8 ms·

A bit puzzled why GE needs government funding to do research -- they make a lot of money already. The idea sounds pretty neat but I wonder about longevity of t

by ams6110 10y ago

A bit puzzled why GE needs government funding to do research -- they make a lot of money already. The idea sounds pretty neat but I wonder about longevity of the piezeoelectric transducers. A clothes dryer needs to last at least 7-10 years, minimum. A resistive heating element is about as simple as you can get, and it's cheap to replace if it does burn out.

Scoundreller 10y ago
And the longevity of your clothes.
- MrFoof 10y ago
  This is the main reason. The difference in the longevity of my clothes -- same exact articles, same brand, same material, thickness, size and stitching -- from switching from a "hotbox" dryer to condensation dryer was initially amazing. No more did cuffs and collars start to crack and fail, nor did my shirts slowly develop small tears. The latest (2014 is when they really started to hit the market) heat pump dryers dry clothes even cooler still, albeit since they're new tech they're quite a bit more expensive right now. In Europe, a "condensation dryer" is so common, they're just called a "dryer", with no differentiating term. Additionally some countries (Switzerland I think) I believe don't even allow hotbox dryers anymore (and their needed conduit and vents) as part of fire/building code. Condensation dryers simply have a high quality lint filter (that truly does trap it all) and vent to atmosphere, since they just use a heat exchanger. All while using far less electricity than simply heating things resistively.
  - pimlottc 10y ago
    You said the difference was "/initially/ amazing"; did something change later?
    - MBCook 10y ago
      Could simply be habituation; where, like with HDTV, it's amazing at first but you get used to it and it simply becomes "the normal".
      - pimlottc 10y ago
        Possibly so; it just seemed like a conspicuously odd thing to add given they seemed to have no other complaints about it.
    - MrFoof 10y ago
      No. After 10 years of using them I've just been acclimated to not having my shirt collars and cuffs destroyed in the dryer.
  - sargun 10y ago
    Do they use the cold side of the heat exchanger to drop the moisture out of the air prior to passing it back through for heating?
    - yetihehe 10y ago
      Yes, it works exactly this way. I don't have a clothes dryer, but I have condensing air demoisturizer (for places with too much moisture). Works fine when you need to dry some clothes in one room. Also costs MUCH less than full dryer. Air coming out is only a little hotter than room, but sometimes room gets colder due to evaporation from all textiles.
      - sargun 10y ago
        I've thought about buying an old 200mm or 230mm fan, and hooking it up to a Peltier cooler -- First pass the air over the "cold" side to drop out the moisture, then through some rechargeable desiccant, and then through the hot side to my clothes. I wonder why dryers don't work this way, other than I think that it'd be much slower to dry as compared to a traditional dryer, and I'm not sure if you'd be able to wick the moisture out of ever fabric.
        yetihehe 10y ago
        Why rechargeable dessicant when moisture just condenses on cold side? Then it drops into container. Also peltier cooler is too inefficient to do this. It uses about half of energy just for resistive heating. Typical european dryer works just like this but doesn't use dessicant.
        sargun 10y ago
        Unless you drop the air temperature down to below 0, all the moisture won't drop out on the cold side.
  - sambe 10y ago
    It varies by country. I'd think most in the UK consider "dryer" to mean heated dryer. I've found condensation dryers do a sub-par job and heated ones are fine on the low setting.
  - exprA 10y ago
    TIL. I don't think I've ever seen one of these hotbox driers in person, but gathered somewhere that those had existed earlier and saw them as fully obsolete technology used only in some industrial settings. The fact that they are still sold and installed (with all the requirements) in ordinary homes is very surprising. (Hint: if you buy a condensation dryer, buy one with a drainage hose, if at all possible. Unless you are a very punctual person, you probably won't learn to empty the water storage after every cycle despite that all the manuals tell you to do so, because it can hold water from several cycles – but you will find yourself having unexpectedly wet laundry from time to time when you start drying with an almost full water tank and are not near when the machine tells it can't continue the program.)
awqrre 10y ago
Batteries don't last this long, why does a dryer have to? it's not all about longevity ...
- bicubic 10y ago
  What to batteries have to do with clothes dryers...? You're comparing a consumable good to a household appliance. Household appliances are expected to last 5 years. 7-10 is pretty normal.
  - awqrre 10y ago
    If a dryer is not a consumable, shouldn't it last forever? If a battery is a consumable, shouldn't it last only one charging cycle?
    - bcook 10y ago
      No. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumables https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumables https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durable_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durable_good
      - awqrre 10y ago
        so according to these links, a battery that lasts 2 years is a consumable good but a fridge that last 3 years is a durable good..... I think I get it.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- rosalinekarr 10y ago
  Because dryers are expensive appliances. If they're going to make one that only lasts one tenth as long, it better cost one tenth of the price too.
  - StephenConnell 10y ago
zkms 10y ago
> The idea sounds pretty neat but I wonder about longevity of the piezeoelectric transducers. If they'll wear out fast it's entirely feasible to design the dryer around user-replaceable piezos. It may end up like with inkjet printers -- where the dryer itself is just a boring spinning drum with a fan and a moisture collector and a powerful piezo driver, and you end up buying consumable cassettes with the actual transducers inside.
- lt_kernel_panic 10y ago
  But then you won't be able to dry your white clothes because your color piezo needs replacement.
- nickpeterson 10y ago
  You know what I want? A lemon law that states that major appliances need to run forever. Literally something that says, "This device must run without professional service for 25 years." Forget energy star stuff, 100Kwh saved a year is meaningless because we can always optimize powerplants. Stop building disposable 100LB metal boxes that have to get scrapped and thrown in a landfill. If the device fails earlier than that, the company has to replace it and pay a large fine for producing faulty equipment (larger than the profit from the device by an order of magnitude). Then just allow people to rent the devices (which would obviously cost more) rather that have to buy them outright.
  - DKnoll 10y ago
    First you need engineers that can design appliances that, even if warrantied, do not need service within 25 years 100% of the time. Perhaps they can be legislated into existence... ;)
    - nickpeterson 10y ago
      There is a rover on Mars that had been running by itself for quite a bit and it contends with far more than a dryer.
briandon 10y ago
It's also a shame that the US DOE has partnered with and is funding R&D for a fully-owned subsidiary (as of 2016 iirc) of a Chinese state-owned company (Haier, which bought GE Appliances).

by ams6110 10y ago

Scoundreller 10y ago

And the longevity of your clothes.

MrFoof 10y ago
This is the main reason. The difference in the longevity of my clothes -- same exact articles, same brand, same material, thickness, size and stitching -- from switching from a "hotbox" dryer to condensation dryer was initially amazing. No more did cuffs and collars start to crack and fail, nor did my shirts slowly develop small tears. The latest (2014 is when they really started to hit the market) heat pump dryers dry clothes even cooler still, albeit since they're new tech they're quite a bit more expensive right now. In Europe, a "condensation dryer" is so common, they're just called a "dryer", with no differentiating term. Additionally some countries (Switzerland I think) I believe don't even allow hotbox dryers anymore (and their needed conduit and vents) as part of fire/building code. Condensation dryers simply have a high quality lint filter (that truly does trap it all) and vent to atmosphere, since they just use a heat exchanger. All while using far less electricity than simply heating things resistively.
- pimlottc 10y ago
  You said the difference was "/initially/ amazing"; did something change later?
  - MBCook 10y ago
    Could simply be habituation; where, like with HDTV, it's amazing at first but you get used to it and it simply becomes "the normal".
    - pimlottc 10y ago
      Possibly so; it just seemed like a conspicuously odd thing to add given they seemed to have no other complaints about it.
  - MrFoof 10y ago
    No. After 10 years of using them I've just been acclimated to not having my shirt collars and cuffs destroyed in the dryer.
- sargun 10y ago
  Do they use the cold side of the heat exchanger to drop the moisture out of the air prior to passing it back through for heating?
  - yetihehe 10y ago
    Yes, it works exactly this way. I don't have a clothes dryer, but I have condensing air demoisturizer (for places with too much moisture). Works fine when you need to dry some clothes in one room. Also costs MUCH less than full dryer. Air coming out is only a little hotter than room, but sometimes room gets colder due to evaporation from all textiles.
    - sargun 10y ago
      I've thought about buying an old 200mm or 230mm fan, and hooking it up to a Peltier cooler -- First pass the air over the "cold" side to drop out the moisture, then through some rechargeable desiccant, and then through the hot side to my clothes. I wonder why dryers don't work this way, other than I think that it'd be much slower to dry as compared to a traditional dryer, and I'm not sure if you'd be able to wick the moisture out of ever fabric.
      - yetihehe 10y ago
        Why rechargeable dessicant when moisture just condenses on cold side? Then it drops into container. Also peltier cooler is too inefficient to do this. It uses about half of energy just for resistive heating. Typical european dryer works just like this but doesn't use dessicant.
        sargun 10y ago
        Unless you drop the air temperature down to below 0, all the moisture won't drop out on the cold side.
- sambe 10y ago
  It varies by country. I'd think most in the UK consider "dryer" to mean heated dryer. I've found condensation dryers do a sub-par job and heated ones are fine on the low setting.
- exprA 10y ago
  TIL. I don't think I've ever seen one of these hotbox driers in person, but gathered somewhere that those had existed earlier and saw them as fully obsolete technology used only in some industrial settings. The fact that they are still sold and installed (with all the requirements) in ordinary homes is very surprising. (Hint: if you buy a condensation dryer, buy one with a drainage hose, if at all possible. Unless you are a very punctual person, you probably won't learn to empty the water storage after every cycle despite that all the manuals tell you to do so, because it can hold water from several cycles – but you will find yourself having unexpectedly wet laundry from time to time when you start drying with an almost full water tank and are not near when the machine tells it can't continue the program.)

awqrre 10y ago

Batteries don't last this long, why does a dryer have to? it's not all about longevity ...

bicubic 10y ago
What to batteries have to do with clothes dryers...? You're comparing a consumable good to a household appliance. Household appliances are expected to last 5 years. 7-10 is pretty normal.
- awqrre 10y ago
  If a dryer is not a consumable, shouldn't it last forever? If a battery is a consumable, shouldn't it last only one charging cycle?
  - bcook 10y ago
    No. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumables https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumables https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durable_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durable_good
    - awqrre 10y ago
      so according to these links, a battery that lasts 2 years is a consumable good but a fridge that last 3 years is a durable good..... I think I get it.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
rosalinekarr 10y ago
Because dryers are expensive appliances. If they're going to make one that only lasts one tenth as long, it better cost one tenth of the price too.
- StephenConnell 10y ago

zkms 10y ago

> The idea sounds pretty neat but I wonder about longevity of the piezeoelectric transducers. If they'll wear out fast it's entirely feasible to design the dryer around user-replaceable piezos. It may end up like with inkjet printers -- where the dryer itself is just a boring spinning drum with a fan and a moisture collector and a powerful piezo driver, and you end up buying consumable cassettes with the actual transducers inside.

lt_kernel_panic 10y ago
But then you won't be able to dry your white clothes because your color piezo needs replacement.
nickpeterson 10y ago
You know what I want? A lemon law that states that major appliances need to run forever. Literally something that says, "This device must run without professional service for 25 years." Forget energy star stuff, 100Kwh saved a year is meaningless because we can always optimize powerplants. Stop building disposable 100LB metal boxes that have to get scrapped and thrown in a landfill. If the device fails earlier than that, the company has to replace it and pay a large fine for producing faulty equipment (larger than the profit from the device by an order of magnitude). Then just allow people to rent the devices (which would obviously cost more) rather that have to buy them outright.
- DKnoll 10y ago
  First you need engineers that can design appliances that, even if warrantied, do not need service within 25 years 100% of the time. Perhaps they can be legislated into existence... ;)
  - nickpeterson 10y ago
    There is a rover on Mars that had been running by itself for quite a bit and it contends with far more than a dryer.

briandon 10y ago

It's also a shame that the US DOE has partnered with and is funding R&D for a fully-owned subsidiary (as of 2016 iirc) of a Chinese state-owned company (Haier, which bought GE Appliances).