No More Spinning: How Piezoelectric Fans Change the Game

See the full video here:
A Solid State Piezoelectric Fan—Does It Actually Work?

[Aaron-]

First thing that came to mind is a portable face slapper.

[davidblalock]

I have a fan that uses roller bearings, it even has a zirk fitting to regrease the bearings. It was made in 1929.

[piotrbraszak]

There's only one thing that comes to my mind: material fatigue. It's far easier to break something by bending it back and forth than by friction caused by turning. Grease is way easier to apply and therefore makes rotating machines arguably easier to maintain than periodic replacement of fatigued element. Not to mention the cost of manufacturing components that can withstand vibrations of that magnitude.

We can flap our hands because our tissue is soft, deformable and rebuilds itself. Metal, plastic, even rubber, is rigid and cannot repair itself without external help.

[Bitcoin_Bernoulli]

I’m a mechanical engineer and I work in data center cooling. We use liquid cooling and fan bearings wear out a lot on the dry coolers. I would love to see what kind of CFM these can produce.

[nine]

We bought a fan in Germany in 2004 and it still runs perfectly today. It is solid.

[Badpoison]

I have an oscillating fan that's at least 25 years old and works great. I'm 37 and my parents had it in the living room when I was growing up. Took it to college, and now it's in my workshop in South Texas.

[Bremend]

They get used used in semiconductor applications for their lack of dust collection

[Arterexius]

You can avoid wear on things with material rubbing against another material. Use grease or oil. It lubricates the parts and protects them from wear over a long period of time. In an ideal setting, the lubricant is always changed on time, avoiding the wear and tear that comes from waiting too long to change it.

[firstname]

Exhaust fan for venting a grain silo, maybe? Or maybe a circulation fan for your indoor horse racetrack

[Adrian_Nel]

"Regular fans" can last for a really long time. There was one in a massive old railway workshop in my city which ran for more than 50 years.

[Darcnites]

Imagine tiny robot fish using this principle

[IagoSB__.]

There is a company that is making new cooling units for laptops that use this method, it's pretty cool!

[TheHopelessGeek]

We still have the table fan my dad used during his studies as a teenager. Heavy, metal wings and everything. I'm now 28 and it still works.

[quentinhilpert]

in fact they did have fans that moved back and forth instead of ceiling fans. The "fans" or wings? were moved back and forth by way of a connecting rod linkage to a slowly rotating gear motor shaft.

[flaming_ace]

keep in mind, regular fans are great at moving lots of air, we only have very very small piezoelectric fans. they produce jets of higher pressure air however, so while two fans can have similar cubic meters of air moved, the regular fans air will be moving much much slower, but over a much larger area than the piezoelectric ones

[TalRohan]

anywhere flammable seems like a good idea.
I saw a fan built on a power hammer motor that uses mercury bearings, like the old light house bearings, it was a beast and ran at high revs 24/7, last I checked the company (which works with all kinds of flammable fibres) is still going and using the same fan almost 45years later.

[addictionsucks]

I think a more important factor is how small it can be. Imagine like 20 of these pulling air through tight hardware to cool it. I mean liquid cooling is probably more effective, but if you have some tech that needs to survive long term in a harsh condition this would be a good alternative to traditional fans

[derealgod]

My ceiling fan going on 10 years of constant service

[GordieGii]

Radio Shack used to sell a piezo fan decades ago. There is also a company that makes solid-state blowers for laptops.

[robertwilliams]

"Flapping" fans were actually a thing early 20th century. A theatre, say, would have rows of canvas sheet, that rocked back and forth, on the ceiling. The structure was something like canvas deck chairs, with actuating arms. A bit of clanking, but people in the tropics didn't mind.