Dyson hair dryer

[Warmfuzzies]

First I thought it was the beginning of April, £299 for a bloody hair dryer, yea gods what goes on in the minds of these people....

[Warmfuzzies]

Otispunkmeyer said:

Zad said:

jmorgan said:

There is gong to be a few embarrassing visits to hospital.

(From ThePoke)

Like most high profile "engineers" (as opposed to real ones) Dyson just takes existing inventions, tarts them up, manufactures them in China and markets the fk out of them. Meanwhile giving the impression that he is some sort of inventing genius and an amazing engineer.

Well his bagless vacuum is a decent claim though. The cyclonic separator has been around as an industrial tool for decades. The theory is well known. Big cyclone to get the flow rate and separate out the big bits, lots of smaller ones in parallel to maintain the flow and spin out the finer particles with higher local velocities. In the 80's people researched using them as particulate matter traps on cars and combined them with electrostatic precipitators in order to make PM clump together so it could be separated more easily. Dead simple really, though you do need to put some effort in getting the geometry right and then packaging it all up so that its manufacturable easily and cheaply. If it was easy, everyone else had plenty of time to make the connection and do it themselves.

His "digital" motor is just a switched reluctance brushless motor. Nothing new there again except refinements to get the speed up, size down and again air path design and packaging.

The fans use the same motors and pass air through a slim vent to cash in on some standard fluid mechanics effects. Its not new or revolutionary stuff, but someone had to make the connections and put it all together. Its still a nice piece of engineering.

From where I sit I can't see anything that they make that is truly an engineering revolution but then a lot of successful engineering has come about by people simply taking what is already out there and using it in a different application and integrating systems.

Riversimple are doing much the same with their new electric vehicle; 8kW fuel cell + a bank of super caps to handle transience. Hub motors to give a completely flat floor etc etc. They are not in the business of inventing a ground breaking new tech. They are taking existing stuff and integrating it intelligently. Dyson are no different in my opinion, doesn't make him a genius but doesn't make him out as a con man either.

Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Friday 29th April 17:27

Was the contra rotating washing machine unique?