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Ionic Cooling For Your Computer
master0ne writes, "We (the folks over at InventGeek) have produced the first ionic cooling system for your high-end gaming system. This system produces absolutely no noise and in fact has no moving parts at all. While this is a proof of concept, it demonstrates that you can get the CFM you need to cool a system efficiently with no moving parts and no increase in power consumption."
This could be great for laptop uses. Desktop replacements could probably run a heck of a lot cooler now.
-gjr
Would someone enlighten me? What is the principle behind ionic cooling? The article shows how to build it, but not why it works :).
The Raven
All they really did is replace the fans with passive heatsinks (and a heat pipe). The 'ionic' part is one of those negative ion generators which do very little and cost a lot.
Really, this is nothing to get excited about.
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
I can't wait for the Ionic Breeze PC Edition! Available now for only 3 easy payments of 39.99!
Slashdot - where to disagree, is to be a troll
It doesn't just move air! It purifies air! It traps the dirt 'n dust particle right onto the collection plate, keeping it out of the air you breath!
Anyone else see that infomercial? Makes me wonder, is this thing going to trap more dust than a regular fan or is the infomercial a bunch of marketing bull? I'm betting on marketing bull, but it would be nice if cleaning it were as simple as removing the "collection plate" and wiping it.
Demented But Determined.
It cost $9-15? Isn't that just because most of the stuff was donated?
Sucks.
There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
"We (the folks over at InventGeek) have produced the first (and last) ionic cooling system for your high-end gaming system"
TLF
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
My current cooling system blows by comparison!
Buy an Ionic Breeze Heatsink right now, and we'll throw in the famous OWL Card, the flashlight/magnifying glass credit card for FREE!!!!1!!! Buy now! Only 29.99.
For a second, I thought it said "Ironic cooling . . ."
Hmm, I wonder if that would involve a black fly and some super-cooled chardonnay.
Oh, wait, that wasn't ironic after all.
My brother uses an ionic cooling system. His system was overheating, so he took off one of the sides, added some mosquito blocking metal mesh for porches and pointed his ionic breeze at the case. Works well enough.
I've got a machine with the Alanis Morisette Signature-Series Ironic Cooling System. Of course, just like the unit in TFA isn't really "ionic," her's isn't ironic, either. Which makes this actually ironic! Yeah, I really do think.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
On the final page it indicated that this ionic system can do 325 CMF. The rest of the units are in CFM, so I am assuming it's a typo. However, how can a fanless system do 325 cubic feet per minute? I've seen ionic systems before and they have never put out anything near that amount (at least from my non scientific estimations). If so, than this is much more than just a passive solution. Unless it is 325 CMF, and it's cubic minutes per feet, but then I think that I just went crosseyed trying to think of cubic minutes.
They state a rediculously low price. How about an estimate for everything; case, PSU, memory (both for RAM and disk space), VGA heatsink, video card, etc?
It sounds fantastic, but also, I would not be able to have a functioning computer with only 8GB of disk space. Possibly if I had it running solely as a client, but then I wouldn't even need any disk space, only lots of ram.
Besides, who can honestly fit all of their porn onto 8GB these days?
Isn't this a generator of ozone?
Doesn't this seem dangerous or is the output the same as one of those stand alone units?
What about cleaning it?
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
What baffles me about this mod is that he says it costs $9 to $15, but everything including the ion generator costs more than that. If he can't get the price right, what's to say its as effective has he claims? Especially since he gives us a CFM figure, but doesn't tell us how he measured it, or give us any concrete numbers on how cool it runs.
Can that be a typo? I don think you can push that ammount of air with a simple ionic setup like the one described in the article...
Anyway, it's a neat idea, but the system is setup so all the heat generating elements irradiate inside the case with a large ionic fan providing airflow. Unless the setup blows a LOT of air through the case, i'm guessing the large passive heatsinks are doing their work without a lot of help from the ionic setup. I'd also watch out for ozone generation (which can become a problem with HV setups in enclosed enviroments) and safety - most probably the HV generator is current limited to a few milliamps, but still.
"This system produces absolutely no noise and in fact has no moving parts at all."
:-P
Methinks the hard drive has moving parts...
The sea is full of ionic coolant.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
...but where can I find out about ironic cooling for my computer?
They simply don't push around enough air. The Sharper Image even tried to sue Consumer Reports because they said so. Of course, they lost.
This would be GREAT in a audio production PC. Fans are noisy and so are liquid cooling solutions to a degree. If this could be affordable and effecient, then I could see this becoming the standard for the studio PC.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
You know, liquid nitrogren doesn't exactly have moving parts either and it uses no electricity unless you want to run it through a radiatior and I believe if it's under pressure, it will go back down to a cold temp quickly by itself.
now stop reading and go play Dance Dance Revolution!
In the project they use elements of a consumer air ionizer. These devices create negatively-charged ions. These are attracted by dust and smoke particles, causing the latter to fall to the ground or be attracted to positively-charged surfaces.
"All the affected airborne particles ultimately wind up on surfaces close to the ioniser, making the area immediately surrounding the ioniser dirty..." (Wikipedia). The more dirt sticks to the ionizer, the less air it is able to move. anufacturers of Ionic Breeze and other such devices recommend cleaning the metal plates every couple of days. This is probably not a very practical solution for a PC. However, it's an interesting experiment.
more ozone in our homes....
Read more here: Danger: Ionizing air purifiers impure
A lot of law suits flew around as a result of the Ionic Breeze, here is some information about it.
Anyway, it does pull dust out of the air. The amount it actually pulls looks impressive, but is actually so insignificantly small as to almost be immeasurable (as Consumer Reports found). You need like 20 of them in your room to make a noticable difference.
Further, they produce ozone, which then fills the room. Ozone can be harmful to people with some breathing disorders, so in some cases it actually makes things worse.
I don't know if the system mentioned by the poster also produces ozone, or if it also removes an insignificantly small amount of pollution, but the Ionic Breeze is simply not worth the money.
Further, the things are *NOT* silent. They make static-electricity noises. They don't start making them instantly..you have to run them for a few weeks. Then they start making zappy/poppy noises. They aren't hurt-your-ears loud or anything, but you do hear them, and they do just go on and on (even after you clean the plates).
Lastly, the darn things outright break after a few months.
The HEPA air filters are bulky and loud, but they actually get the job done. If you need clean air, go with that instead.
My current cooling system blows by comparison!
Current eh? How about plasma? My Jackob's Ladder spark gap chimney effect is a real blast, though it's not quiet or very good at cooling.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_ioniser
I sure hope the ions are moving, at least! Otherwise, things'll get fun when the charge causes the resistance of the air to break down.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
These things are known to put out a considerable amount of ozone. This ozone attacks rubber and some plastics making them quite brittle.
A strong negative electric charge is put into one side of the system. This side should have many sharp points angled toward the positive side to be the most efficient. Negative charge builds up in this grid, concentrated at those points. The charge is not enough to actually arc across the air and make a spark, but it is high... high enough that electrons leap across, one by one. Actually, they're leaping across in the millions and billions per second, but they're so tiny that the effect is imperceptible.
:-)
This 'leaping' across has always seemed like how ice sublimates into a gas... it doesn't melt into water, then evaporate, an ice cube in dry air can evaporate directly. In the case of the electrons, they don't melt and flow across (spark) they just imperceptibly leap off one by one. Yeah, it's a bad analogy, but it's the best I can think of.
As the electrons leap across the gap, they sometimes run into air molecules. When they strike, they can merge with that molecule, and turn it into an ion... this air ion now has a negative charge, and it gets drawn toward the posotive side too... pulled across, the air molecule bumps and shoves other air molecules, and you get a current of air, many of them negatively charged ions.
This 'other side' happens to be big flat metal plates in the 'ionic breeze', but it doesn't have to be. It could be a simple grid of metal, like chicken wire or something. Anything that can carry a current, and let air blow past it.
The charge between the two can be thousands of volts, but the current is very small. However, something getting in that gap, like a bug, could get zapped. Yeah, bug zappers are technically 'ionic breeze' machines too, but the voltage and their shape is not optimized to blow air.
As to where I learned this... all hail Popular Mechanics. An article way back in the late 70's demonstrated these, but not to make ions... they demonstrated a grid powerful enough to take off. Imagine a perfectly silent helicopter with no moving parts, trailing a thick heavy power cable (because they couldn't generate enough electricity onboard to lift it on its own). Definitely a nifty idea.
The Raven
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
God, I hate these ridiculously short pages. God forbid you have long pages.
I bought an Ironic Cooling system for my PC awhile back.
With a power rating of 500 Watts, I found that the Ironic Cooler actually heated up my PC, so I'm not using it anymore.
With no moving parts, it looked like he opted to go without an optical drive... I suppose you could install windows over network, but what about your games? looks like he romoved the CFM claim on it
Why the hell wouldn't they list the idle/load temps? Are they trying to hide something?
A better link describing how they are used can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4468076. stm, and some photos can be seen at http://www4.ncsu.edu/~frey/apcespph.html>.
Very large equipment sizes are required to be effective on a power plant scale.
"Doesn't mention any diodes later though. I would keep one hand in your pocket when testing this one.."
Isn't that were most geeks keep theirs?
Caveat Utilitor
Perhaps CMF is cubic meters per fortnight. By my math, that's about 0.57 cubic feet per minute... they may have fooled lesser souls by using two-week -long measures of time, but we at Slashdot are much cleverer than that. Fanless, indeed.
A 10 inch square by 18 inch long block of wood mounted on a sledge hammer handle. Staple a piece of car tire tread to one end of the block. One good swat, and then leave the cat at the end of the driveway.
"Oh noes! Mr Mittens has been run over by a car!
So, I know that doesn't say much. Here's the gist of it:
- A couple of wires that are positively charged charge the air and the particles in the air.
- A couple of plates that come after the wires and are negatively charged pull on the positively charged air and the particulate waste in the air.
- The air goes whizzing by (inertia, pressure, etc.), and the particles get stuck on the plates.
That last step is where the problem will be for a computer application. These guys get covered in fuzzy, nasty, dust, and that dust makes the blades less effective. Be prepared to clean your fan replacement at least once a week.
No thanks.
I read the story as 'iconic' cooling system, and was looking forward to details of one of the all-time great cooling systems, one that history would long remember. Ah well.
"The main reason we chose the Intel CPU is if for some reason there was a thermal issue it will self-protect the CPU unlike AMD's" Has he been living in a cave?, it hasn't been that way since the release of the Kt333 and Nforce chipsets for socketA, and never has had any issue on socket 754 and over Also he does mention the core 2 duo, but I am still surprised that he didn't build it around one in the first place, or at least something which puts out less heat than a pentium D at 3.2ghz..... and certainly he didn't think about building it around a mobile cpu like the older pentium M's or core duo's, turion or mobile sempron, or even a low energy X2.... and another little gripe--- the CFM's he is reporting seem wayyyy out of proportion, I don't think he knows how to differentiate a CFM from his ass.... I mean, look, the very expensive ones I see barely have enough flow to make a 5" long ribbon attached to it float...
He needs to remove the Ionic cooling system and see if the temperatures and CPU speeds change.
# Erik
Why am I not seeing a temperature reading anywhere?
Something smells fishy.
No, wait...that's the ozone.
That just seems like a horrible idea since they just make it so dust will stick to everything. Not to mention having a high frequency circuit shoved into my case which could be leaking RF into the motherboard seems like a horrible idea as well.
So potentially I would have curruption of the signal on the high speed buses of the mobo (runs slower due to error correction) and dust stuck to everything in my computer to where I'd actually have to wipe the surfaces down.
Silliness...
Midget Tosser
"Damnit Scottie, there's no time to explain. We need more cooling!".
"But cap'n she canno take any more".
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
This can never work to cool a computer - the only thing this would be useful for is to pull charged dirt particles out of the air and capture them. That might cause some incidental 'breeze' but never enough to cool hundreds of watts of computer power. Also, did anyone notice how he's using RAM drives, but with nothing to install software on them in the first place?
So if you play too long, you find yourself somewhere in the outer reaches of the solar system due to your diy ionic propulsion drive :)?!
Would one of these still work in a fabrication room setting, where there's less than 1 dust particle per million or so... or does it require a "dirty" air supply to actually move any air by itself?
8==8 Bones 8==8
The applications of an intergalactic drive seem plentiful.
Shop equipment like saws, sanders and such have mounts for an exhaust to take away dust. You'd think that more photocopiers would have similar mounts to vent the ozone and gases from the inks.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I have some excellent swamp land to sell you all!
The question is really whether the system works well without
the *ionic cooling*. No hard drives to cool, and in general
fanless designed parts prolly means it doesn't need a fan.
At least lets see
"Temperature without the ionic cooling" versus "Temperature with ionic cooling"
and a particularly idiotic CFM estimate?
LOL!!!!!!
Corinthian or Doric cooling.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
IHMO it's unlikely the "ionic breeze" does much if anything useful here. Natural convection (remember "hot air rises"?) is probably the main heat-moving factor at work here.
A real simple test: unplug the ionic "cooler" and see how much the motherboard and CPU temperatures change. My guess, very little.
With no hard drive or cd-drive, my computer would be perfectly silent as well. ;p
Maybe this is causing the air to move... the heatsinks are huge so that'll easily move air exiting from the back of PSU (where there is also a heatsink in the outside).
Now my dual-core processor can sport Twin Ion Engines! *screeeeeeech!*
--- To each of us a Truth is given.
My friend, what is dangerous is to imagine a world without O-Zone. Never before have so much of humanity been able to join together in healthy, gut-level laughfest as when witnessing the Numa Numa phenomenuma.
Wait, I don't understand ...
... the airflow isn't anything NEAR the output of a CPU fan, let alone a factor of 4 greater.
According to his chart on the last page the air flow output of this Ionic Breeze-gone-Frankenstein is:
Ionic Cooling System Coustom 325.00 CMF 0.00 dBA
Compared to:
EVERCOOL SFF-12 120mm Ever Lubricate bearing 120mm 80.00 CFM 25.00 dBA
Thermaltake Silent Wheel A2330 130mm 120mm 54.40 CFM 16.00 dBA
I had an Ionic Breeze
I think that I just went crosseyed trying to think of cubic minutes..
Do you realize what that can do to your brain?
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
but when i submitted it last month, NOBODY LISTENED.
Shop equipment like saws, sanders and such have mounts for an exhaust to take away dust. You'd think that more photocopiers would have similar mounts to vent the ozone and gases from the inks.
Many of them have an activated charcoal ozone filter; I know because I've worked on laser printers and copiers and replaced a lot of these filters myself, although I seem to see fewer of them on newer models - I think the manufacturers have figured out how to make the printing process work with lower voltage coronas.
Ozone production is only a problem above a certain voltage; it's entirely possible to build an air ionizer (which this is) that doesn't produce very much ozone at all.
Putting moderation advice in your
With a little re-working of interior air flow I'll bet that you could dispense with the ionic cooler entirely.
My pumpless thermosiphon water cooled PC works in essentially that way. Jake.
The Steampunk Workshop
Most of my consumer electronics that generate heat use convection for cooling. (TV, reciever, DVR, refrigerator, monitor...) They are designed so that hot air can easily rise out of the machine and be replaced by cooler air.
Has anyone ever used convection to cool a computer? It doesn't make any noise, and it'll never wear out.
No, I will not work for your startup
TFM claims both (a) no increase in power consumption (Project Overview page) and (b) an increase in air moved (CFM) relative to fan systems by a factor of anywhere between 3.8 and 28.8 (comparison table on Final Thoughts page).
Anyone besides me find these claims difficult to believe? There are no figures presented to support the former at all and no indication as to how the latter was measured. It sounds like a fun project, but that's about it; I don't think it's been established that it can stand by itself as a technical improvement.
licet differant, aequabitur
How did you install Windows XP or any other motherboard utility for that matter? I doubt you Ghosted it... good luck getting Ghost to run with that spiffy little RAM drive of yours.
For that matter, a system without a CD-ROM drive isn't very useful unless you dedicate the machine to one game, and don't mind jumping through hurdles to install the next one, but at that point, it's really not a system with no moving parts is it?
I guess it's all a moot point. Your power button still moves.
The Ionic Breeze is an incredibly bad product. I know, I own two of them (I bought them at the same time, it's not like I hated one and bought another anyway). It uses a lot less power and has no moving parts, but the sacrifice you pay is that its actual ability to move air is greatly diminished. Which begs the question - if not having moving parts is your primary goal, why not just get a wet paper towel and hang it up in the room, hoping that dust particles will bump into it and cling to it? That's the (not so) extreme version of the Ionic Breeze approach. The reason you don't do that, of course, is that results matter, which is why fan-based systems are still far superior to the Ionic Breeze.
Likewise, if I only cared about not having a moving fan in my laptop, maybe I would just work outside and let the breeze take care of everything. But that would obviously be insufficient. Assuming you want to use your computer and also not fry it, the ionic wind idea will not be viable until it can be at least as effective as fans. I wouldn't hold my breath.
Besides, if you want to do away with fans in laptops, a better idea would be to add additional heat sinks to the vicinity and use a combination of that and liquid cooling to disburse the heat so widely and quickly that a fan would be unnecessary. This would add a lot of build complexity and some weight, however, and I suspect that is the reason this is not done. Besides, fans in laptops are not a huge concern. They are pretty resilient and effective.
(As for anybody who says that the main reason to pursue ionic cooling is that fans cause a lot of noise - you obviously haven't heard the Ionic Breeze's signature "crackle," which is basically impossible to eliminate after a month or two, unless you void your warranty by taking the entire unit apart and cleaning the sensitive parts thoroughly.)