cool shirt

[Ron Gibson]

If converting to ice water for my cool shirt, how big a cooler for ice do I need for one run? I have one that's about a six pack, but don't know if it's big enough.

TIA
Ron

[bbarn]

I built my first container that held 1.5 gallons of ice. That lasted almost 45 minutes for me on an 85 degree day. Since I was only testing, the tank I made was a 6" pvc pipe 12 inches long with no insulation to speak of. I think if i had used an insulated tank, I could have added another 20 minutes to it.

[Bob Drury]

  Ron,  DO NOT use ice for a Cool Shirt.  It will damage the pump.  I use a large purse size container with ICE water in it and I have sat in line for over a hour and it was still cold.
  If it is for a helmet cooler, I used a small igloo or coleman ice chest which I routed copper tubing through.  I DO use ice in it and a small 12v squirrle fan from Grainger to push the air through it.                                                              Bob

[bbarn]

  Ron,  DO NOT use ice for a Cool Shirt.  It will damage the pump.  I use a large purse size container with ICE water in it and I have sat in line for over a hour and it was still cold.
  If it is for a helmet cooler, I used a small igloo or coleman ice chest which I routed copper tubing through.  I DO use ice in it and a small 12v squirrle fan from Grainger to push the air through it.                                                              Bob

What Bob said... I used 3" x 12" pvc pipe to make my "cubes". I also use a screen on my pump (not a Cool Shirt pump) to keep the ice chips from getting into the impeller. If the manufacture supplied pumps are like mine, it would take very little to make them inoperable.