Engineers Develop Solid-state Fan That Puts Traditional Coolers to Shame

[Schwarz]

Guys you gotta check this out.
Im not sure if youve already seen it for those who read daily news but anyways here it is for the others.
A fanless Fan !?!?!
Hehe check this out and the video
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_videos.jsp?org=NSF&cntn_id=111293&media_id=62124
Its actually pretty amasing.

[dumdum]

OMG!! This is such a nice way of cooling!!! I wish I had that on my case!!! Thanks for the info.

[ABerd]

That's insane and it will come by 2009! I love technology lol

[Frag Maniac]

Too bad SSHDs can't be sold at comparable prices too. Quite an achievement there.

[Sadasius]

It's called the 'corona effect'. It is not exactly new technology. Just the first time implemented as a fan. It will not be very powerful but it will help cool things needed for small gadgets where conventional cooling is impossible. Also something you may not know for all you guys with dusty cases. You will not be able to use that technology. One particle of dust big enough to connect the electrode to the grounding plate will fry your corona effect fan and possibly whatever chip you have it near. This is obviously meant for a contained small device system that will be able to benefit by using a more powerful chip and be able to keep it cool.

[Scott]

Looks very similar to technolgy used in smoke eaters we used to have in my nightcubs. No fans just these big electric boxes that moved air and collected all the smoke junk out of the air.

Or could be like my Sharper Image Sonic Breezes just on a much smaller scale.

[Enigmachine]

Yeah it looks to me like a ionic breeze built on a chip, so it has the same pros and cons... However it's probably much more optimized for the cooling task. :)

Go here IonCooler at Inventgeek (http://inventgeek.com/Projects/IonCooler/Overview.aspx) to see what I'm talking about and maybe build your own. :)

[Xero (1)ne]

I don't know about you guys but that little thing seemed to be a little bit more powerful than the fan-less ionic air filters considering its size. I also wonder if you can control how much air they push.

[Frag Maniac]

Or could be like my Sharper Image Sonic Breezes just on a much smaller scale.That's what I was thinking, and obviously those can handle dust. They must have addressed dust issues somehow because even in a laptop there is dust. You would have to hepa filter them if they were so vulnerable to dust, and that just isn't practical. I doubt they will have a very high CFM though.

[Schwarz]

Well as far as CFM goes heres what has been declared on dailytech about the fan


The resulting fan is the most powerful and energy efficient fan of its size and moves more air than fans that are 35 times its size

http://www.dailytech.com/Engineers+Develop+Solidstate+Fan+That+Puts+Traditi onal+Coolers+to+Shame/article11158.htm

And as far as dust goes I think they already have that sorted out.
Listening to the video this technology in computers could be available as soon as 2009.

[Sadasius]

Apparantly they said they have the dust thing under control now. They tried to bring this out in 2004 but dust kept killing it. Here is a quote.

This device is also more dust-tolerant than predecessors. While dust attraction is ideal for living-room-scale fans that that provide both air flow and filtration, debris can be a devastating obstacle when the goal is to cool an electrical component.

reference: http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111293&govDel=USNSF_51

March 31 2004 news release: http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100354

[Xero (1)ne]

Well as far as CFM goes heres what has been declared on dailytech about the fan


The resulting fan is the most powerful and energy efficient fan of its size and moves more air than fans that are 35 times its size...


And just think, if you increase the "ionic fan" to match the ones that are 35 times bigger, you got yourself one hell of a fan. I'm sure it would need a bit more power though. ;-)

[Schwarz]

Who cares about power I already have a fridge compressor inside my case... :p

[Frag Maniac]

Interesting that though they claim it has the power of mechanical fans 35 times it's size, they never show an actual CFM spec through that whole article. The technology is certainly impressive though, esp if they can sell them at the same price. It makes me wonder if eventually cooling devices won't even need to create air circulation. Infrared heaters warm the humidity in the air via light waves. What if you could do the reverse using light somehow.

[Enigmachine]

What if you could do the reverse using light somehow.

You can, using lasers... but it only works on one atom at a time. :)

[autobot]

I wonder if these fans create ozone?? I can't stand being near one of those ionic cleaners due to the ozone smell. :ahhhhh:

[Frag Maniac]

I wonder if these fans create ozone?? I can't stand being near one of those ionic cleaners due to the ozone smell. :ahhhhh:I was wondering that myself. I heard on a local news channel a while back that air purifiers with ionizers in them can be unhealthy, as they create a second ozone layer that can have the effect of smog.

Turns out studies have been done about it and they've found that such devices if used in poorly ventilated areas can in fact make the air unhealthy to breathe.

http://www.allergyclean.com/news/5112006.htm (http://www.allergyclean.com/news/5112006.htm)