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Ionic Cooling For Your Computer

Posted by kdawson on Sun Sep 17, 2006 09:05 PM
from the ion-breeze dept.
Hardware Hacking Hardware
master0ne writes, "We (the folks over at InventGeek) have produced the first ionic cooling system for your high-end gaming system. This system produces absolutely no noise and in fact has no moving parts at all. While this is a proof of concept, it demonstrates that you can get the CFM you need to cool a system efficiently with no moving parts and no increase in power consumption."
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  • This could be great for laptop uses. Desktop replacements could probably run a heck of a lot cooler now.

  • I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vlad_petric (94134) on Sunday September 17 2006, @09:44PM (#16127511) Homepage
    Would someone enlighten me? What is the principle behind ionic cooling? The article shows how to build it, but not why it works :).

    • Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)

      by macz (797860) on Sunday September 17 2006, @09:55PM (#16127546)
      Basically the ions move the air instead of a rotating fan.
      http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/283716_coolchi ps04.html [nwsource.com]
    • Don't you watch infomercials?

      The EPA certifies "it's a newer way to clean air!" (this is an actual quote)

      Call now, and we'll give you a second one, free.
    • The sea is full of ionic coolant.
    • Obviously, liquid cooling is SOOOOOOOO 2005.

    • How an 'ionic wind' works. (Score:5, Informative)

      by The Raven (30575) on Sunday September 17 2006, @11:08PM (#16127814) Homepage
      A strong negative electric charge is put into one side of the system. This side should have many sharp points angled toward the positive side to be the most efficient. Negative charge builds up in this grid, concentrated at those points. The charge is not enough to actually arc across the air and make a spark, but it is high... high enough that electrons leap across, one by one. Actually, they're leaping across in the millions and billions per second, but they're so tiny that the effect is imperceptible.

      This 'leaping' across has always seemed like how ice sublimates into a gas... it doesn't melt into water, then evaporate, an ice cube in dry air can evaporate directly. In the case of the electrons, they don't melt and flow across (spark) they just imperceptibly leap off one by one. Yeah, it's a bad analogy, but it's the best I can think of. :-)

      As the electrons leap across the gap, they sometimes run into air molecules. When they strike, they can merge with that molecule, and turn it into an ion... this air ion now has a negative charge, and it gets drawn toward the posotive side too... pulled across, the air molecule bumps and shoves other air molecules, and you get a current of air, many of them negatively charged ions.

      This 'other side' happens to be big flat metal plates in the 'ionic breeze', but it doesn't have to be. It could be a simple grid of metal, like chicken wire or something. Anything that can carry a current, and let air blow past it.

      The charge between the two can be thousands of volts, but the current is very small. However, something getting in that gap, like a bug, could get zapped. Yeah, bug zappers are technically 'ionic breeze' machines too, but the voltage and their shape is not optimized to blow air.

      As to where I learned this... all hail Popular Mechanics. An article way back in the late 70's demonstrated these, but not to make ions... they demonstrated a grid powerful enough to take off. Imagine a perfectly silent helicopter with no moving parts, trailing a thick heavy power cable (because they couldn't generate enough electricity onboard to lift it on its own). Definitely a nifty idea.

      The Raven

        • Re:How an 'ionic wind' works. (Score:5, Interesting)

          by The Raven (30575) on Monday September 18 2006, @02:39AM (#16128424) Homepage
          I think the ionic breeze actually uses a pretty low voltage... it's not thousands of volts like it was in the PopMech article, because the breeze is a lot slower. Chances are, to save on wiring, they just have a simple 120 volts in a rectified AC pattern. That, incidentally, is also another difference with bug zappers... I'm pretty sure that bug zappers alternate which side is negative and which is positive, which means there's no breeze because it flips between pushing and pulling 60 times a second.

          For anyone who cares... making an ion wind generator is dead simple. Smooth out the AC power into DC current, pump the voltage up to around 1000 volts, and embed the negative and positive grates into a plastic fan case. The ionic breeze costs a lot, but it's pure profit for the Sharper Image. An ionic wind is cheaper to make than a normal fan.

          It is, I think, less efficient electrically than a normal fan. Not certain. It's been nearly 30 years since I made one. Mine did NOT smooth out the current, and did NOT hop up the voltage, so it was about what I think an ionic breeze is. To get the fastest breeze though I put the negative and positive sides pretty close together, so it would zap if bugs got between. My biggest problem was I didn't have any plastic spacers in it, to keep the sides apart... if it tipped over, or someone pushed on the mesh (I had nothing to prevent that either) it would short out. And, since I had no built in fuse... well. Two house outages later, my parents threw it away. :-)
      • I own one, it has to be doing something since the collection grid fills up with lint and so forth every couple of weeks. I just tested the "no air flow" thing by putting a piece of tissue paper over the output and it blew around like their was air moving, so it seemed to be doing something.

        Granted, it's not a great amount of air flow, but I've noticed an improvement in the indoor air quality of my room since installing the thing.

        • Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Interesting)

          by flyingfsck (986395) on Sunday September 17 2006, @10:37PM (#16127713)
          Yup, they actually work, due to two reasons. The ions are generated at the tip of a bunch of needles and accellerates away, causing an air stream, so that incoming air can be filtered. Also, the negative ions causes dust particles in the air to clump and settle onto the floor of the room, where your vacuum cleaner can get them.

          The best devices use a combination of these effects and use a fan to force air through an electrostatic filter and inject negative ions into the outgoing airstream, to spread around the room and make dust clump and settle and get stuck in the electrostatic filter better.

          I have two Bionair units in my home and it really helps to control my cat allergy - my solution to my wife's love of a gawddam cat...
      • You've succeeded, but the success was in not answering the question. The question wasn't about the IB so your reply was completely out of place.
        • Except that he ripped apart a knockoff Ionic Breeze to build his cooler. If the real thing doesn't move air, why would his jerry-rigged version?

            • Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)

              by StikyPad (445176) on Sunday September 17 2006, @11:50PM (#16127977) Homepage
              If you actually THOUGHT (or read my other post [slashdot.org]), you'd realize that the claim of 325 CFM is utterly ridiculous, even without considering that he made no mention of his testing methods. 325 CFM would be a wind tunnel, and he most definately would have heard something (a vague howling sound perhaps?) if that number was accurate.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by TheGavster (774657) *
        The device is actually nowhere near the processor. He took the innards of an Ionic Breeze, built a shielded box around them, and put them up front where you normally have your drive cages. The only mod to the processor heatsink was a grounding strap.
  • It doesn't just move air! It purifies air! It traps the dirt 'n dust particle right onto the collection plate, keeping it out of the air you breath!

    Anyone else see that infomercial? Makes me wonder, is this thing going to trap more dust than a regular fan or is the infomercial a bunch of marketing bull? I'm betting on marketing bull, but it would be nice if cleaning it were as simple as removing the "collection plate" and wiping it.

    • Re:Ionic Breeze (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MBCook (132727) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Sunday September 17 2006, @09:57PM (#16127552) Homepage

      I can't comment on the Ionic Breeze, but I can tell you the principal is perfectly sound. At my house we had an Electrostatic Air Filtration System installed, which is basically the same thing but attached to the duct work. The thing does make a noticeable difference with allergens and such (which is why we bought it).

      What they show on the commercial (about wiping one off and it being filthy) is absolutely true. About once a month (for our system) you are supposed to pull out the two filters (each about the size of the average desktop PC) and the two screens (just simple mechanical filtration for the large stuff). You stick 'em in a utility sink with some dishwashing powder shake 'em around, and then let 'em soak.

      You put in perfectly clear water, and when you lift the two filters out the stuff is a very solid grey color. It also leaves a hideous ring in the sink.

      Electrostatic air filtration really does work. I have no doubt that the Ionic Breeze systems do work (to some degree). But the principal is absolutely sound.

      • I just remembered (right after I posted, of course) how they move air. If I remember correctly the charge on the plates in the system causes the air (which was already charged on it's way in) to accelerate. The plates have one charge (negative?) and the air is charged the opposite way (positive?). They are naturally attracted to each-other, but since the big plates aren't going anywhere the air gets pulled in. When it gets close enough it loses it's charge but now has momentum and keeps going through (also
        • That sounds reasonable, although I question his quoted 325.00 CFM, which I saw no mention of how he measured. By comparison, most computer fans rate in the 10s of CFM, and this guy [clubhydro.com] does 265 CFM.

      • Ionic Breeze does not perform as advertized (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        A lot of law suits flew around as a result of the Ionic Breeze, here is some [cnn.com] information about it.

        Anyway, it does pull dust out of the air. The amount it actually pulls looks impressive, but is actually so insignificantly small as to almost be immeasurable (as Consumer Reports found). You need like 20 of them in your room to make a noticable difference.

        Further, they produce ozone, which then fills the room. Ozone can be harmful to people with some breathing disorders, so in some cases it actually makes t

    • Re:Ionic Breeze (Score:5, Informative)

      by Brett Buck (811747) on Sunday September 17 2006, @11:05PM (#16127806)
      I had an Ionic breeze, and it definitely works. It moves a fair bit of air, and it definitely takes dust out. Those plates get dirty pretty quickly, and you do just have to wipe it off.

            However, I found that it while it's silent to start with, it doesn't stay "silent. As it gets dirty, it start to buzz a little bit. Wiping the plates doesn't entirely fix it, because stuff also sticks to the other pole of the circuit. There are 4 long wires suspended in the case from top to that ionize the dust, and then the plates attract it. Eventually, the wires get dirty too, and to clean them you need to wipe them somehow. I used a bit of paper towel taped to the end of a piece of arrowshaft tubing. It's a pain to do, and while I never did it, it would be easy to break the wire.

            My ionic breeze blew the internal fuse one day, when one of the capacitors in the high-voltage power supply spewed it's guts out, and I never bothered to fix it.

              There's probably a lot better ways to cool off computer chips, I would think. A heat sink with a thermionic cooler would seem a lot more practical.

                Brett
  • "We (the folks over at InventGeek) have produced the first (and last) ionic cooling system for your high-end gaming system"

    TLF

  • oblig contrast (Score:5, Funny)

    by Digitus1337 (671442) <{lk_digitus} {at} {hotmail.com}> on Sunday September 17 2006, @09:53PM (#16127541) Homepage
    My current cooling system blows by comparison!
  • For a second, I thought it said "Ironic cooling . . ."

    Hmm, I wonder if that would involve a black fly and some super-cooled chardonnay.

    Oh, wait, that wasn't ironic after all.
  • I've got a machine with the Alanis Morisette Signature-Series Ironic Cooling System. Of course, just like the unit in TFA isn't really "ionic," her's isn't ironic, either. Which makes this actually ironic! Yeah, I really do think.

  • 325 CMF? (Score:5, Funny)

    by bjackson1 (953136) <{bjackson1} {at} {gmail.com}> on Sunday September 17 2006, @10:06PM (#16127584)
    On the final page it indicated that this ionic system can do 325 CMF. The rest of the units are in CFM, so I am assuming it's a typo. However, how can a fanless system do 325 cubic feet per minute? I've seen ionic systems before and they have never put out anything near that amount (at least from my non scientific estimations). If so, than this is much more than just a passive solution. Unless it is 325 CMF, and it's cubic minutes per feet, but then I think that I just went crosseyed trying to think of cubic minutes.
    • Well a 120mm fan does about 112cfm. This ionic breeze jobby is about 3x the height, and 1x the width, so it's plausable that it could do 3x the cfm. Unfortunately the way computer cases are designed is that 66% of the airflow is blocked by the disc drive and hard drives, with a tiny inlet (usually 80x80mm) at the bottom for the rest of the case. The apple G5 sorta gets around that by moving the drives to the back and putting 4-5 ~60mm fans on the front (some zelot will correct me with the exact specifics),

    • Cubic meters per fortnight (Score:5, Funny)

      by abpend (1003471) on Monday September 18 2006, @12:28AM (#16128099)
      Perhaps CMF is cubic meters per fortnight. By my math, that's about 0.57 cubic feet per minute... they may have fooled lesser souls by using two-week -long measures of time, but we at Slashdot are much cleverer than that. Fanless, indeed.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by qbwiz (87077) *
        No, you should be thinking in terms of space-time. 1 minute = 60 seconds. 60s*c = 5.90142634*10^10 feet. Cubing that, we get 2.05527989*10^32 ft^3/ft, or the surface area of 4*10^16 earths, rather larger than what you got.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Havenwar (867124)
        Actually fanless is as not having a fan attached... it still needs adequate airflow, as in for instance produced by... a fan. Usually a casefan.

        But I do agree the article in general is subpar when it comes to needed data. In order for me to take them seriously I'd have to see how they measured the airflow, a temp over time test readout, and since they included a project cost - a good breakdown of it. Also I'd like to see them adress the cleaning issue which would obviously be a bit ardous with such a system
  • They state a rediculously low price. How about an estimate for everything; case, PSU, memory (both for RAM and disk space), VGA heatsink, video card, etc?

    It sounds fantastic, but also, I would not be able to have a functioning computer with only 8GB of disk space. Possibly if I had it running solely as a client, but then I wouldn't even need any disk space, only lots of ram.

    Besides, who can honestly fit all of their porn onto 8GB these days?

  • Ozone anybody? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ucklak (755284) on Sunday September 17 2006, @10:08PM (#16127594)
    Isn't this a generator of ozone?

    Doesn't this seem dangerous or is the output the same as one of those stand alone units?
    What about cleaning it?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Monkelectric (546685)
      I do believe you are correct. Ozone isn't terribly good for people and it rots rubber and a number of other things. Goto the chemistry department at your local university -- you won't find a copier machine anywhere near the labs. The ozone generated by them rots the stoppers and seals and what not.

  • Price (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Doomstalk (629173) on Sunday September 17 2006, @10:10PM (#16127600)
    What baffles me about this mod is that he says it costs $9 to $15, but everything including the ion generator costs more than that. If he can't get the price right, what's to say its as effective has he claims? Especially since he gives us a CFM figure, but doesn't tell us how he measured it, or give us any concrete numbers on how cool it runs.
  • Can that be a typo? I don think you can push that ammount of air with a simple ionic setup like the one described in the article...

    Anyway, it's a neat idea, but the system is setup so all the heat generating elements irradiate inside the case with a large ionic fan providing airflow. Unless the setup blows a LOT of air through the case, i'm guessing the large passive heatsinks are doing their work without a lot of help from the ionic setup. I'd also watch out for ozone generation (which can become a problem
    • If you can, I'm waiting for the ionic leafblower. Finally you can blow your yard trash into the neighbors yard at night without waking him up. Mwa Ha hah!

  • DAW computers (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Datamonstar (845886) on Sunday September 17 2006, @10:27PM (#16127667)
    This would be GREAT in a audio production PC. Fans are noisy and so are liquid cooling solutions to a degree. If this could be affordable and effecient, then I could see this becoming the standard for the studio PC.

  • Will do more harm (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Venik (915777) on Sunday September 17 2006, @10:34PM (#16127695)
    In the project they use elements of a consumer air ionizer. These devices create negatively-charged ions. These are attracted by dust and smoke particles, causing the latter to fall to the ground or be attracted to positively-charged surfaces.

    "All the affected airborne particles ultimately wind up on surfaces close to the ioniser, making the area immediately surrounding the ioniser dirty..." (Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]). The more dirt sticks to the ionizer, the less air it is able to move. anufacturers of Ionic Breeze and other such devices recommend cleaning the metal plates every couple of days. This is probably not a very practical solution for a PC. However, it's an interesting experiment.

  • What about ozone danger? (Score:5, Informative)

    by mTor (18585) on Sunday September 17 2006, @10:40PM (#16127723)
    These cooling systems use the same principle as ionic air purifiers. Consumer Reports did several studies and they have issued several warnings about dangerous ozone levels that these machines might create. This is the reason why I ditched my Ionic Breeze air "purifier".

    The magazine also said that people with asthma or respiratory allergies are especially sensitive to indoor ozone, an irritant that can worsen asthma, deaden sense of smell, raise sensitivity to pollen and mold, and may cause permanent lung damage.

    Read more here: Danger: Ionizing air purifiers impure [cnn.com]

  • Iconic (Score:4, Funny)

    by verloren (523497) on Monday September 18 2006, @01:06AM (#16128213)
    I read the story as 'iconic' cooling system, and was looking forward to details of one of the all-time great cooling systems, one that history would long remember. Ah well.

  • Sure, but what I'd like to have is (Score:3, Funny)

    by hey! (33014) on Monday September 18 2006, @06:01AM (#16128798) Homepage Journal
    Corinthian or Doric cooling.

    • That, and most of the things the creators praise this system for have been done (and better) before. No moving parts? No noise? Sounds to me a lot like liquid metal cooling [slashdot.org]. Hardly a first.

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