No Conveyor

[dave.m]

Not a conveyor belt in sight:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/technology/newsid_10000000/newsid_10002300/10002356.stm

 

[gcol]

I want one.

 

[tim west]

I've got a feeling it'll have a lot of fans

 

[AndrewSchofield]

If its anywhere close to being as good as the Dyson AirBlade hand-dryer then it'll be fantastic. Most hand-dryers i've used are pretty poor, the one in our office dries your hand slower than just letting them drip-dry, but the AirBlade is on another level.

 

[vsynth]

Surely the fan is just inside the unit?

 

[tim west]

If its anywhere close to being as good as the Dyson AirBlade hand-dryer then it'll be fantastic. .

It takes a while to get used to, I dont like the vibration you get in your hands and the noise it makes (like chalk across a blackboard) at a certain point when extracting your hands.

 

[kevplumb]

I want one.

at $350 £200 a shot

wour welcome to it

 

[PrenticeBoyofDerry]

I found these, not sure if they will catch on though View media item 15751

 

[ColJack]

just think of all those unemployed.. they could all be employed as punkawallas.. the guy sitting in the corner pulling the string on the big ceiling fan..

so they made a fan based on the venturi effect then?

 

[Steve]

If its anywhere close to being as good as the Dyson AirBlade hand-dryer then it'll be fantastic. .

It takes a while to get used to, I dont like the vibration you get in your hands and the noise it makes (like chalk across a blackboard) at a certain point when extracting your hands.

Got to marvel at the stats though - the motor spins at 88,000rpm and consumes 1600w - this is about the rating of a standard hand dryer heater!

 

[cmother1]

1600w! You'll need a fan to dissipate the heat it produces..

 

[Space cat]

Surely the fan is just inside the unit?

Not necessarily. About fifty years ago, somebody invented a loudspeaker with no moving parts. It was called the ionophone.

So how would this idea be turned into a fan? In the bottom of the thing you use a high voltage discharge to ionize the air, pretty much the same as in the ionophone. Next comes the clever bit; a stack of microwave cavities propels the ions up and out through a wire mesh. The mesh acts as a barrier to stray microwaves and completes the circuit by giving the ions their electrons back. Simples!