A Solid State Piezoelectric Fan-Does It Actually Work?
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- Опубліковано 24 чер 2022
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In the early 1980s, I proposed a similar mechanism for ensuring airflow in an asynchronous serial terminal design (3 box; main electronics, keyboard and separate monitor, similar to the DEC VT240 graphics terminal) that had to be silent. We determined that as the electronics heated up, the airflow due to convection was chaotic causing a loss of convective cooling. Adding a single sheet of bi-metal attached to a flexible plastic/nylon blade with a dimple in it and applying a voltage across a resistive strip on one side of bimetal caused the blade to slowly move in one direction, then when the voltage was removed, the blade snapped back quickly, creating a small puff of air in the direction we needed it to flow. Any time the temperature inside the enclosure got above a set point, the process was repeated. The physics and fluid dynamics behind convective flow would take over. Worked like a charm. Unfortunately, the project was cancelled, so that fan never saw its way into a commercial product.
That would've been an amazing design! It's a shame it wasn't made into a product.
Sounds like a great design!
This is why you never invent something on company time or company dime. Otherwise, it’s not yours. If you have a stroke of genius that will fill a niche perfectly, you work on it at home in your spare time, and then you patent it and license it out.
Well you must be the guy behind the Rockwell retro-encabulator.
@@MikeJones-mf2rt when I worked for Apple, the non-compete paperwork also included language that they had ownership of any invention that was created during your time working for them, including off time. I reread that part three times. I signed anyway because we had just had a baby, and we needed the money.
I made some of these 20 years ago when I was a phd student doing heat transfer research for a certain computer company. I made mine out of metal shim stock. I was able to get first mode bending and pretty good deflection, about 30% of the length. My project lost funding because of the tech recession that happened but I don't remember the performance being all that impressive. I did some modeling of a round one like a diaphragm that pumped air through a hole but didn't end up building a prototype. Thanks for the video, I like the flow visualization you did.
United Fruit Company?
Yes, United you will stand...or else. Eat your Apple and be happy. ;)
Actually, I'm a big fan of Apple products. They've done some amazing this things.
Reading your “Round Diaphragm” made me think, this (if done at scale) could pump small amounts of water. But because of the cost of the power needed to run them, you could have millions working all at once and pumping millions of gallons per minute.
U could definitely make alot of money if u made handheld versions of it . It has a gimmick like appeal to it that lots of people would want to buy it , u should develop it!
It's useful for heat sinks which are much more efficient when there's air movement around the fins.
A real solid-state fan would be an ion thruster. Piezoelectric crystals vibrate and this can induce failure in other parts, like the electrodes that connect the crystal to a source of energy.
"Solid State" does not mean "doesn't have moving parts" - it refers to semi-conductors
@@JohnnyWednesday the wikpedia article for moving parts says "A system with no moving parts is described as "solid state"[citation needed]. ", citation is needed but clearly some people do refer to it as such.
@@JohnnyWednesday I'm pretty sure "doesn't have moving parts" is the exact definition of solid state
@@sayaks12 electricity induce vibration even on microscopic scale so even an SSD that is only capacitors and silicon chips is technically always vibrating, the difference with the piezoelectric fan shown here is that the vibration is much higher because its amplified on purpose but that doesn't mean that is not in solid state. Think about the VRMs on the graphics card or motherboard of a gaming PC, those things literally make sound sometimes it's not noticeable for the fans blowing air but people who use a water cooling says that specially with the current gen of Intel processors and Nvidia cards that sucks energy like a medium size room heater that after making it totally silent with water they can hear the VRMs like bees buzzing if they put the ear near those parts at full load.
You'd also have quite a strong smell blown into your face constantly..
Nice concept! The "fan blade" could work better if it was uniform in rigidity, though. Seems like the tape at the end is making the assembly act as a pendulum, which starts resisting the driving force partway into the cycle. This is probably decreasing the total output by a significant amount, as only the smaller, more flexible part is moving air outwards.
u are one smart cookie. Good thought process
That's true, in the original paper they can tune the blade to the correct length to get the correct natural frequency. I believe in this instance though he had to add the tape to achieve the correct natural frequency of the system so the tape acting as a damper is part of the tuning.
I suspect this was a hack rather than just a tuning method.
how piezoelectric crystals vibrate..? what makes alt current to give, up and down force to it...?
@@dgr8nikhilsrivastava It is just in resonance, it just does it automatically because one end is firm and the other is free to move. It is the reverse of making a thin sheet vibrate when air is blown across it.
There are also fans that use magnetic levitation bearings and are therefore in principle not subject to wear. But there are certainly useful applications for the fans shown if you do not need much air volume.
But the magnet’s strength would degrade over time.
@@suspense_comix3237 - Not if they were electromagnetic bearings (ignoring the decay of atoms)
I highly doubt it, you can get small fans with way less than 1 watt, with a lifetime of 50.000 hours (6 years) for less than 5€.
They dont vibrate, depending on the model can work with any voltage and with AC or DC.
I dont see any benefit in this technology,
@@suspense_comix3237 you can use electromagnets easily.
Electromagnetic bearings aren't quite strong enough to carry a moving fan and just a tiny bit of instability is enough to cause a tiltover; also they are very expensive to make. If a regular cpu fan with magnetic bearings are very expensive, why in the earth would people even buy those large ceiling fans for thousands of dollars duh
Edit : the "Electromagnetic" I used in the first line, you can refer as the strongest magnets we can have cuz the regular magnets in no way could be as powerful and robust
Piezoelectric is an amazingly simple concept with a host of complicated solutions.
Guard rails with piezoelectric wind harvesters.
@@brodriguez11000 I've seen some mini-turbines, that sit just off the road and charge batteries. But using piezoelectric tech would be an interesting twist.
Once upon a time I started to develop a brake light with a piezoelectric switch....can't go into too much detail. Need to get a patent first.
Sounds so secretive...:)
we need piezoelectric knifes! to cut vegetables or your enemies!
Just want to thank you for not making boring videos. Every other video is something completely new to me and I love it.
Can you do some videos focussed on fluid pressure differences. Like something interesting with tubes filled with water.
He's boiled water in a tube with nothing but gravity. I'm sure he's an alien or something 🤣😂🤣
@@stevenking9985 yup hehe
Love how you find these interesting ideas scouring the internet and actually investigate them in person. I saw the Peizo fan recently on Twitter or something and now you have a video on it.
The youtube vid for it got mildly viral earlier this year
This has been around since the 1970s, not hard to find.
I was a fan of the future, now I’m just a fan.
That was fantastic!!
Me too
You must be a dad
Perfect dad joke!
@@westonding8953 I'm a fan of no
And six months later, we have the airjet at CES which is basically this idea in application at a semiconductor level.
You have to check out the AirJet solid state fans by Frore Systems shown at CES. They are MEMS instead of piezo but looking pretty neat. Now if they would only let you buy some to play with. Looks like they are only going to provide them to laptop manufacturers.
MEMS can be piezo based- they are independent concepts. I'm pretty sure Frore is using Piezo to create the vibrating membrane.
I’d be intersted in a part 2 where you make 30 or so in series and see if you can beat a conventional fan!
Wonderful video, I'm a fan of this
nice one
I feel like problems may start to emerge if you try to really scale up the concept. Bigger versions may start to get impractical. Though I wonder if a three-dimensional array of smaller fans could greatly increase airflow.
The answer is yes.
There are server racks that utilize that system.
Reminds me of how sea sponges circulate water through their bodies. A vertical tube with these inside could function similarly.
I wonder how practical it would be to line a tube with something like this as a water pump?
@@kevinquintana2647 You could probably get some flow, but with not much pressure behind it. Might need to tune the oscillator for the higher viscosity as well.
There is actually a company doing chip cooling using this tech as the mechanism. Linus interviewed them and reviewed the device. It looks pretty cool.
It's so cute watching it move so quickly!
Action lab guy, you need to make a monthly CORRECTIONS episode llke a popular comedian does, it really engages the audience with comments and blesses the algorithm
Plus it's amusing
keep up the good work bud
I wonder if there truly is an application for this in computers. It seems like it might not move enough air for something like a processor, but perhaps its possible to stack them. I would like to see how noisy they are compared to traditional fans.
As soon as he asked, "Would you use this in your computer?", my first thought was "How loud is it?"
After reading your comment, I started wondering about the flow rate and how it would perform with intake filters creating resistance.
@@atk05003 I think generating enough flow/pressure to get through a filter is going to be too big of a hurdle for this type of cooling. I can see this being used for nvme drives though, just to displace warm air somewhere else from time to time if it’s in a low flow area
You can get these in a size that could move enough air to cool an average computer, but piezoelectric crystals that big are rather expensive, around 400$.
A bellows that gets mechanically expanded and compressed would move more air, and can still be super quiet if you pick the right materials.
@@0106johnny so basically maybe it would work better but will also be more experience
i love this guy he answers questions i never asked
Wow. You're the best. I couldn't understand what you were saying but I just followed instructions. Thank you so much
There is a company called Frore Systems that might be using a similar principle for their AirJet fan replacement. Cool tech maybe a little too late as processors are becoming more efficient.
This UA-cam channel is my favourite because it makes creative ideas true
Btw I was also inspired by you to make my own channel
Awesome video. I knew nothing about this before now!
A similar effect can also be achieved using a speaker, with a small chamber with a directed port on each side, also running at its resonant frequency to reduce power wasted in the coil, and the ports sized accordingly as well. At high enough excursion, the air is blown far beyond the ports without returning.
I read about piezoelectric effect in pharmacology because nebulizers work that way to spray pharmacological substance in the airways.
But I didn't quite understand it completely, so thank you so much for making this video!
It's quite different from this, nebulisation uses ultrasound to atomize fluids
I first discovered this effect when I was given the little clicker part of a lighter as a child (very weak shock and no fire) and wondering how it "didn't run out of battery"
@@dannymoneywell Aren't many ultrasonic transducers piezoelectric?
That's really intresting. I was literally thinking about fans being solid state(seeing as we got ssd's) some weeks ago so this being uploaded made me happy.
Your channel never fails to amaze me.
Bro you are amazing for explaining this in such an simple manner.
I've got brushless dc fans that have been running continuously for over a decade (with the brief exceptions of power outages).
Indeed, fans built with decent components will already last a rather long time, I think there's other reasons why this technology might be helpful.
one day id love to try to make a piezoelectric fan powered rc glider, not sure if it would work but it would be cool regardless, and certainly quieter than a prop
No, wouldn't work, not enough pressure, it can accelerate air quite a bit but it generates relatively low pressure.
It would work extremely well. As a glider. /s
Maybe as an ornithopter? But you'd need to overcome the friction of joints and need a high voltage (heavy) power supply. If boats can sail faster than the wind speed then why can't a sailplane use a sail and the wind to take off and ascend?
@@capodad2u because boats have the water to push against the wind lol
a piezoelectric ornithopter would be cool
This guy makes great videos. Thanks for another fun time on Sunday relaxation day for me.
It's be cool to see this scaled up with more individual fans stacked together and to see how much air you could get moving in say an area the size of a computer fan
If you could design them to be much quieter they could be useful for PC cooling but for now I think I'll stick to water cooling 😄
at 60 hz we will ear the buzz but if you could make 1 outside of earing range it would be silent to us!!
Edit I just found the "h" its right here
@@minion7111 bats wont be happy 🙄
Gamers will do anything for a great PC 😂😂
@@minion7111 is your h key broken?
@@MelodicTurtleMetal He wrote 60 hz. Stay safe, healthy, strong, happy and be blessed 🕊🍀❣️
This was a particularly interesting one! Does the bimetallic spring build up any heat? Is it strong enough to cool itself if so?
it would definitely build up some heat but it would literally be such a tiny amount basically negligible, also the fact that is a fan means that it always has air flow being ‘sucked’ past the bimetallic spring so it’s essentially self cooling
This is so cool. Thank you for expanding my mind.
this made me smile
a lot
i am here because i heard of frore system's Solid State Active Cooling.
Frore uses MEMS for this purpose right?
This is genius! Look at all the different science concepts he goes over in just one video!
Hey fellow Weston!
@@WestonNey hello! Second time I found someone who shared my first name!
Thanks, James, for another great video!
Beautiful educational content.
Thank you for going beyond blowing things up
with chemicals
I think the company FRORE system
Which has the vision to replace the fan from the laptop and use their jet type technology which is dust free
Uses the same technology in developing their product.
Good video, in my opinion, material sciences and engineering such as this solid staye fan, are whats going to allow us to co tinue into a sustainable future. Once we really are able to unlock molecular material printing on a wide scale, i think things will become so resource and energy effecient that it will be nearly indistinguishable from natural objects. To me, this is one step in the correct path for the future.
Molecular printing? It's such a illogical inefficient production method for 99% of goods, it would advance our progress in nothing, unless you mean true replication, like in star trek, it's a terrible idea, and I doubt you have found out how to convert energy into matter and vice versa.
@@dannymoneywell ? Your concept of what is possible is narrow. We are already doing this, by printing layers of interacting molecules you can achieve very effecient energy consumption and lower resource waste. No one but you said anything about converting energy into matter or vice versa. Solar cells, carbon fiber materials, they already exist and have been manufactured on a molecular scale. No idea what your even going on about, if you need mental help please seek it and dont take it out on people who are actually trying to promote a better future instead of whatever bullshit you didnt come up with. You didnt even offer a better technological method, you're just trying to stifle what you think is impossible because you dont understand.
@@dannymoneywell whoa easy there Spock
This is extremely inefficient at scale though.
@@0106johnny inefficiency in what? Printing? Engineering?
Things like solar cells, when invented, were really inefficient and through the process of layering designed materials the resources required have become more effecient as well as the power output.
The fact is that material sciences and the enginneering of printed layers only leads to more efficiency due to the lack of materials required to create the product and the energy required because the interactong layers are directly connected instead of through wiring.
If you judge every technology process by its infancy in development than why progress towards anything at all? Ineffeciency is not a good arguement for somethign that has the possibility of reforming how we view technology.
Great video. Informative
So this is how the helicopters in Dune work
This is really cool! And it has got me thinking: can this mechanism be used as a propeller or as a part of a propulsion system?
Hell no. It's way weaker than a rotary fan. It's basically best use for stuff that just needs a bit of cooling.
No, it generates almost no thrust.
Bee’s don’t either but they fly.
Best thing to do is try it with maybe a wider flipper and different frequency
A brilliant invention. Are there any patents known? I´m wondering when a start up will bring the device to the next level and sell it?
Piezoelectric actuators are used in inkjet printers in large numbers. Inkjet technology isn’t limited to your typical print-on-paper scenario, either, and may jet more than just ink.
This is old tech and it's not true solid state so it's not really that useful
short answer: NEVER because the concept is flawed
This is literally decades old tech
That's a really cool application of piezoelectric principles.
Congrats on 4 million!
Makes me wonder just how efficient these would be compared to a rotary fan (equivalent air volume movement.) Probably not very, but it seems to me that the lifespan would outweigh many other factors in many more settings than they are currently being used.
Inefficient, weak, expensive.
They are useful in environment were you can not have any open parts, where the bearing-surface would be a risk to the process or the environment would be damaging to the bearing.
piezoelectric motor efficiency it's about 6% compare to conventional electric motor of 96%. Since for industrial cooling application, the cost of energy far out weigh the cost maintain and replacing the equipment by several order of magnitude. It only make economic sense in extremely small scale, where energy cost component is insignificant. There is also a reason why you don't see full size airplane fly with piezoelectric motor, but see plenty of finger nail size drone fly with piezoelectric motor. It's mostly applicable in a ultra small scale or where in application where cost maintenance is extremely high (inside a high pressure or high temperature or chemical corrosive environment, where it's hard to replace a component once it's broken)
There is a kind of wind generator that uses this process in reverse. It uses Styrofoam tubes to catch the wind, but there is a little Piezo strip at the bottom of them that bends back and forth. It kind of looks like 2 foot tall blades of grass and is virtually silent. They were talking about using them for rooftop wind, although I've seen some scaled up versions too, designed to be bird safe.
I also saw a research paper where they were using Piezo strips to harvest waste heat from industrial processes.
Maybe could be useful for cooling low power electronics like tablets or laptops?
They need 120v...
@@SimonStuff2000 is that set in stone or can they just need whatever they're designed to need? Anyway, a lot of devices with fluorescent backlights had high voltage supplies.
Not really, you need a pretty high voltage alternating current
Big fan of this!
I'm just happy one person on the internet knows how to correctly pronounce 'piezoelectric'.
“I’m gonna show you a fan with no moving parts”. The part moves xD
:D Better might be "extremely long life."
He changed the title bruvvv
I’ve got another idea for a solid-state fan: using static electricity.
So imagine two plates that are both conductive. And also, imagine we have some sort of way to generate static electricity, like a Van De Graff machine or a Tesla Coil.
Let’s say we apply a positive static voltage to both plates. They will repel each other because the charges don’t go anywhere.
Now, let’s apply a negative static voltage to only one of the plates. Now the plates will move closer and closer together. This is because the charges now have ways to move.
I wonder if you can use both the piezoelectric systems or the static electricity systems to generate a motor. I mean, it would be low torque and probably won’t work but I think it is kind of interesting.
Not solid state, true solid state has no moving parts, like an ionic wind generator.
Be careful not letting someone steal that idea
Piezoelectric motors have been around for decades
That's amazing! I could easily see this becoming a super compact fan design for laptops. 💻
People have tried that since laptops have been around. Doesn't work well. You need high-voltage alternating current, the airflow produced is pretty measly and they don't scale well.
There seems to be no record of them on the internet that I can find but there was an aftermarket piezoelectric fan sold to put inside the original Apple Macs in the 1980s. It was silent and did help improve the convective airflow since there were no fans in the system from the factory.
There are fans with magnetic bearings without friction or wearing.
No moving parts would be like a ion thruster where the only things moving are the ions, which are not part of the engine.
I remember seeing an old ring bell made with an electromagnet that interrupts itself. The motion was transferred via a lever to a small hammer that hit the Bell.
I guess it could've been turned into a device similar to this one. It works with DC or AC, very easy to build.
I was thinking about this application for a while now but I usually end up on a piezo-electrically driven membrane of a pump which drives the compression in a heat pump as the preferred method.
I absolutely would use this kind of thing in my computer as long as it could move enough air to keep it cool and was quieter than the fans I currently use!
Thing is, we already have technology that makes rotating fans extremely efficient, incredibly quiet, and super cheap. The amount of power normal fans use compared to the rest of the system is rather negligible. These things would have to compete with that, and I don't know for sure that scaling it up won't have unintended noise pollution.
The Major Hardware channel has fan blade showdowns. It wouldn't quite fit their normal testing parameters (they put different blades and shrouds on a the same fan motor for consistency) but it would be interesting to see one of these in a his tests.
True, what about the wearing part?
I've never had an electric fan wear out, my laptop is over 20 years old and the fan still works fine, mind you I don't use it very often, never seem to have the time or need for it lol
Is this what Frore Systems Airjet using to cool CPUs?
With help of something called PID, we can use conventional fans to control the temperature by 0.01degree. This also applies to heating system. PID. Good thing
Love this channel.
No bearings or copper wire coils is amazing if scaled up properly with light materials... Not technically "solid state" but definitely an efficiency and cost revolution in air pumping of any kind. I can already think of improvements to the design that would let you compress/vaccum air too
This would NEVER be applicable in a pressure focused application such as a pump, there is no way one of these flappy things can generate any meaningful pressure, at most you could use it for ventilation, as it has been used for YEARS
@@dannymoneywell could work in MEMS circuits though, in tiny dialysis machine style pumps with sequential piezo elements instead of a rotor.
@@dannymoneywell
Using three or four steel reeds in series, with proper baffling at tight clearances you could produce good pressure. Especially if the reeds are vibrating at resonance. Would have to just sacrifice flow. Ideally, you could produce the same pressure as the peak of the sound wave. Just need to tune the "air box" flow characteristics to amplify the diodicity the fans air projection.
"but definitely an efficiency and cost revolution in air pumping of any kind"
They are incredible expensive (it is old tech) and way less efficient than normal fans. hence why they are used only in certain niche applications.
@@ABaumstumpf im sure someone can mass produce the piezo elements cheaper. Thats the only hurdle. I didnt say it was perfect. Not enough research has been put into it
Your video feels like this is THE solution and everyone should get dozens of these fans right now in their house.
You must add a section in the video explaining why this is not practical for consumers so that the video makes sense.
Yeah, there are several good reasons why this isn't in wide use even though it has been around for 50 years. It is very useful in very specific circumstances, in general use rotary fans are much better though.
Pretty neat stuff
Was watching a demo video about industrial cabinet piezo fans. Neat
2:38 - No moving parts, eh? Call it no spinning parts then, but claiming no moving parts is just stupid. You're going to get wearing because of the movement and vibration of the MOVING PARTS.
He clarified no _wearing_ parts. Don't be pedantic.
did you watch the video past 238?
@@brettvv7475 - It's not solid state.
@@brettvv7475 - It does wear.
@@peterwhitey4992 Nobody said it was solid state. Also, he further clarified that he was talking about parts rubbing together. Jesus Christ people.... watch the video.
What did you use to make the pourable smoke?
Nice info, thank you for sharing it :)
Actual yes putting these kinds of propulsion would be amazing for phones and laptops
I must see this concept upscaled!
Imagine using tiny piezo fans to cool certain areas of a processor , its very interesting
Pretty cool! What if you built a housing for it which had a nozzle that allowed you to use the venturi effect to increse the air flow?
Love these videos
Piezoelectric fan: It is the fan you need, not the fan you deserve.
I made a negative ion generator that did this.
It had no moving parts, yet it created such a strong breeze that it could extinguish small fires :) .
2:55 what did you use to create smoke?
I always wanted to have something like this to test ventilation
Dyson: Hey its our idea!!
Now I want to see a Piezoelectric fan computer build.
It works! This are the future fans.
I thought I was gonna see how those Dyson ac fans work, but this is really cool too
If the end was slightly wider like a floding hand held fan would it be able to scoop the air and move it better in the direction needed?
great jobs!!!😁
Yooo last night I started making a piezoelectic vibrator, and then this gets uploaded lol
Awesome vid as always man 👍
soo cool!!!
I had one like this back in the 80's for my radio shack computer it was called the Dragonfly had two blades in a V shape worked very good and was very quite.
Now there is a company that has this exact thing. I now want these to appear in laptops!
where can i buy this piezo fan or transducer or how do i modify an existing one?
Awesome!
Hey Action lab.Great video as always.I have a question.Why some objects absorb light ?I think this would be a really interesting video
These piezo modules work also the other way around. I use them as contact microphones in stringed music instruments.
I’d love to see a giant version of this!!
Most people wanna take someone they respect out for a beer...I just wanna chill with you in my workshop...tons of respect man!!!
Hi I have seen some of your chemistry videos. tell me one thing. If i apply a constant stress on a Pze crystal, do I get constant DC voltage?
Very interesting !!!
Future wind-blowing technology !!!
Thanks for the video bro.
Companies are probably going to make these now after seeing this video! It's a unique fan. Would be a great product.
This is decades old, nothing new about it. Companies don't usually make these, because they suck compared to regular rotary fans.
I would like to make one. Any suggestions on where I can get a similar piezo blade?
Facinated with that bottled smoke