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Students invent quieter leaf blower

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Re: Students invent quieter leaf blower

#371

Post by pradn »

geocrasher wrote: post #248

What I loved about this is that all of their prototypes were with a stock leaf blower with *3D Printed* attachments. This really shows the value of the rapid prototyping that 3D Printing has allowed. It also shows that any of us could have done this with enough time and effort. And I don't mean literally any person- but there are a LOT of YouTube engineering channels that could likely have tackled this, had they been…

There's a lot of value in coming up with a clear problem statement and giving it to the right people. We see this with DARPA, at a much bigger scale.

A lot of the value in engineering leadership is in making sure the right problems are being solved.

Re: Students invent quieter leaf blower

#372

Post by datahack »

modeless wrote: post #296

We don't need quieter electric leaf blowers. We need to ban the gas ones, with no grandfather clause. Not just for the noise pollution but the local air pollution. It's crazy the volume of air that can be ruined by a single gas leaf blower, far worse than modern cars, and they are inescapable in cities.

They are already banned in California.

The rest of you need to catch up.

I for one am stoked to have a quieter electric one though of course I’m behind your sentiment!

But for Calfironians, it’s already better for the environment with all these small engines phasing out, and now it’s quieter too? Slick.

Re: Students invent quieter leaf blower

#373

Post by BenjiWiebe »

grecy wrote: post #304
modeless wrote: post #296

We don't need quieter electric leaf blowers. We need to ban the gas ones, with no grandfather clause. Not just for the noise pollution but the local air pollution. It's crazy the volume of air that can be ruined by a single gas leaf blower, far worse than modern cars, and they are inescapable in cities.

I'm always shocked that small ICE equipment don't have catalytic converters, or any emissions reducing devices. Especially given the operator is actually holding the thing and the exhaust is just a foot or two from their face, surely the health consequences are capital letters bad .

Some do. https://www.stihl.com/catalytic-converter.aspx

Re: Students invent quieter leaf blower

#374

Post by nikolay »

I watched years ago a presentation at the City of Irvine, California, from a scientist that all these small engines (leaf blowers, mowers, etc.) pollute California's air way more than all cars combined. Also, the leak machine oil. To me personally, leaf blowers are bad not only due to their exausts, but because they also make all kinds of bacteria and pollutants airborne, most specifically, fungus, feces from animals, large particles, etc., which end up in our lung eventually. To me leafs are not a big issue. I'd rather have grass with decaying leaves then grass and leaf blowers!

UPDATE: It seems that California has banned the sale, not the use of gas-powered small engines [0]!

[0]: https://www.cityofirvine.org/environmental-programs/lawn-equ...

Re: Students invent quieter leaf blower

#375

Post by travisb »

actionfromafar wrote: post #26
infecto wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The switch to electric will help a lot in this situation. Unfortunately I don't think the equipment is good enough contractors yet.

It will get there I suspect, the tools and batteries can charge in the truck en route. Easier to just fuel up the truck once instead of filling up little gas tanks all the time.

Charging using the truck would require running the truck all day -- probably not an acceptable alternative. Consuming 2-10 Kw from a 200 Kw engine would be so inefficient that it'd be too expensive anyways. Instead you'd need to run a generator all day charging batteries.

A fast charging, high capacity tool battery takes at least 60 minutes to charge. In high power applications (lawn mower, leaf blower, chainsaw, etc) those batteries might be emptied in a little as 15 minutes.

A better alternative might be corded 240v tools running directly off the generator for high-power applications. 120v tools are limited to 2-3HP which doesn't compare well to gas engines.

Re: Students invent quieter leaf blower

#376

Post by tyingq »

vel0city wrote: post #271
tyingq wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like the key part of the idea could apply to gas blowers, right?

A massive amount of the noise of a gas blower is the gas motor part of the thing.

Yes, though perhaps there's possible middle ground, like 4-stroke motors plus this tech.

Re: Students invent quieter leaf blower

#377

Post by jasomill »

kylebenzle wrote: post #363
kjkjadksj wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are also nearly as loud to my ear as a gas one. Turns out blowing air is noisy.

I guess I'm glad we don't use your ear as a way to measure sound levels then because we would all be way off. Gas-powered leaf blowers typically operate around 90-100 decibels (dB), while electric leaf blowers usually range from 60-70 dB.

To put this into perspective, per Wikipedia[1]:

60 dB SPL: TV (set at home level)

100 dB SPL: Jackhammer

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_pressure#Examples_of_sou...

Re: Students invent quieter leaf blower

#378

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

shagmin wrote: post #332
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the other underlying problem implied there is that electric leaf blowers are only viable for household use. They are just so completely impractical for commercial use that no one will ever use them.

...yet where I live all the parks, public landscaping, etc., that are owned by the municipality are maintained with electric leaf blowers except for areas where they have it contracted out and then it's a mix. It's totally possible, but I think the larger problem is the sunk money on equipment that doesn't need to be replaced any time soon.

I've seen a couple businesses in my city that use electric. It's their main selling point. But in both the cases I'm aware of it's literally just one guy maintaining his own tiny fleet of equipment. And it's more than double what it would cost to get a bigger landscaping company to do it. I would really like to see an example of a landscaping company do this at scale, because I haven't seen it.

The equipment itself is not even really that big of an investment to my understanding. A good electric leaf blower and battery is probably equivalent or cheaper than its gas powered equivalent. It's the logistics and maintenance burden of having to constantly charge, swap, replace, and maintain the batteries. Kind of why electric cars only became viable in the last 20 years. The technology has been around a long time, it's just only now viable enough due to capacity restrictions.

Due to the form factor and energy requirements, it may be a long time before that happens to replace two and four stroke motors for commercial use cases.

Re: Students invent quieter leaf blower

#379

Post by tmnvix »

I still recall a tragicomic leafblower event that made the local news when I lived in Australia.

A caretaker was killed when a tree fell on him while he was using a leafblower during a storm. The added irony was that he was doing this at 'The Lodge' - the official residence of the Australian Prime Minister which had been vacant for some time because the Prime Minister refused to live their (preferring a residence in Sydney). So an entirely unnecessary event all around.

Re: Students invent quieter leaf blower

#380

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

modeless wrote: post #323
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the other underlying problem implied there is that electric leaf blowers are only viable for household use. They are just so completely impractical for commercial use that no one will ever use them.

I've seen plenty of companies using them. It's not even close to impossible. They're just not the majority.

Are these companies operating at scale? We have a couple in my city as well. But it's one guy maintaining their own fleet of equipment. Does the cost rival gas powered companies? The companies I'm aware of that offer this service specifically market it as a premium and appeal to eco friendly consumers that want the less noise and pollution, and are willing to pay more than double what it costs to have a gas powered company do it.

Unfortunately, until the technology improves I think we have a tragedy of the commons scenario here, because gen pop is probably willing to trade the noise and air pollution for the cheaper service

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