It's not the fastest clothes dryer, but I often use one that runs on fusion in outer space.
We did that, right up until we had three kids and full-time jobs :)
Ultra-low-energy consumption ultrasonic clothes dryer
31–40 of 192 posts
Re: Ultra-low-energy consumption ultrasonic clothes dryer
#32And how will my cat react to this thing? Something with enough sonic energy to vaporize a significant volume of water is probably loud enough to wake every animal in the area.
Looks like they calculated the optimum as ~500-600 Hz? That's in human hearing range too.
Give it a try: "600 Hz Sine Wave Sound Frequency Tone" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERHcqYNLHyg
and 500: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlEfshsoyZk
If that really is the range they are targeting, this product is doomed. That will be one heck of a noise to cancel. "Soundproof box" is right up there with perpetual motion, zero-point energy, and spherical chickens in vacuums.
Re: Ultra-low-energy consumption ultrasonic clothes dryer
#33The logical next leap is to cook food with ultrasound which will hopefully be somewhat faster than conventional cooking and less harmful (no protein denaturing [1]) than microwave cooking
Re: Ultra-low-energy consumption ultrasonic clothes dryer
#34A bit puzzled why GE needs government funding to do research -- they make a lot of money already. The idea sounds pretty neat but I wonder about longevity of the piezeoelectric transducers. A clothes dryer needs to last at least 7-10 years, minimum. A resistive heating element is about as simple as you can get, and it's cheap to replace if it does burn out.
Batteries don't last this long, why does a dryer have to? it's not all about longevity ...
This device is supposed to be eco-friendlier than a hot air dryer.
The benefit reduces if you have a consumable component that needs changing, especially with the amount of e-waste that goes to landfill.
Re: Ultra-low-energy consumption ultrasonic clothes dryer
#35And how will my cat react to this thing? Something with enough sonic energy to vaporize a significant volume of water is probably loud enough to wake every animal in the area.
Looks like they calculated the optimum as ~500-600 Hz? That's in human hearing range too.
Indeed that's what it says. That's neither ultrasonic nor easy to block with reasonable quantities of sound dampening materials.
They also directly mechanically couple the transducers to the fabric. You need as much area of transducer as fabric you need to dry, unless you have some automated way to place the fabric on the transducers sequentially.
Re: Ultra-low-energy consumption ultrasonic clothes dryer
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the main reason. The difference in the longevity of my clothes -- same exact articles, same brand, same material, thickness, size and stitching -- from switching from a "hotbox" dryer to condensation dryer was initially amazing. No more did cuffs and collars start to crack and fail, nor did my shirts slowly develop small tears. The latest (2014 is when they really started to hit the market) heat pump dryers d…
You said the difference was "/initially/ amazing"; did something change later?
Could simply be habituation; where, like with HDTV, it's amazing at first but you get used to it and it simply becomes "the normal".
Re: Ultra-low-energy consumption ultrasonic clothes dryer
#37It's not the fastest clothes dryer, but I often use one that runs on fusion in outer space.
Beamed energy is here!
Re: Ultra-low-energy consumption ultrasonic clothes dryer
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
For apartment goers (or those that live in uncooperative climates) the reliability of such a system is a bigger problem than the speed. But for those that can use it, it is indeed a great system.
Can you put your clothes on a fire escape? Or in your bathroom (works great if you have a bathroom with a window).
Alternatively, a clothes rack on a balcony or receiving direct sunlight through a window or glass sliding door, with both slightly ajar works well.
One benefit of this is that your clothes last much longer.
Re: Ultra-low-energy consumption ultrasonic clothes dryer
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
You said the difference was "/initially/ amazing"; did something change later?
Could simply be habituation; where, like with HDTV, it's amazing at first but you get used to it and it simply becomes "the normal".
Possibly so; it just seemed like a conspicuously odd thing to add given they seemed to have no other complaints about it.
Re: Ultra-low-energy consumption ultrasonic clothes dryer
#40And how will my cat react to this thing? Something with enough sonic energy to vaporize a significant volume of water is probably loud enough to wake every animal in the area.
They likely will sonically baffle any outlet for humidity to avoid this issue. I'm curious if the ultraound causes increased wear of the fabric at the thread ends, for example.
>> sonically baffle any outlet
Good point! The water vapour needs a way out. That means a direct air path between the fabric and the outside world. They cannot seal the entire thing in a vacuum bottle to deaden the sound. I see a 50' pipe full of baffles, a giant truck muffler, between this thing and anyone with eardrums.