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Icy-Flo - The solution to this summer's heat
Steve Kerrison writes "Desperate times call for desperate measures, but I'd like to think of this as more of an exercise in cunning. It's hot, but I'm not, thanks to an Icy-Box and a Panaflo. This was nearly categorised as hardware hacking, but then the only 'hacking' required was the removal of four thumb-screws."
So he set up a fan? What's the point, that it's from a computer?
Er... it's called a fan... I was at least hoping for something more high-tech, like Peltiers and stuff :)
Uh..this is news? some guy wiring up an old psu-fan to cool himself? how elaborate....
must be a slow, slow news day...
Hooking a 5v fan to 12v and using it to cool the user instead of the computer qualifies as front page material? Wow. Slow news day already?
Program Intellivision!
That's a better solution to this summer's heat... with Vista and DNF REALLY REALLY likely to get shipped soon, it should be quite cool in Hell.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
How in god's name was this article accepted? HE PLUGGED A FAN INTO A POWER LEAD! WOW!
Alert the media.
what is this, an article about connecting a fan?
whats happening to slashdot?
Honestly. That seems to be about the most silly thing I have seen in ages.
A floor ventilator around the corner from where I am sitting, goes at about $30.
Smaller models (like the one he is using) goes as low as $10-15.
If your time worth so little (and remember, the FTA says its for those that _has_ to work) that this is a solution for you, find a better paying job!
...that half the people who post here complain when its too cold!
We should be thankful its so lovely and warm. Afterall we'll have to get used too it...
ilovegeorgebush
Wow.. He took a case fan and powered it from a, uh, power supply. But that's not all that impressive. One time, at band camp, I attached a CD-ROM drive and used power from *ANOTHER* power supply sitting in a *DIFFERENT* machine. And once, at a hacker convention (well, at my friend's house really), we super-hacked a a PS2 mouse to work with a USB interface by using an adapter we rigged (well, it came with the mouse actually).
If you re-invent the wheel, you should end up with a better wheel. This smacks of the joke that ends with the punchline "Because he can!".
Stop being so clever, and invest in a cheap pedestal fan instead of OVERCLOCKING A COMPUTER FAN to run at a higher voltage without any guards. When those bearings (which are already commented as being dodgy) give out, if he's lucky, the fan won't sieze and burn up on top of his old hard drive.
This isn't post-worthy.
So I have to guess the other comments.
He attached a fan to an electrical supply?
All I can say is, as an article, that blows.
Either we slashdotted the page or they didn't pay the ISPs premium-access fee.
...would use a superfluid to keep themselves cool. They would also draw upon inspiration to explain the birth of the universe from it.
/. decides to publish something that was born of a jobless geek's attempt to soothe his fevered brow while entertaining himself watching pornography."
Alternatively, I could say, "on another hot summer's day where there was absolutely nothing newsworthy,
Curious Yellow - getting all Grammar Nazi on the asses of punk bitches since he learnt to spell.
Okay, here we see uncontested evidence that the /. effect overheats computers. Er, it overheats computers whose fans have been removed by their owners to cool their own paltry 98.6F down a degree or two, completely ignoring the smoking machine whose processor just jumped to that magical 170F.
I can't even RTFA on this one.
Whenever Mrs. Fitch breaks wind, we beat the dog.
At least it sounds like it wasn't worth readying!
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
for that poor little server...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
or "reading" either! I type good.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Unless the air is really humid where you are, it'll work a lot better than a normal fan, and for pretty much the same price. If you have the luck of living in a dry climate, then it'll work really well.
of this fine article..
Nyhetsankaret.com -- det bÃsta av Sveriges Nyhetssido
...this is a secret plot to scare people away from slashdot - it all adds up:
* stage A: post dupe articles with increasing frequency to annoy regular reader
* stage B: completely re-skin slashdot to confuse reader even more
* stage C: post outright annoying articles on confusing, technically shallow subjects to scare the last bit of slashdotters away
* stage D: ????
* stage E: profit !
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
...maybe apply the cooling to your brand new, Smoking Hot Slashdottet(tm) server?
Seriously.. When will people start posting links in coral cache or something?
Scully: Should we arrest David Copperfield?
Mulder: Yes we should, but not for this.
http://www.mirrordot.com/find-mirror.html?http://f orums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=77765
do {print "Mini-Geek Rules!\n";}
until ($TheEndOfTheWorld);
I tagged this one "pseudozonk"
The hack seems really simple:
"Please try again by clicking the Refresh button in your web browser."
I did, but I don't feel more refreshed really. What am I doing wrong?
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
thanks. now i know that the announcement of this "hack" on /. is even more pathetic than i feared possible ...
Any way we can moderate this entire story into the "-1!!1111!uno!!, Stupid" category?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
...is a trademark of real genius.
This guy has made a trademark violation.
ok... so it was a simple hack (the site is officially slashdotted so I can't see what he did exactly) - give him a break :)
What I want to know is whether or not it's cooling off his Technical Staff - who must be getting a slashdotted size of email!
Hemos turned Hexus into a smoking crater for no reason.
0 060522.asp
... pays reasonable compensation ..."
Quoth the Hexus:
"There seems to have been a problem with the database.
Please try again by clicking the Refresh button in your web browser.
An E-Mail has been dispatched to our Technical Staff, whom you can also contact if the problem persists.
We apologise for any inconvenience."
I saw the mirrordot. Surely there is more happening in the world than this?
What about the Abandonware bill?
Re: OT:What hides behind the orphaned b
by: ColonelZen
Long-Term Sentiment: Strong Sell 06/11/06 12:17 pm
Msg: 379449 of 379580
The "Orphaned works" Bill HR5439;
hhhttp://www.techlawjournal.com/topstories/2006/2
No possible doubt it's an end run on the GPL:
"The bill also imposes an almost complete ban on injunctive relief where the infringer "recasts, transforms, adapts, or integrates the infringed work with the infringer's original expression in a new work of authorship". The bill provides that in these situations, "the court may not, in granting injunctive relief, restrain the infringer's continued preparation or use of that new work, if the infringer
IOW if MS claims that they tried to contact you while you were on vacation and you didn't respond, they get to embrace and extend your code forever for ten dollars that somehow got lost in the mail.
It's been a while since I've read the articles of the Berne Convention, but this seems to contravene one section I recall as making it plain that you do NOT lose your rights if you publish anonymously. As I read this article you can easily lose your rights to a work - certainly your right to the integrity of your work - almost instantly if published anonymously.
Thanks for bringing this up inymical!
-- TWZ
Thats nothin.. I have my smb server set up to all of the heating controls in my apt building. I can make it snow or rain whenever I want.... I'M THE KING OF THE WORLD...
I for one welcome our new /. overlords.
- Article server
Seriously. Did anyone read this before they posted it? This article is so bad, it hurts.
/. (mainly how ugly it was), can we work on the remaining problems?
Now that we have solved the biggest problem facing
v4sw6PU$hw6ln6pr4F$ck 4/6$ma3+6u7LNS$w2m4l7U$i2e4+7en6a2X h
But if he connected the fan to a power inverter, would that make the article suck?
You decide. The parent post was funnier, more insightful, and interesting than TF(L)A.
Shame on you, Hemos:=X
Someone just wanted to /. the site?
"There seems to have been a problem with the database.
Please try again by clicking the Refresh button in your web browser.
An E-Mail has been dispatched to our Technical Staff, whom you can also contact if the problem persists.
We apologise for any inconvenience."
Thanks to eating disorders most chicks are reasonably good looking these days.
Would never have know that fan + power = working fan My day is complete
He should've made a large array of 80+ cfm fans. Then he'd be cool.
His room should receive all the heat from the computers that wasted time loading that article. Your little fan won't help you now! Fry!!!
30% off web hosting. Coupon code "SLASHDOT".
What would be better, would be to modify a mobile air conditioner so it actually worked!
..... and so, what with the pressure in a fluid acting equally in all directions, a continuous flow of air into the room. This is likely to be warmer than you want {if it wasn't a hot day, then you wouldn't have the AC on in the first place} and also, some of that air you just spent good money cooling is being heated up and blasted outside! Better would be to have a coaxial arrangement like a gas boiler flue, where the {hot} exhaust pipe is actually mounted inside the {cool} intake pipe. Then the arrangement would work more like a "fixed" air conditioner, since the condenser-cooling airstream would be entirely separate from the evaporator-heating {or, if you prefer, room-cooling} airstream.
.....}, one to each side of the device; separate them by means of the best thermal insulation you can get, and blow fans over each. Circulate air from the room over the cold side, and air from outdoors over the hot side. You will also need to shut off the current every so often, in order to allow the cold side to de-ice.
The problem with most mobile ACs is that there is only one vent pipe, which discharges the air that has been used to cool the condenser outside -- the condenser-cooling intake is in the room. So this means there is a continuous flow of air out of the room
You probably could do all this with Peltier Effect devices {dry heat pumps}. In which case, you would need to attach two lumps of metal with large surface areas {heat sinks from your nearest electronic components store fit this description nicely
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
In the hopes of salvaging this discussion (TFA is a non-story)
/ sku__SI758SL2
j ulaug/features/cool.html
Has anyone tried one of these? The priciples behind it make sense:
http://www.sharperimage.com/us/en/catalog/product
And since hearing about this development:
http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2005/
It makes even more sense, though a neck-worn device is more practical for mobile usage.
I just has to be. I can't see any value in the article except to lure out those foolish enough to respond... ... like me... dammit.
...is to plug in a fan?! WTF?!
and if he arranged one fan to suck and one to blow and somehow put the airflow in a loop
maybe he could get perpetual motion.
Editors, you really need to weed out stuff like this.
As I sit here in my living room, windows closed and heat turned on, the outside temperature is a chilly 57 degress at 9 am on a Monday morning in Detroit. Normal temps about this time of day and year would be 20 degrees higher. The last thing I'm worried about is my machines overheating.
When reading the submission, I was immediately phased with it being more along the lines of shoddy advertising. Tech tips are one thing, but the "ultimate" solution to cooling is Icy-Flo?
Granted, there are some stupid articles that make their way through the approval process, but this one takes the cake. Many people before this guy, including myself, have done something similar to get some air moving with parts laying around and not have to make a trip to WallyWorld (WalMart) to buy a fan. However up to this point, no one has had the audacity to post up something this stupid.
Damn it. I want my click back.
I can't believe I wasted time looking at this. At least give us something to justify this...
When I first got my air conditioner, it was set at a factory default of like 76 degrees. With a little savvy hacking on my part I was able to bring it down to about 74 by pressing the down arrow. I will have a full 10 page blog posting up in a few days so look out for it! For my next project I plan on doing the same thing, but in my car!
Someone at the University of Waterloo made their own "air conditioner" last year.
Granted, the CoP is probably miles worse than that of a normal heat-engine based A/C, especially when you consider the energy costs of freezing the ice, but . . .
In case of slashdotting, this is what he did:
Fill a bucket with icewater
Put a coil of copper tubing on the back of a fan
Use rubber hosing to connect the copper tubing to the bucket of icewater
Use a 2nd piece of hose between the copper tubing & the window
Siphon action pulls the cool water through the copper tube & drains it out the window
Fan moves air over the cold copper tubing
If you're not paying utilities, you could even do this with just cold tapwater, in your own home. Or, harvest the waste water for your garden, filling toilet tanks, or whatever!
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
At least this took some effort. I thought that he would at least use the water cooling to provide some extra cooling. This is just a fan. You can buy a regular fan in the store for about $5. For a little more, you can even get oscillation!
Since it's slashdotted, you can check it out at MirrorDot.
But I'll save you the hassle and summarize it for you: he takes a 12cm case fan from an old watercooling rig (just uses the fan, not the water cooling bits) and powers it from the 12V pin of the power supply of an Icy Box hard drive enclosure.
Wow.
Lest you think that the Icy Box is actually doing any cooling, it's not. It's just providing power.
Now why did this make the front page of /.?
The one last year(IIRC) with the guy(Canadian?) who got a garbage can of ice water, and some copper tubing which he coiled behind a regular box fan was better. I really can't see hwo this one would produce enough cooling to be worthwhile.
This guy gives new meaning to Sun-Tzu's loosely-quoted, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer".
Note his placement of the 120mm 12v fan- on top of hard drive.
That is to say, the EMI/RFI output from the fan WILL cause data loss.
More evidence our uber hacker is really a lazy moron living in a day dream of self delusion.
Back in college, we took an oversized dorm fridge and removed the door from it. We then removed the window from its frame and somehow crammed the fridge into the opening. (Yes we lost our deposit on this one...) We sealed the edges with duct tape and stuffed a couple of fans inside the fridge. When we turned it on, it managed to cool the room by almost ten degrees.
The only drawback is that the beer got warm.
In other news, man quenches thirst by filling cup with water, then pouring water into mouth.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
Don't hold out on us. I know I'm not the only one with a bunch of PS2 mice that I'd love to plug into a USB port and use. I just need a link to a schematic or maybe you could email me a walkthrough on how you made that work. I'm sure with a few friends I could reverse engineer it get it working myself.
Seriously, put me on the list before you start charging for that stuff.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
I remember some engineering students in college who lived in an apartment that had hot water included in the rent but they had to pay for electricity for heat. Money saving idea: hook up a radiator with an electric fan to the bathtub faucet and run hot water through it to heat the apartment and keep the electric heaters off. ---> free heat!
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
A few weeks ago, I jumpstarted our car with the power supply for an IBM Thinkpad. I guess I could have made it to the front page of /. too.
(Admitted - it was not a real jumpstart, since I let it charge for some hours first.)
My employer was throwing away a VERY HEAVY powersupply from an old minicomputer. They let me have the parts, which included some very nice 120 VAC axial flow fans. My apartment was hot (cheap AC system), and I didn't have a means to go out and buy a desk fan, so I repurposed these fans as my cooling solution. These things moved so much air, they sounded like jet engines powering up when plugged in, and had a tendancy to blow themselves over (despite being metal), so I had to mount them to small pieces of wood.
Where the heck is my /. article?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I've got a simpler solution - I just deal with the heat and get on with my day. (Save energy too!)
But then I grew up in the South before nearly universal aircon and before the age where everyone expected to be pampered from cradle to grave.
Back in the day, I had some 286's laying around and since my smokin' 486's made them obsolete, I took the fan's out and mounted them in a mobile home to blow cool air around. Going to do the same thing in my car. Big deal...
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I don't believe this... It's a damn fan. A Slashdot post about a damn fan. It was on digg.com too. It's not even portable. Wire in a battery and you're upto the level of the $3.00 fans sold at Walgreens. Simply amazing...
After a couple of months of using Digg, I've noticed I use Slashdot less and less... until, I'm through.
This is it. This article was the proverbial last straw. At least on Digg (if you click the link on the
bottom of the "Instructions" post, that says "digg me!".. you'll see the article in question),
you'll see how the article stayed where it should. With 3 diggs, and buried for all eternity...
never to see the likes of a front page. And I got to report it as "lame", and if enough people do,
it'll be deleted... oh joy.
http://www.digg.com/
Join the fun.
Nobody's gay for Mole-Man.
Now that we have solved the biggest problem facing /. (mainly how ugly it was), can we work on the remaining problems?
Sorry, but IT stories still suffer from a butt-ugly color scheme, and as far as I can tell, there's no way to choose anything different.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
This is sad. I notice there are a lot of stories each day on /. and I would have appreciated it if in this case there was one less to use my time on.
simple, fast homepage with your links: http://www.ngumbi.com/