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Keeping Your Keg Cool Sans Ice
DrLudicrous writes "Case Western Reserve University is reporting that first year physics graduate student Adam Hunnell has come up with the idea for a Keg Wrap, a thermoelectric sheet that will be able to maintain a full keg at 32-35F by running off of wall current or even a car's cigarette lighter. The funding for this project is coming from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, which has provided Mr. Hunnell with a $20,000 grant. Serious stuff - I'd rather see this than another few million dumped into quantum computing."
i wonder how many kegs he bought for that 20g... for testing purposes of course
Anything that improves the quality of beer deserves the Nobel prize
This sounds like part of the plot for "Revenge of the Nerds 6"; something about the jocks having a party that blows because the beer is warm, but the nerds invent amazing keg-cooling gadgets and get the cheerleeders to go to the Lambda-Lambda-Lambda nerd frat party.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I think it a fine invention. Beer has a greater impact on the world thus far than quantum computing.
Can they make clothing out of this? That'd be nice for the hot regions of the USA this summer.
And, I'm sure there will be people trying to figure out how to scale this to computers, particularly portable devices.
If there are 2,500 wholesalers are in the US how are 3,200 for them in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania?
Give THIS guy the Nobel Price in Physics. Or Medicine. Or Peace - I don't care.
*cheers*
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
I wonder if it's feasible to add solar-powered refrigeration to a cooler? Now THAT'D be a really useful invention. This keg thing is nice too though.
Gathered by Brooklyn plumbers when they are called to clean out clogged drains and toilets.
It drinks like a meal
Pour slowly, or you will break your beer glass.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
He plans to begin design work on a prototype in the next several weeks.
Great. I hope he lets us know when he has a design for a prototype.. And then maybe when there is actually a prototype vs. a vague bong inspired idea..
At this rate it seems that it would be easy for someone to get a jump on any opportunity and beat him to the market and patent.
Speaking as a good Englishman, why not learn
to drink beer with some taste which doesn't need
to be frozen ?
Wake me up when it can be attached to a molex connector...
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
This kind of device is exactly what many homebrewers would need for fermenting. I'd probably pickup two or three as I don't have the space or money for more refrigerators. nk
> I'd rather see this than another few million dumped into quantum computing.
The cooler reduces the entropy of the beer, and then you drink it, causing your brain state to collapse on a solution that's guaranteed to seem like a good idea at the time.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Hmmmm, a keg wrap that runs off of 100-120VAC power == keg parties.
Can also run off of a car cigarette lighter == tailgaiting extraordinaire.
This kid is going to the wrong school. He'd be a god down at Ohio State....
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
Hunnell's idea is to design a wrap, made of nylon or a similar material, using thermoelectrics...The main challenge to building a successful wrap, Hunnell says, is selecting the proper thermoelectric devices from the many types manufactured. He plans to begin design work on a prototype in the next several weeks.
Seems like they would wait until the guy did something before writing about it! All those grad students with real data and publications and they write about an idea that got a kid a grant? Not to mention losing any royalties to somebody with real money stealing his idea (especially if the hardest thing is choosing COTS parts) Oh well...
If it can cool my noisy computer too using a nice and quiet blanket than I think he's missing a big market there too - beer is always on college students mind though...
..like this one. IIRC it was even on /. a few years ago.
There are these ceramic tiles *already* that when current is pumped through them, one side gets REALLY hot and one side REALLY cold (kind of interesting when you hold both sides at the same time). You can buy 'em for a few bucks. A sheetful of these and a big battery will keep anything cold for quite a while.
Where's my 20K, then?
First, Koolio - the beer delivering robot, and now this!?
And this, Gentleman, is one of the most famous American Innovations of the early 21st century. Nowhere else in the world could they have come up with such a marvelous invention to keep frat boys drunk, in a car, or in a house.
(see next story on how outsourcing be a big deal, as it will not affect american innovation)
All bow to his Noodliness!! His Noodle Appendage has touched me!
I wonder if using the Nigerian Nomad clay pot reefer would work on a keg?
1. Big clay pot filled with wet sand
2. Smaller clay pot inside big clay pot with layer of sand in between(keg in this case)
3. Wet Rags on top of sand
4. Evaporation keeps your inside pot cool...
no plugs need
Actually, I would like to pledge $20 dollars to the existing grant to make sure this gets the proper funding! Nothing like a project like this to spur the great minds of our generation to take action.
I have to think that the $20k will pale in comparison to the Home Shopping Network profits next year.
I dont remember my kegs sitting around long enough to see room temprature, of course, I dont remember.
"If you have done 6 impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways" -- hhgg
You mean "Guinness". Note the two Ns See their site
Trolling is a art,
Dear Dr. Stupid,
You may notice that most American beer is Pilsener-style lager (pils). Which is intended to be drunk cold. Ask a brewer of Pilsener-style lager in any country what temperature his beer should be drunk at, most will say between 2 and 5 degrees C (36-41 F).
I myself prefer ales and stouts to lagers, but there can be no doubt that (1) cold lager can be an ideal (and very tasty) beer in a hot environment; (2) people in many countries (including the U.S.) prefer lagers; (3) no amount of ignorant snobbery can make their preferences wrong; and (4) YAASA. STFU.
Folks, next time some snooty jackass looks down his nose at you because of your beer, remember the Latin phrase de gustibus not est disputandunum, so you can teach him a lesson as your fist squelches into the soft tissues around his nose. And also, like our friend the AC here, he's probably wrong anyway.
Please remember to FOAD. Thank you for your attention.
Yours sincerely,
tybalt44
Without the free flow of beer there would be no new inventions.
When this vaporware becomes reality, it will mark the dawn of a new Rennaisance - a bold new world where intergalactic keggers are the rule, rather than the exception...
Long live the electric keg cooling blanket!
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
or even a car's cigarette lighter.
Thank God. Frankly, I think its pretty dangerous to have to lean over and pull beer out of the back seat ice cooler while driving. Now, we can just plug a cooler into the cigarette lighter and keep our eyes on the road.
Thank you, technology!
The article is woefully skimpy on details, but it sounds like he's planning to sew a bunch of Peltier devices onto a sheet of nylon.
Perhaps, though the article doesn't make this at all clear, he thinks he's got some way to build a thermoelectric device out of a sheet of nylon. It would be a good and useful trick, especially when accomplished by a first-year physics student.
Either way, it sounds to me like you're going to have to combine this with a fan if you're going to get anything useful out of it. Thermoelectric devices move heat a few centimeters and concentrate it, but if you just let it dissipate it'll eventually warm up the other side of the device, sapping a lot of your power. You need to blow a fan past it so you can use the air as a heat exchanger.
I cannot believe that the chap submitting this didn't think about the possibilities for this. Refrigeration in the third world is so important - if this thing can run off a cigarette lighter, then it must draw so much less current than a peltier device, making it a very good solar-power candidate. This thing could revolutionise healthcare in third world countries. It could wipe out subsistence farming - food would stay unspoilt for so much longer. I am surprised (well, considering he's a student, not THAT surprised) that it has been marketed solely for beer. Well, some of the best inventions have arisen during wartime, and the war against cold beer has been raging for as long as I can remember, anyway.
Can someone explain why this wouldn't make your car an oven? Most "thermoelectric" devices I've seen only have about a 10 degree differential from one side to another. Bringing a keg down to 32 degrees (F) in a car sounds like it would take a LOT of energy.
Best Buy can have you arrested
If it can cool a keg of beer, it can cool a graphics card or a CPU as well.
Slashdot has to be the only place where people think "sure, keeping my beer cold is nice and all, but what would really be neat is if I could use it to run my computer 3% faster."
I hope you realize the rest of the world says "sure, making a computer run 3% faster is neat and all, but it would really be nice if it could keep my beer cold"
= waking up with your car parked in a fountain
This technology is way behind. A German company has devloped a keg that cools beer with no cord. I actually saw this keg and drank its beer at Pack Expo 2003. The beer was real cold and the outside of the keg was warm. It works by evaporative cooling using a double-walled shell, a controlled vacuum, and a special moisture holding material. The keg could be regenerated and used over and over. It is quite an ingenious system. The company rep said that they had no sucesses in marketing the keg in the US. But this might very well be worth the cost of airfare to Germany.
Simple people talk of people, better people talk of events, great people talk of ideas.
Nerd? Oh yes because his party will be so lame that no one will show up so he will have a lot of beer left over.
A coworker of mine once speculated that for the average Joe, an individual's gross adjusted expenditures on alcohol remain roughly constant throughout the drinking adult years, but that the quantity and quality are inversely correlated. I think he might have been about right.
Liora
For the folks who have a British car - the suggestion is that it's due to our fridges being made by Lucas Electrics.
Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.
I'll do it for $2,000, and get to pocket more than half of that!
"Thermoelectrics". You know, peltiers. I just picked up a couple of high-quality, surplus 45-watt Peltiers for $4 each. Each being able to pump up to 30 watts of heat, it certainly wouldn't take many of them to keep that beer keg nice and chilly.
So, just for grins, let's say that I buy 20 of those, and run them at much less than full power. That keeps each spot from getting so hot that it needs a heat sink. That's what, $80 so far? Then, it's a matter of building the power supply/temp controller and sewing up a wrap.
Out of this guy's $20,000 grant, he'll probably be able to spend about $19,500 on "restocking vital supplies" (refilling all of the kegs he's drunk).
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.