Cooling that hot bod (cheaply)
I year or so ago I started a thread in the programming area of this forum and thought its been long enough to start a new one. The old one is at http://www.anthrocon.org/node/1931.
There's a few pricey items out there one can buy to keep their suits and themselves cool while walking around but what of the cheaper solutions?
The point of this thread will be to find/test/report on cheap ways to cool yourself off while in suit. Hopefully some one will find some thing that others haven't thought of. Here's an example:
I bought a box of Coralite Soft Gel Sheets for a dollar which are "Cooling relief from fever discomfort" according to the ad on the box. You simply peel off cover on the back and stick it to your fore head. Sounds simple right? Well its hot/muggy today so I put one on and after sitting here for an hour, found it offered no relief that I noticed. It was neither cool nor hot (not being hot might be the relief) and the only thing I did notice is it 'might' absorb a little sweat on the outside of it. I went outside for a bit in the sun and other then it blocking sunlight from hitting that single spot on my head, didn't help any. It was actually rather annoying so I took it off. The directions suggested storing them in the refrigerator (spelled refregerator on the box) "for extra cooling". I haven't tried one that's been in the refrigerator so I don't know how that will work but straight from the box they are worthless.
I bought a box of Coralite Soft Gel Sheets...which are "Cooling relief from fever discomfort" according to the ad on the box. You simply peel off cover on the back and stick it to your fore head...its hot/muggy today so I put one on and after sitting here for an hour, found it offered no relief that I noticed.
I think that the problem you had might be that the product doesn't specifically "cool" per se, that is it doesn't absorb excess heat, but is rather intended to provide relief from the aches and pains of experiencing a fever. A cold, wet compress will absorb that heat, but doesn't relieve the pain, in fact it makes it more prominent and local. A damp compress soothes - but has much less effect at wicking off heat. When you have a fever, the problem isn't the heat (unless your body is in a "thermal runaway" condition, in which case you need full body immersion in a tub of cool, if not outright cold, water) but the discomfort.
You didn't have a fever - so the product didn't provide any comfort. Now, whether or not it would be efficacious if you did have a fever, is another matter.
go to google, type in "ice vest" click on shopping. some are cheap. basicly a vest thst you put cold packs into. I wore one a few years ago when working in a very hot enviroment. works great.
In the military we used gloves that had ice packs we activated. Believe it or not it cools the body down since the vessels are close to the surface of your hands and the cooled blood is carried to the rest of your body.
Think of it like reaching into the ice barrel for a drink and you have to dig deep to get the one you want. You end up shivering on a hot day after doing so.
I will also be doing the ice pack on the back of my neck method for testing when I get going here.
As well as the two fans in the snout that will bring air in via the nostrils of the mask right to my face.
I've been told that the ice ont he back of the next is a bad idea as the body uses that area to judge temp and artificially cooling it can cause you to over heat even though you feel cool. There was a product ont he market years ago which was just a collar with a fan blowing ont he back of the neck but I was told it was taken off the market for the over heating problem.
As for the fan method in the nose, you can get 12volt mini computer fans at Radio Shack for about $10 (I'm sure cheaper online) and then just run the wires from them to a 9volt or higher R/C car battery. The only problem I see with this is if its blowing onto your face your eyes will dry out and if its blowing away then its also sucking the smell (if any) from inside of your head out your nose at people.
I am using smaller fans that I have parts from a 3Com super stacker switch. smaller than the 70 mm and more RPMs.
I have a bttery source already hooked up to them for testing.
Odd to hear about the cooling of the neck.
Any one tried out any of the cooling bandanas or neck ties they've been advertising?
http://www.polar-products.com/index.php?p=view_product&product_id=4
http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/cooling-neck.html
considering the number of product out there which you wrap around the neck to cool you I'd have to say I was misinformed about cooling the back of the neck.
I saw this http://www.japantrendshop.com/usb-air-conditioned-shirt-kuchofuku-p-51.html and thought it was simply a loose fitting shirt with a fan on each side.
I've searched the net for a while now and can't find those neck fans I was talking about,t hey sold them on TV years ago. From what I recall, the way it worked was it was a collar which covered your neck, fan in the back blowing on your neck with a little gap along the bottem edge so that the air escaped down your shirt. Wouldn't be that hard to rig up if it's safe.
Edit: found it. http://www.sharperimage.com/Toys+Leisure/CoolWare+Personal+Cooling+System+with+motorized+fan.axd
like a dog humans cool down mainly by hands and feed pads.
we cool down on other bodyparts too, due to water evaporation.
if you just cool down your hand and feet, it will do the job.
also a small fan in your mask could work
People with MS have heat issues.
I have been looking at many of the products that have been offered to them.
Ice packs is what they use primarily in vest and foot wraps.
i've seen those, but they appear to be quite bulky and heavy, using about ten ice packs. i was thinking of taking one or two of those ice blankets with the little squares, cutting them appart, and sewing them into pockets spread around a tshirt. it'd be light, cool, and rather comfortable. anyone think this would work well?
You mean like these?
http://www.rei.com/product/723941?preferredSku=7239410017&cm_mmc=cse_froogle-_-datafeed-_-product-_-7239410017&mr:trackingCode=0288071B-81F9-DE11-BAE3-0019B9C043EB&mr:referralID=NA
I could see that with breathable material against your body.
I would also make some ankle and wrist wraps. 
I am not a fursuiter!
I see one practical problem with these: how do you freeze them at the con? Very few rooms have refrigerators. I'm also certain that any refrigerator you'll have access to at Anthrocon will be quite small: completely unable to place a large portion of a fursuit into.
Counter-suggestion: make small pockets in your fursuit to hold these ice packets and use a styrofoam cooler to hold ice. Bury the blue ice packets into the ice before suiting, then just slip the ice packets in when you suit up. Obviously, I can't guarantee that this will work very well, but you can't depend on the possibility of 'freezing' your fursuit before use.
Um, They would all be left individually, then frozen. And then placed in a pouch of some type.
Like make a wrist wrap with velcro to seal in the pounches.
Sorry, Fraxture. I didn't make it as clear as I should have that I was responding to FangFox's suggestion of sewing them directly to a shirt. As I pointed out, it's going to be difficult to freeze something like a shirt at Anthrocon: the facilities just aren't available to us. I can't see any reason why your idea of pouches or neck wraps, etc. wouldn't work, other than the fact that you won't have the facilities to freeze the individual ice packets either, for the same reason. You'll be able to get them cold using the 'bury them in ice' method I mentioned: I don't think you'll be able to freeze them solidly like you could at home in your own freezer.
At least the suggestions being made here are reasonable, unlike some people who have (seriously) suggested using either Dry Ice or Liquid Nitrogen to cool fursuits.
i was talking about sewing pocket so you can remove them and throw them in a cooler full of ice
For 140 bucks you don't even get a small fridge in your room?
What are these, gold lined rooms?
I paid that much for a nice hotel room in St. Louis and got about every amenity you would expect.
I do remember seeing videos of people in these extremely tiny rooms that are smaller than what they gave us in the Army.
That would not be cool..
I am driving up, but it would be nice to be in the same building where everything is.
Cause I do not drink and drive. And I plan on getting blitzed while there.
In that case then I will ahve to use chemical packs like we use in the ER here. Crack and cool.
To sum it up simply: These are business-class hotel rooms in the downtown financial district; their standard rack rate as mentioned is from $200-300 a night. Anthrocon gets its rooms at an immense discount, accross its four hotels.
To note: Anthrocon does not have everything in the same building; programming ranges across the David Lawrence Convention Center as well as the Westin Hotel. All of our hotels are however within walking and.or staggering distance.
Refrigerators are in rather short supply at Anthrocon; every year they tend to be completely cliamed by Wednesday due to a high amount of requests.
If your an early room booker when you do your reservation for the room put the refrig on the reservation and room. that way you wont have to worry about trying to get one on wensday.
Every year, Kage reminds attendees that the room type they've requested may not be available. I do not believe that the hotels (any of them) take pre-emptive requests for refrigerators before you actually check in. Bacically, as has been said earlier in the thread, they're all gone by Wednesday and there's probably no way to do anything to prevent that.
What Charlie said. You can put in the request, but I can almost guarantee you that unless you are one of the first 20 or 30 people to arrive, you will not get the refrigerator. The hotel does not have a gigantic warehouse filled with refrigerators out back, and if someone comes up to the desk with cash in hand and asks for one, that person is going to get it. The hotel is not going to hold onto a refrigerator only to find that the person who requested it has changed his mind or doesn't even show up.
I understand its tough for people who are flying into Pittsburgh to bring a fridge with them but if your driving, stop by Wal-Mart or K-Mart and pick up a mini fridge. They're often around $100, probably on sale now as the college kids are going back to college. They aren't that big or heavy so transporting it isn't a huge deal and then you don't have to worry about getting one from the hotel.
Would the management allow you to do that?
I know many places don't want things in their facilty that has not been checked out by their maintenance staff. In case it has a defect that could be dangerous to the occupants of the Hotel.
That's the usual cover story they'll give you so long as they have them to rent to you. If they don't rent them out then they would care less if you brought your own. If there's a question, just say you have a medical condition and needed your medicine refridgerated and they didn't have one for you so you had to bring your own. I remember one of the hotels we had AC in years ago had these special coax cable ends that you couldn't take off the TVs without a special tool so if you brought a VCR you couldn't hook it up, BUT you could rent one from the hotel. The following year I brought my own TV. They never said any thing to me.
if your looking for cheap look at dicks or a sports store for paintball tack vest or something like it. on the outside or in one of the pockets you could try an ice pack found for medical use the kind you break and they get cold. the trick is to have some fur or padding between a cold pack and your body so you don't have cold shock. there also sports suits that wick water to help cool people when doing sports outside on really hot days. i dont have the skills but a fursuit cooler could be made with a piece of solar pool heater and two clamps and a pc water pump or a 12v found pump.
put in some cold water and plug the pump in and cold water would flow down the suiter back/chest and would warm up. when hot a suiter could dump the warm water out and quickly refill the cool vest.