A part of technological design I think is important, is the distribution model chosen. In a dominantly capitalist economic system, marketability seams to be a deciding factor in the success of an idea or even whether anyone bothers building something…
I have a lot of technical designs I hope to apply to the real world, even if they only suit me personally because they are either too impractical or simply undesirable for most. Anyone who has read any of my…
I’d like to talk about dehumidifiers; what they are, how they work, design failures and improvements I’d make. The dehumidifiers I write of are a specific kind, but probably the most common. They are the small white plastic towers people…
The following are several pages taken from the above mentioned book. A similar explanation is more or less copied in “Power’s Principles of Refrigeration” of which I have a 1921 copy. Take special note of the beautiful illustration below. Clicking…
The refrigeration compressor is where all the ‘magic’ happens. To understand the process of compression is to understand the fundamental principles of mechanical refrigeration. A compressor is the mechanism that allows us to reuse that same refrigerant over and over.…
There are a number of different ways to heat domestic water for bathing, washing clothes, dishes and whatever else people need. Electric Resistive, Natural Gas, Propane, Kerosene, BioMass, Solar, Heat Pumps and even Compost Heaps come to mind. Obviously, some…
I’ve been collecting antique refrigeration books for a little while now and so far, my favorites have been two editions of ‘Household Refrigeration’ by H.B. Hull. It is a beautifully laid out book covering both thermodynamic engineering principles relating to…
Phase Change Materials, usually abbreviated as PCM’s are wonderfully useful for thermal storage applications. These materials make it possible to store large amounts of heat relative to a substance’s mass. They do this in a similar way to the working…
I recently purchased these two books from abebooks.com. They are the second and fourth editions, 1926 and 1933 respectively. I don’t remember what they cost, but I would have easily payed double. They are filled with illustrations and descriptions of…
Refrigerants are the blood of a vapor compression system. They are pumped round and round in an infinite loop of compression and expansion. The types of materials selected for use in refrigeration are based on a number of factors, the…
As it stands right now, the machine I would most like to develop is a pedal powered refrigerator and possibly freezer. The compressor and drive mechanism will consist of a metal framework supporting a heavy flywheel perhaps 40 centimeters across…
musings on entropy 