Gossip

Free patentable idea for Mr Dyson: dust-free computers

The Hunky Mouse has been replacing a hard disk and motherboard and power supply. He has been sneezing a lot. There is dust everywhere - and suddenly, he had a patentable idea: the Dyson Cooling Fan.

The idea probably came to him when he was playing the Telescope game.

Be that as it may, it is a fact that the Dyson vacuum cleaner exploits the centrifuge effect. You put the dirty air in a centrifuge, and all the dust goes to the rim; and then you extract the air from the centre.

The smaller the centrifuge, the stronger the centrifugal effect. Unfortunately, when you're making a carpet cleaner, you want to shift a LOT of dirty air, and a small centrifuge won't do that; so the newest Dyson cleaner has eight mini-centrifuges (it says here).

But inside a computer, we have a different problem. We're trying to blow air over hot components, to cool them down. And the air, laden with dust, dumps all that dust on the heat sink. It insulates the heat sink quite nicely, clogs the fan, and eventually, when the thing dies from over-heating, you clog your lungs up when you open the case.

So our Sniffer suggests that James Dyson design one of his mini-cyclones as part of the computer's cooling system. Cold, dirty air in; hot, clean air out, and a nice little clip-off dust trap which you can empty once a month.

Sniffer says he doesn't want the money; just wants to be able to stop sniffing.

Patentable ideas are a big drag; you have to find someone to exploit them. Our Sniffer is too busy. Anyway, there are people who think that Cooligy heat pumps are a neater idea. They probably are - but you don't end up with a nice, clean interior of the case that way!