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AC On The Blind
Blinds on the windows do nothing but hang out there and shade the room from the sun. Say if we were to add functionality to it, what can we include….k, give it some Solar Power, plus add in some engineering tech, and pesto you got the Blind Air Conditioner! An AC that doubles up as blinds and sources green power from the sun. Design-wise it all adds up, but function-wise and scope-wise I’m still on the fence about it. So what’s your take on it?
Designer: Minjoo Kwon
21 Comments »
mf says
I have a problem to see how this would work. Because air condition works on the principle of temperature difference between inside and outside.
With this one the heat (you take away from the air) escapes back in to the room and thus not cooling the room at all.
Its just a fancy ventilator…
Gunnar Tveiten says
So, where do the heat go ? AC-units don’t actually -destroy- heat you know, they just move it outdoors. AC-units that do not either have an outdoor-part or vent hot air to the outside are physically impossible.
Also, how is condensation handled ? Cold surfaces meeting warm and moist air leads to condensation, what happens to the water in this design ?
Last, the surface is about 2/3rds of the window, so for a typical 1m^2 window, that’ll give you at most 650cm^2 of solarcells, but the sun isn’t shining straight in trough the window, but diagonally, and the window absorbs some sun and reflects some, so let’s be generous and say that the sunlight hitting these have half the normal intensity.
The best thin-film cells in existence can convert 20%, long story short, these would be lucky to generate 30W of usable power. How much cooling do a state-of-the-art AC-unit running on 30W generate ?
That’s right, hardly noticeable at all.
Design is fine. That’s useless when basic physics are ignored though.
Gunnar Tveiten says
Made a comma-error in the above, meant 6500cm^2 of solar-cells. Rest of the math is still good though.
Yan says
good story telling, but not really look good..
nice try
Jehzeel Laurente says
another great concept. I hope someone can turn this idea into a working technology.
design check says
half baked… not only for the reasons Gunnar lists, but additionally, it will not retract in a smooth predictable manner with those half moon shapes on the ends!
annie says
I love this! It is a great idea!
Steve says
If the technology does not incoporate a direct cooling technology then it appears to be a glorified window fan–Apparently, you would have to take already cooled air from another source and use this to act as ventilation system/fan to remove the heat produced from direct sunlight away from the hot window. I live in a hot and humid climate. So we require to cool and remove moisture from the air. I do like the concept and I like seeing ideas that incoporate green technology. Without ideas and new applications, we do not progress. The application could be expanded to include a supplemental battery bank grid and solar panel system added to the roof-top. When you have really sunny days and a lot of money the system could also be expanded to include peltier cooling. Like previously described the system would have to remove heat on one-side and cool on the other. Peltier technology is a power hog..but during the day with a lot of sun the peltier could be employed to cool during peak heat and sunlight. Areas like where I live we cool most of the year. Even during the winter months we cool to remove moisture from the air.
RICHARD says
WHY DO FOLKS PRESENT ABSURD IMPOSSIBLE PHYSICS DEFYING IDEAS AS IF THEY ARE JUST AROUND THE CORNER? HEY I GOT AN IDEA MAKE IT BEAM ELECTRICITY TO THE WALK IN FREEZER AND CHARGE THE PLUG IN ELECTRIC CAR AND A BATTERY FOR THE FREEZER AT NIGHT….IF YOU HAVE A LOT OF WINDOWS YOU MIGHT BE YOUR OWN UTILITY….OH OH OH MAKE EM FOR 3.98 AVAILABLE FROM WALMART
True Tech Air Conditioning Service OKC says
I think its very useful to all who want to feel better and relaxing to the house.
Drew says
Neat idea, but it has a few basic thermodynamic issues that would be difficult to resolve; heat rejection would be the biggest problem.
Also, if cooling air drawn from outside (rather than recirculating precooled air), the efficiency of such a device would be absurdly low, far below the threshold for powering it with the few solar cells. It would probably be a power hog, consuming perhaps orders of magnitude more electrical power than conventional a window mounted AC unit, if it works at all.
Drew says
nevermind, noticed that it does recirculate interior air.
even so, the whole power density issue with respect to solar cells would be a challenge.
Kyle says
You know, as a cooling system this idea is a flop. BUT, as a heater, this could work. Just pull the air through the sun-heated blades and blow it out the top. Convection will go a long way to providing the air movement, but a small solar powered fan would be a great addition. So long as it is cost effective, even a few additional BTU’s of heat will help.
Young Air Conditioning says
If you could get the functionality right, I think it would be a great product. Nice design!
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