(FYI/FWIW)

Recently there were a lot of comments on using a garage as a hamshack.

My problem was not the hamshack, but where to build my "retro" tube-based
ham gear (HF) and my garage gets cold in the winter (30s F and below at
worst) and too hot (90 F) and humid in the summer. So I decided to build a
"cubicle" out of plywood (5/8" for me, leftover from a hurricane passby
that I used to cover our most expensive windows). So I had these pieces of
4' x 6' that I put together to make a cubicle 6' high, 4' wide, and 8'
deep, and put in a 18" wide "bench" (made out of a piece of lam pine about
6-7' long. This gets the drill noises, the soldering smoke, and all the
little metal shavings, drillings, file dust, etc., out of the house and
away from our rugs and somewhere where I don't have to be constantly
cleaning it up.

For the winter, a standard electric space heater easily warms up the
inside in less than 1/2 hour, and in the summer, a small A/C cools it off
in minutes. The A/C vents the hot air into the garage but it does not seem
to warm up the garage much beyond what it warms up in normal hot weather
(I mention this because the warranty says it will be voided if you do
this, but I'm only doing this once a week all, or as much of the day, as
possible). On the A/C, many will collect significant amounts of condensed
water and then excess will drip out on the "outside" but I've found in
such a small cubicle that running the A/C for many hours does not cause
significant amounts of water to accumulate and perhaps this is due to the
small volume of the cubicle and once it is dehumidified, not much new
water vapor enters over a whole afternoon or more. I mention this because
I was concerned about having a constant drip of water onto the garage
floor. This has not happened yet (not a drop has come out).

For anyone who wants to see images of this cubicle (for building stuff),
they along with images of some of my homebrew gear, kludge-ugly-all-from-
the-junkbox, can be found at:

http://www.panix.com/~asd

Just look for the links to the "secret lab" and click on them.

FYI/FWIW: The rest of that index page lists the done projects and the in
progress projects (as well as pics of prior rigs of mostly commercial gear
I've had during most of my ham career).

73
Art, W4PON

A thermometer is the only safe way to know how much it is heating the
garage.
It is not how many days a week you do this that is dangerous - it is
the peak temperature. Pressure in the system is a function of condenser
temperature and the manufacturer often doesnt design beyond 110F as
tubing isnt free (heat exchanger) nor fan horsepower(plus most weather
is below 110 except in a few places). Excessive pressure increases the
run current on the pump (compressor) which is cooled by refrigerant
flow. As temperature rises on the air to the condenser heat in the
system also increases due to higher run current so it stacks up fast.
The higher EER units have more heat exchanger and are a bit more
tolerant.
Straydog wrote:
(FYI/FWIW)

Recently there were a lot of comments on using a garage as a hamshack.

My problem was not the hamshack, but where to build my "retro" tube-based
ham gear (HF) and my garage gets cold in the winter (30s F and below at
worst) and too hot (90 F) and humid in the summer. So I decided to build a
"cubicle" out of plywood (5/8" for me, leftover from a hurricane passby
that I used to cover our most expensive windows). So I had these pieces of
4' x 6' that I put together to make a cubicle 6' high, 4' wide, and 8'
deep, and put in a 18" wide "bench" (made out of a piece of lam pine about
6-7' long. This gets the drill noises, the soldering smoke, and all the
little metal shavings, drillings, file dust, etc., out of the house and
away from our rugs and somewhere where I don't have to be constantly
cleaning it up.

For the winter, a standard electric space heater easily warms up the
inside in less than 1/2 hour, and in the summer, a small A/C cools it off
in minutes. The A/C vents the hot air into the garage but it does not seem
to warm up the garage much beyond what it warms up in normal hot weather
(I mention this because the warranty says it will be voided if you do
this, but I'm only doing this once a week all, or as much of the day, as
possible). On the A/C, many will collect significant amounts of condensed
water and then excess will drip out on the "outside" but I've found in
such a small cubicle that running the A/C for many hours does not cause
significant amounts of water to accumulate and perhaps this is due to the
small volume of the cubicle and once it is dehumidified, not much new
water vapor enters over a whole afternoon or more. I mention this because
I was concerned about having a constant drip of water onto the garage
floor. This has not happened yet (not a drop has come out).

For anyone who wants to see images of this cubicle (for building stuff),
they along with images of some of my homebrew gear, kludge-ugly-all-from-
the-junkbox, can be found at:

http://www.panix.com/~asd

Just look for the links to the "secret lab" and click on them.

FYI/FWIW: The rest of that index page lists the done projects and the in
progress projects (as well as pics of prior rigs of mostly commercial gear
I've had during most of my ham career).

73
Art, W4PON