ideas on how to cool the room without incurring too much expense or using more electricity.

I guess I should start by monitoring the temperatures. hmmm launchpad project!!!

[cde 334]

Reduces the multiple monitors to a single one on VNC or similar.

[Fe2o3Fish 33]

Infrared,

Try some reflective Mylar sheets in your windows. This will reflect some of the heat

and light plus it's inexpensive. We've done this in our big south-facing windows and

it'll drop the temperature a good bit. A fan to move the air around a bit will help too.

[linuxha 3]

I found that the statement 'just one more compile' cools off anything in the bedroom!

 

I have a computer room which is on th opposite side of the cools system in my home and it can get quite warm. Once thing to do is to use the power save functions on your computer with respect to the monitor. I've also dropped in CFLs to replace the regular bulbs, added a ceiling fan and moved much of my computing (home automation) over to plug computer (but not my development stuff). This helps some but I don't know if it's a solution for you.

[infrared 3]

I appreciate the ideas. I will definitely need a ceiling fan (did not think of that!!!). I will check out the mylar but since this window faces the street I doubt I could get away with it from the wife. Maybe some darker insect screen? I should invest in to some landscaping to shade the house better. The larger lcd is used for entertainment such as hulu, netflix and other streaming/internet stuff. Because of that,it is on ~3 hours+ at a time. The vnc idea I have tried and do use (there are 8 more desktops/rack mounted in the garage that were once in the room as well). Something is up with the energy star and power down modes because the hdmi on the big lcd is not compliant (made before the hdmi spec was official). So I get no signal if the monitor powers down and then the pc enters sleep mode after so many mins. after wake up it will not detect the monitor spite what ever I do. it takes a reboot. but if the pc never is able to enter sleep mode and the big lcd sleeps it wakes up just fine. Therefore I can not let both sleep.

[zeke 693]

So why doesn't the AC system cool the room down?

Is it busted?

Is it discharged?

Is the house not insulated?

Is the house landscaped with trees and grass-like foliage?

 

My Northerner suggestions:

- Block direct sunlight from shining through the windows.

- Turn up the AC

- Get a second AC unit for the room in question

- Close the doors and windows when AC is on

- Move hot equipment to the basement

- Live in basement

- Live in hockey arena during heat wave

- Move northwards

- I'm just joking, take it easy

 

You can tell that I've never been in a hot Texas summer. I've been told that it can get hot enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk.

[zeke 693]

Oh, I do have a useful suggestion.

 

If you're trying to sleep and it's too hot then try this:

- Set up a fan to gently blow towards your bed

- While laying face down on the bed, put a wet facecloth on your back

- Let the breeze evaporate the water from the cloth

 

This should cool you off nicely.

 

But this has *nothing* to do with msp430's now.