Students’ Leaf Blower Suppressor To Hit Retail
Students’ Leaf Blower Suppressor To Hit Retail
Electric leaf blowers are already far quieter than their gas-powered peers, but they still aren’t the kind of thing you’d like to hear first-thing on a Saturday morning. Looking to impr…
was posted 3 days ago in /c/Technology, here :
https://lemmy.world/post/15468260
what they did :"Our product takes in a full blow of air and separates it," said team member Leen Alfaoury. "Some of that air comes out as it is, and part of it comes out shifted. The combination of these two sections of the air makes the blower less noisy."
... "It ultimately dampens the sound as it leaves, but it keeps all that force, which is the beauty of it."
Their design cuts the most shrill and annoying frequencies by about 12 decibels, which all but removes them, making them 94% quieter.
about 12 decibels, which all but removes them, making them 94% quieter.
This "conversion" from decibel to per cent is more than ridiculous.
Just saying it doesn’t decrease the power is a bold claim without providing anything technical to support it.
I’ve read multiple articles and videos and yet this very crucial information is intentionally not included.
The claims are false, you can’t suppress or mute something with a tradeoff, unless they have somehow magically figured out physics anomalies. Would love to see some proof of this claim it doesn’t decrease power output.
Are you saying novel mechanical engineering designs are impossible? That the mechanism of a leaf blower is so near perfection, that a well funded team of 4 mechanical engineering students could not, without VIOLATING THE LAWS OF PHYSICS, have simply found a better mechanism?
I agree with your "show me the numbers" critique, but I find your complete disregard of what may be a better answer without any data at all to be equally foolhardy.
There's a relevant physics anomaly called a Helmholtz resonator, or more broadly waveform interference.
Destructive interference is a thing. The energy of the vibrations doesn't go away, however you CAN shift that energy into different frequencies and destructive interference done correctly will effectively shift it into so high frequencies that the vibrations are better compared with heat than with sound (what is heat convection anyway if not extremely high frequency sound? :)
You being downvoted is pretty crazy... Your statement is valid
12dB is literally nothing in reduction when the lawn dudes are blasting 60-100db
12 dB is a pretty decent reduction if your goal is hearing protection, 100->88 is also bringing it to something that absolutely needs hearing protection to something that's borderline acceptable for an 8 hour shift depending on your local laws, mine say 4 hours but still, way more comfortable to use.
Eh, I'll take it though. I live in a fairly quiet part of town but the street has gotten pretty busy in the last could of years. And visually, I guess the street seems to open up making drivers get... spicy now and then. The fucking motorcycles, man. These noisy fucking middle-aged infants making 130 decibels while only going 15mph make me see red. I'd gladly take the lawn equipment noise.
If it were me that designed this, I would license out the design for manufacturers to use in their production models instead of making some kind of attachment that is unlikely to work on all models. That seems much more likely to achieve the goal of reducing noise from leaf blowers long term. Get like 3 manufacturers on board that could even charge a premium, and you have reduced the noise potentially forever while still making a tidy profit.
It was a collaboration with the company. They probably helped fund it for exclusive licensing to start.
MAKE GAS LANDSCAPING TOOLS ILLEGAL
Give away free electric tools if they trade in their gas ones. It's so bad for health to be huffing 2 stroke fumes all day every day.
Edit, I realize that this is meant for a electric leaf blower since it would do fuck all for a gas one. Doesn't change my opinion about landscaping tools tho
"Electric leaf blowers are already far quieter than their gas-powered peers, but they still aren’t the kind of thing you’d like to hear first-thing on a Saturday morning. Looking to improve on the situation, a group of students from Johns Hopkins University have successfully designed a 3D printed add-on that manages to significantly reduce the noise generated by a modern electric leaf blower without compromising the amount of air it’s able to move."
First two sentences of the article.
I don't know mate, I wouldn't replace my electric tools–drills, grinders, saw... with gas ones. But these outdoors tools are a different kind of beast. I've only used an electric chainsaw and it was an absolute crap, maybe there are better ones but it was crappier than the smallest and shittiest gas chainsaws I've used, and a cord around you in that setting isn't great either.
The problem with electric gardening tools is they aren't that feasible for contractors.
Batteries don't last long and take a long time to charge, so it's just not an option when you're working all day. Corded means at every location, you have to figure out outlets, extension cords, fuss with tangles and obstructions, etc.
If you're doing your own lawns, yeah, you can probably get into a workflow that works for you. But a lot of people hire out for landscaping.
Look again! I have a dewalt chainsaw, and I love it. I burn about 13 cords of wood each winter as it is our primary heating source. It runs and runs and runs.
I think the key is to keep the chain sharp. I use the timberline sharpener, and it gets the chain razor sharp, which means less stress on the motor and longer battery life.
They already are in many communities. Enforcement is an issue.
Electric is so much quieter. They have them in Singapore
The gardener in my last apartment replaced all of his powertools (mower, blower, trimmer, …) with electric ones powered by an accu-pack he carries on his back. This is an absolute game-changer! I could actually sit outside again and even do stuff for work, when he was there.
This thing influence how air moves through it, so it would make electrics more silent too
Pretty sure when I saw the original post talking about the design, they said the students were only working with electric leaf blowers. So this was designed to make electric leaf blowers even quieter.
This was designed for electric leaf blowers, not gas leaf blowers.
Electric leaf blowers are much much better, but they’re still loud, and that’s what these students were attempting to address.
The video in the article shows them testing with an electric leaf blower.
I still say replace them with rakes.
I get what you're saying, but leaf blowers are also commonly used for cleaning up extra grass clippings from the roads, etc.
And sand/dirt after a windstorm, at least in my area. They're really quite useful.
seems like snake oil. whe using my electric leaf blower all the noise sounds to be coming from the big fan at the top of the device and not the nozzle
Now pretend your electric blower is actually a super loud and inefficient two stroke motor.
The movement of air isn't noisy, the motor is.
Ah spring! Flowers blooming, bird songs.. BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.... Goddamn leaf blowers.
Yeah, I thought this was for those pieces of shit.
I'm sure electric ones are being used around my city, but that's not the ones I notice.
So it's taking some of the air out of the stream, slowing it down, and putting it back in the stream... How does this not affect the performance?
I'm sure it has a marginal effect, the drag would have to reduce average velocity somewhat, but maybe it is negligible. Or maybe the overall drag is equal to an unmodified tip due to other changes such as reduced restriction.
Because that isn't how it works. I've been working on this idea in my spare time for a patent, for months. I have the CFD models to prove it. I learned ELMER and perfected the solvers and meshing process.
It grinds my gears that they stumbled upon it, get all the credit, and apparently don't know how it actually works.
Never been scooped before. But man it doesn't feel good.
Did you put your information somewhere they could find it before you got the patent? If you have authorship doesn't that mean you have grounds to sue?
Why not just use a rake and a broom?
You ever raked an acre? Or three? Ten?
I didn't say you had to do it all on your own.
I want the stl!
Somebody tell Kate Blanchett
Let me help you with the correct wording: 'Power to noise'-converters. You're welcome.
I'll wait until I can 3d print my own. I'm not paying for a hunk of plastic.
Based on how it works, (not how they say it works) you need a different geometry depending on the frequency. So it's only going to work at select rpm.
Why isn't there video of this yet? I didn't care at all what an article says. Show me the video
There's a video at the bottom of the article. https://youtu.be/ISgHpUDeLBw
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/ISgHpUDeLBw
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Good. I fucking hate leaf blowers.
The best invention against leaf blowers so far is the scrapyard.
There’s no way this won’t affect the final CFM or Velocity of the air.
This would be no different than running it at a little less than 100% power, but wastes that energy instead.
Why else would they not provide any technical detail, even a wind velocity test would be huge FFS.
I don't know, it sounds like it slightly redirects only the air at the margins that contacts the blower tube, which reduces turbulence. The noise reduction is due to the decreased turbulence, not a reduction in airflow. If I had to guess, the actual reduction in airflow is probably negligible, and they don't describe it in more detail because they're trying to commercialize it
no.
see my comment above.I’ve read the article attached, the article linked in that, and the video linked as well.
Not one talks about anything technical other than it doesn’t decrease the power, so where’s the stats to prove it? You can’t silence or muffle something without a tradeoff, we ignoring basic physics here?
So what is it do your think your non-informational comment is proving? Theres no test information to support the non power diminishing claim, and I call bullshit from basic physic principles.