What is Digg?65 Comments
- Otto, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Instead of using hot water, use cold water. It works just as well, and it's less likely to crack your windshield.
- jgstew, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8My guess is that current methods rely on heating the windshield continuously which takes a lot of energy, eating up fuel. This method uses electricity directly in a burst rather than using heated air or something else. This would also be true in a car since you wouldnt need to start your car earlier and let it run as long with the fan/heater going full blast. Then again, your not just heating the car to remove ice, your heating it so you dont freeze to death when you drive.
- baddmojoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I've seen a windshield crack right down the middle when it was being defrosted with a bucket of hot water. Pretty cool, but... then we had to replace the windshield.
If you're from Minnesota, you know how cool this would be. (If it actually works) - dimplemonkey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Just in time for the 90 degree weather that I'm going through right now!
- G-RaZoR, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6This is awesome, However won't the ice that sits on the car overnight damage the electric sensors? Also, how much grounding are we talking about, I don't want the entire electrical system to go out because of an error in the ice removing system. I will definetly keep an eye out on this, but I bet it will be a "Luxury Vehicle" only feature :(
- Otto, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Excessive frost on plane surfaces can increase drag, which increases fuel consumption.
- h0dg3s, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4or park in the garage
- Jaymoon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4...or you could just put a towel or bedsheet on your car window at night....
- patrickweber, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@giloron: Sell it on eBay of course!
- ZOverLord, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"6 People were found laying DEAD near their car today in the snow"
It appears they all died from electrical shock after touching their car windshield...More Later.... - johndi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Up north some people start their cars well before they are ready to go, and let the defroster do all the work, they don't even own an ice scraper. It will definitely save fuel.
- praseodym, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5@Otto:
faucet |ˈfôsit; ˈfäs-|
noun
a device by which a flow of liquid or gas from a pipe or container can be controlled; a tap. - AAA-, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3That video showed some impractical tests. I'd like to see how this thing performs with a thin sheet of ice covering the entire surface of a windshield. I bet it won't work as well.
- DrakeGTA, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Cool, can't wait to see it put to use.
- Juano11, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Very few cars in the US have heated front windshields (as we call them). Most all have heated a back window.
My LR3 (Discovery 3) has electric coils in the windshield, but it is, of course, a European car... - lukas88, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2One of the reasons why it works so well in the videos is there is so much extra ice that the weight causes it to fall off easier. A car window would never have this much ice build up, plus the windshield is slanted so that the ice would have nowhere to fall. Not to mention, ice is rarely the problem, snow is. Since it is less compact, and because of the reasons I just mentioned, it would take signficantly longer to de-ice a car window then "less than a second".
- cair0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2personally, this quote at the end of the article sounds the coolest to me, though i can't find any other information on it:
'While on an exchange at Britain's University of Birmingham, he happened upon that school's ice research department. His life changed after that.
"We built a solar cell made of ice," he recalled. "While it is not as efficient as a silicon solar cell, it costs a penny a square mile." ' - Philodox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Did anybody notice that in the demo video, the guy had six car batteries hooked up in series to give this this the power that it requires? Somehow I don't think you'll see it in consumer cars anytime in the near future...
Unless cars start getting huuuuge capacitors bundled in standard. - kramer3d, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2http://news.com.com/1606-2_3-6061327.html?tag=ne.vid
see it in action! - patrickweber, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4So if the solar cell is made of pure ice and costs a penny a square mile, then why do the stupid bottled waters ate the movies cost $4!?
hehe - Namco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2When it's cold enough, it just refreezes, so instead of the snowy freezer-like frost on your winshield you end up with a blurry, impenetrable, inch-thick, ice-sheet-of-doom on your windshield.
- giloron, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2heh, I'm wondering what you are going to do with a big windshield shaped sheet of ice.
- leeuk, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4I'm guessing a faucet is the same as a tap?
Using very hot water can cause your windscreen to shatter.
Don't you get heated windscreens in the states? - ChileanGoD, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You will still need the ice scraper to chunk out pieces of that big ice sheet shaped like your windshield.
- SpartanJoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What about Canada?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I usually do the water trick too, even though I know I'm not supposed to. Water seems the best method to clear the mirrors though (except for heated which my car doesn't have). My scraper doesn't exactly fit in there, let alone give me a clean reflection, so water it is. Works good on headlights too.
- pcgeek101, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2This looks really cool and it would be great if cars started coming with this stuff. My one question is about the article is, how does removing frost from a plane windshield save fuel?
- Namco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Dugg, just for the whole Champions on Ice/defrosting ice off of your winshield paradox.
- aembleton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Why not use de-icer? I find that works much better than water.
- brucer69, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Im a pilot and this looks like a great idea for deice for smaller aircraft. Most smaller aircraft dont produce enough heat like larger aircraft so they are forced to use pnumatic boots, and those dont work very well. Does anyone know if they are looking into it for that kind of use?
- SlideMTL, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This was originally invented to find a way to remove the ice build up on electrical power lines. The ice build up would cause sag and at times cause the structures/lines to collapse causing blackouts.
I remember the research projects that we were helping to fund.
Thumbs up Victor, keep up the good work! - whitehatlurker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1As a nit-pick, the title should say "de-ice" rather than defrost - defrost is usually to remove condensation from the inside of the windows.
In that light, a better application may be to airplane de-icing - they already have a conductive surface in the critical areas (wings, tail), and it is fairly expensive to do the spraying that now happens. Clearing car windows isn't a major cost.
An interesting range of applications can be found at Darmoth's web site:
http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/thayer/research/ice-engg.html
The actual pulse seems to be fairly low energy and I doubt that it would render a lot of people unconscious, though it might be a large enough number that the auto manufacturers would shy away from this and the liability aspect of it. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Basically :)
- fitzfan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Now if only this affected the lower half of the country the way it affects the upper, it would be big news. If only they have spent time in below zero weather trying to scrap all the ice off and clearing off the snow that has formed overnight.
- allegory, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1following from aembleton's reply:
A squirt of de-icer literally takes seconds to clear the windscreen/windshield and helps prevent a thin layer of ice forming.
Any decently sized supermarket or car parts related shop should have some. - brucer69, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1To answer my own question, and if anyone else is interested the first example in the video is in a wind tunnel and testing clear ice on a wing.
- FiveIron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is news? I hate to be like this, but I saw this on Daily Planet (a science news magazine type show as they call it) on discovery canada a long time ago, at least a year ago.
- Olle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Quality of the window can probably matter.
But maybe when it cracks it is because there already is some sort of tension on the window. Maybe the body of your car has gotten a little twisted, or maybe the window never was a good fit to begin with.
And then when you put the water on then that's enough to crack it. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1And with global warming, sure, it might be cheap to make but if it only lasts a couple of minutes then its a bit pointless.
- Olle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Most cars in scandinavia (at least in northern Sweden) has internal space heaters and a electric outlet. And parking spaces has electrical outlets that you can plug your car into. Not all parking spaces of course, but at peoples homes and their places of work. And they often have timers, so you can set them to start an hour before you plan to leavel.
Also, there are heaters that warms up the oil in the engine so that it runs better and starts easier. - barleymeister, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1a little late, considering it's mid-spring now, but still quite interesting
- dasil003, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yes, I remember as a child my friend's stepmom from Costa Rica applying the same principle to remove the ice from the front steps. I'm just glad I wasn't the one to discover it.
- marklar69, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1LAME, I use a large cup of hot water and it does the same thing plus it dont cost an assload of money.
- Afroman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Um, hot water on a iced windshield will make your windshield shatter.. you have been luck so far.. but i have seen it happen. the thing just caves in.. used cold water.. it;s still lower temp then ice..
- btnheazy03, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I can't wait to see the accidents this might cause
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http://hyipnews.freehostia.com/hyip - Hubris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If it's actually freezing outside and you pour cold water on ice.....it's not going to melt the ice, it's going to freeze and add to it. The ambient temps and the winshield itself is below freezing, so it freezes the water.
- z-kitsune, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0What if, instead of just removing ice from the window, the entire car was coated with this stuff? You could just press a button on your keyfob, and all the ice would slide away. And, because that inch thick layer of ice would be gone, the drag it creates would disappear as well.
- digitaldater, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Interesting but it sounds expensive. Would it be worth what car makers are going ask for price wise if you live somewhere that frost in winter is not that bad?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4I got sick of scraping my windows this past winter, so I came up with an idea to de-ice them quickly. I tried it out and it worked perfectly, plus it can be done with objects that EVERYONE has laying around their house.
Here's what you do:
1) Take a glass
2) Fill it up with hot water from the faucet
3) Splash it on the window
4) Repeat for the other windows on the car
It works like a charm. I was worried about it refreezing on the window, but it didn't. Gravity did the trick of pulling it off the window before it froze. There was only a *very* thin layer of ice left, but it was so smooth that it was transparent and you couldn't tell the difference between it and a plain sheet of glass. -
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