Mobile Sauna
The mobile sauna was a whimsical desert toy idea I had that would not leave my mind till I executed on it. Notably, it’s not a sauna at all - but rather a steam room. When our prototype for the dry sauna heater experienced a spectacular failure the night before our desert trip, I pivoted and put together a scrappy steam generator built from Thanksgiving leftovers instead. It held together just long enough for three life-changing steams. The high humidity from the steam room is incredibly refreshing in the arid desert, especially when coupled with the right friends and right soundtrack.
“Put your clothes on the coat rack!”
The mobile steamroom prototype met most all of the design criteria, and the idea shows promise for future iteration in both steamroom (low temp, high humidity) and sauna (high temp, low humidity) forms. We all loved the experience, and will be taking it on future trips. Future work is trying to improve power density (kW/kg) of the heat exchanger system and compact the fuel source. I’m targeting one pound isobutane canisters because they are:
low pressure so they are made with thin walls and have accordingly high 70% mass fraction (kJ/kg)
affordable and easily sourced
reusable (with the proper adaptors and diligent safety measures! they don’t have relief valves so you have to be careful about overfilling)
easily interfaced with using a variety of off-the-shelf tees and adaptors
capable of plentiful mass flow, especially when ganged up and kept warm (kW/kg)
In winter sauna usage, dropping vapor pressure of cold fuel canisters will be an issue, but fortunately the winter camping community has found many mitigations.
