We’ve a lot of salts in our water in the Nevada desert. The evaporation leaves salt deposits around the edges metal parts and beneath the deposits the metal corrodes away. I wonder if one could ground the whole thing or clamp a metal anode or cathode to it and reduce the corrosion.
re. Chemistry and physics of the metal parts of evaporative coolers
Yes. They sell those little kits at Home Depot and such. They work, kinda, but not too well. It consists of an anode that attaches above water with a screw/eye/wire arraignment and a little plastic tub that the anode sits in under water. The gunk is supposed to collect in the little tub. I have found the poor quality of our water is simply overwhelming for this rinky-dink solution.
If you can afford the waste of water, they have the bleed-off kits that help reduce build-up of crap. I don’t use one, however.
I also am in the Nevada desert with very poor water quality and a real nasty swamp cooler. Its starting to look like a tufa from Mono Lake.
Highly recommend eddy current based descaling systems. For example this one Amazon.com
Or something like this : http://m.homedepot.com/p/MAX-COOL-1-4-in-Evaporative-Cooler-In-Line-Scale-Eliminator-51795/202053475
Get a stainless steel one, if you can find one. They last forever.