[HN Gopher] Quiet, ultrathin AirJet solid state active cooling c...
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Quiet, ultrathin AirJet solid state active cooling chips could
replace fans
Author : giuliomagnifico
Score : 122 points
Date : 2023-01-21 17:14 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnx-software.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnx-software.com)
| Daveenjay wrote:
| Here is a YouTube video from PCWorld. Founder describes the
| product.
|
| https://youtu.be/YGxTnGEAx3E
| ZeroCool2u wrote:
| The founder mentions the dust proofing as a nice side effect of
| the high back pressure, but I'm wondering if that might
| actually be necessary to prevent the mechanical membranes from
| getting jammed with gunk and failing over time.
| flog wrote:
| I wonder if they could reverse the flow direction
| periodically to flush it
| robotnikman wrote:
| I know some laptops do that to keep their heatsinks from
| clogging, not sure how effective it actually is though.
| zamfi wrote:
| Hmm. Doesn't "solid state" imply "no moving parts"? Their diagram
| shows a vibrating diaphragm...
| klaff wrote:
| Solid state means it doesn't use vacuum tubes. Well, that's
| what it used to mean.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| It can mean "single part", "no change in points of contact",
| "non-moving", "not liquid", "no liquids or gases", "no atomic
| displacement", "ideally no atomic displacement", and several
| other things. Worse yet, people often change the meaning
| between sentences of the same document.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| A lot of times it's used to say no parts that move or slide
| relative to eachother. Things like piezo transducers and DLP
| mems chips are still considered solid state. Certainly a fuzzy
| line at best
| mongol wrote:
| Solid state originates in solid state physics, as opposed to
| physics involving liquids or gases. The MEMS on the device are
| moving due to solid state physics.
| crazygringo wrote:
| But by that argument a traditional spinning fan is solid
| state, since the fan is solid rather than gaseous/liquid as
| well. Same for a spinning hard drive.
|
| Common modern usage of "solid state" in electronics seems to
| be synoymous with "no moving parts", not solid as opposed to
| liquid/gas.
|
| Vibration is kind of an edge case though, so I'm not really
| sure. There's an expectation that solid state components
| don't usually fail _mechanically_ or need maintenance in that
| department. I wonder what the lifetime is for this type of
| vibrating component?
| mongol wrote:
| Yes, that's true. Electromagnetics are part of solid state
| physics. I think there is a tradition to it too, as solid
| state electronics came to be about semiconductors, and I
| think still to this day, solid state has that connotation.
| For that reason I see no problem in calling this a solid
| state device.
| aqme28 wrote:
| I'd agree with you. Solid state cooling implies something like
| a Peltier cooler.
| bilsbie wrote:
| It would be really cool to build these into clothes. Too late to
| patent this?
| ant6n wrote:
| Now yes for sure.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| I wonder if this would make sense for smartphones. There are
| already some gaming-oriented phones with fan attachments. This
| seems better than that (unless your goal is to look conspicuously
| gamer-y).
| kgc wrote:
| Sounds perfect for an ultra thin / light high performance laptop.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| I looked at this tech a while back. While it's cool the
| performance vs fans wasn't anything to write home about. I hope
| that has changed. We desperately need better cooling.
| atoav wrote:
| I mean the vack pressure claimed in the article is a magnitude
| higher than with fans. And even if it wasn't running more
| silent is a value as well.
| causality0 wrote:
| Depends on whether their statements about using high pressure
| to scrub off the thin layer of warmer air right next to the
| heat sink are accurate. If so it could have significantly
| better cooling performance for a given CFM.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| It could still be useful even if the performance isn't much
| better than a fan. If you retrofitted on of these into an M1/M2
| MacBook Air for instance it'd be enough to keep the CPU from
| throttling under extended loads without sacrificing its
| original silent nature or making its bottom surface unsuitable
| for lap use, which is pretty cool.
| klyrs wrote:
| I'm really curious about these will fare through fire season.
| Fans get gunked up annually despite (low quality) filters on the
| case intakes and HEPA filters on my furnace/ac intake. I suspect
| that if you can't clean these cooling chips, they'll be garbage
| within a couple of years.
| kolinko wrote:
| According to the video, their system produces higher static
| pressure. This means that you can install better filters for
| air input/output on the laptop.
| metadat wrote:
| Is there a case with a higher quality filtration system?
|
| Perhaps a mostly-sealed case with liquid cooling solution where
| the radiator is outside of the case would be more optimum.
| bytehowl wrote:
| I have first seen this tech demonstrated in 2012, but apparently
| the idea dates at least as far back as the early 2000s or even
| the 80s (EDIT: the 80s ones I had in mind were probably
| different). I was pretty hyped for it back then, but there have
| been barely any mentions of it since. Let's see if it actually
| makes it out of the lab this time, and if it actually delivers.
|
| 2012 GE video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm5fXj-hUpk
|
| Reddit comment mentioning some of the 2000s attempts:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/gadgets/comments/z9vn21/better_than...
|
| Top comments mention some innovative cooling solutions from 2000s
| and earlier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn6qVv9HzHc
| londons_explore wrote:
| I predict this will have clogging problems... A particle of dust
| isn't good for a mems device...
| mech422 wrote:
| Hmm - I'm not a fan of active cooling solutions (peltier, water,
| etc). Unless really well done, a failure leaves you with
| basically zero cooling.
|
| I like a nice big chunk of metal! it ain't sexy, but its quiet
| and reliable.
| tantalor wrote:
| A hunk of metal doesn't cool anything, it just moves the heat
| from one place to another until you reach equilibrium, then you
| have "zero cooling" again.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Giving you time for the CPU not to melt and shutdown the
| computer? Is thermal management clever/fast enough to do this
| on modern CPUs without any heat sink at all? Also I wonder
| about the failure rate of such a device. Very interesting
| though.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Depends on how much the CPU can lower power consumption.
|
| With Intel parts you can run them with no cooler, they'll
| just throttle to maintain 100 degC by default (exactly like
| in laptops). Not every motherboard allows this though, some
| will start beeping angrily when PROCHOT is asserted or
| reset.
|
| With Ryzens it depends, the chiplet ones can't do it,
| because the IOD power consumption exceeds what the IHS can
| dissipate without a cooler, so no matter what the CPU power
| management does, it will always eventually shut off. If
| you're in OC mode, it will do so at 115 degC. The APUs can
| probably do it, they'll probably be faster than Intel
| because they're more efficient.
|
| CPUs without an IHS just explode though.
| aqme28 wrote:
| ???
|
| All cooling is just moving heat from one place to another.
| There's no other way to cool anything.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| It does. The hunk of metal has more surface area than the
| processor, more surface to radiate, conduct, and convect the
| heat away. It doesn't matter if you use metal or water to
| move the heat to the air, your still sinking it to the air,
| hence the name heat sink. So a hunk of metal does cool
| things, it cools things better if you add more surface area
| by adding fins.
| Kovah wrote:
| Linus Tech Tips actually made a video about a fan that looks just
| like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY-gA_zA_os
| FpUser wrote:
| They remove heat by blowing the air over the flat surface.
| Looking at presented designs there is no way they would have
| enough of that flat surface area to remove all that heat. Does
| not matter how much air they would blow over that tiny surface.
| Traditional solutions involve gobbles of thin ribs with huge
| surface area that simply dwarves what they're proposing (I am not
| mentioning liquid cooling here as in the end it still ends up
| with the ribs). Clogging would be a problem as well but I guess
| it will not come to this stage as it would melt CPU first ;)
| ubercow13 wrote:
| The article has a case study suggesting that is not true. It
| also says that real laptops with this are due this year. It
| also has an explanation of why it can extract more heat from a
| smaller surface area than a traditional heatsink in the video.
| The diagram says 'flowing air reaches the same temperature as
| the heat spreader' so this is apparently not a limitation at
| all.
|
| Of course, who knows if all these things are true, but this is
| a shallow dismissal.
| londons_explore wrote:
| If I had just invented this, I would want to show it off with a
| demo attached to a CPU showing actual heat dissipation.
|
| I would have two laptops side by side, with motherboards exposed
| running some benchmark, and prove that my cooling solution could
| move more heat, be quieter, be smaller, or some combination of
| those things.
|
| The fact it is demo'ed just as a fan is in my mind suspicious.
| [deleted]
| aPoCoMiLogin wrote:
| Like this laptops side by side
| https://youtu.be/YGxTnGEAx3E?t=652
| digitallyfree wrote:
| Looks impressive from a tech standpoint, but I wonder how
| reliable it is. Laptop fans do clog and fail and something with
| tiny vents like this would likely fare even worse. Though a
| manufacturer might end up speccing these anyways as they expect
| the laptop to only last 2-3 years...
| lallysingh wrote:
| I think with the larger pressure different, you can put better
| air filters on your air intake vents
| coryrc wrote:
| The filter will clog.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Filters can be made to be easily be pulled out and cleaned,
| though.
| aqme28 wrote:
| Agreed. I could see dust being a big problem here.
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(page generated 2023-01-21 23:01 UTC)