Yay or Nay: Microscopic Fans

[HawkII]

I was thinking about the Fan on my Laptop. It goes *Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr* when I play a game on it. I was wondering how it could be quieter. I remembered Dyson's Bladeless Air Fan, but that's patented.

I got stuck thinking about this for a couple of days. I saw SpaceX's Starships have Microscopic grooves all over itself. I also saw that they are 3D Printed.

It finally came to me; What if....... the same area of the one Fan.......... was replaced with............... 3D Printed Microscopic Fans........ Occupying the same sapce instead.

[Sensei]

A laptop is not a good device for playing games. Not even a so-called gaming laptop. It's just silly. Buy/build yourself from parts a normal desktop computer. You can then replace the CPU/mobo fans with water cooling systems.

https://www.ebay.com/b/Computer-Water-Cooling-Equipment/131503/bn_661884

If this is not a satisfactory answer, try a laptop cooling pad.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=cooling+pad

 

 

They have many external fans that dissipate energy from the laptop better than a table. Fans can run at lower speed so they are quieter. At least until their bearings break down.

 

A good laptop has a processor connected to the entire body, which is made of metal, usually magnesium alloy (e.g. AZ91D 9-10% Al, the rest Mg). Energy is dissipated over a large area.

Edited February 8 by Sensei

[HawkII]

Okay cool.

I was afraid this was going to happen. 

I'm more interested in how feasable Microscopic Fans are in general.

Edit: I already have a Cooling Pad, It's made my life better.

Edited February 8 by HawkII

[HawkII]

I'm starting to feel like I've missunderstood how this Forum works.

 

Like I'm supposed to only ask questions people already have the answer to AND OR Propose new things (such as Microscopic Fans) with details, for it to be scrutinised.

[swansont]

46 minutes ago, HawkII said:

I'm starting to feel like I've missunderstood how this Forum works.

 

Like I'm supposed to only ask questions people already have the answer to AND OR Propose new things (such as Microscopic Fans) with details, for it to be scrutinised.

If you ask a question and nobody has the answer, it won’t get answered. So if you want a useful answer you have to ask one that can be answered. (you can get responses that are not answers, as you can observe)

If you propose new things, there has to be a scientific basis for the proposal.

[Sensei]

1 hour ago, HawkII said:

Like I'm supposed to only ask questions people already have the answer to AND OR Propose new things (such as Microscopic Fans) with details, for it to be scrutinised.

If something is hotter than air, every atom on the surface emits energy into the air through infrared radiation or convection.

The simplest way to dissipate energy is to increase the area that is in contact with the air.

This is done by introducing partitions, irregularities, etc.

Calculate the area of this thing if it did not have partitions compared to partitions like the one in the photo:

It has a couple times higher area than without partitions.

Radiator + air exchange fan is a typical configuration.

 

The launching rocket does not need fans, as the air is replaced automatically.

Increasing the area of contact between something that needs cooling and the air will result in faster cooling.

This makes sense for a thing that is moving fast, such as a rocket taking off.

Fossil fuel cars also do not need a fan on the radiator cooling the engine.

The air coming into it from the front of a car going fast enough is enough.

 

Your laptop will be accelerated to an abnormal speed while being thrown in the trash garbage can.

 

If your question was whether it would be enough for me to statically cool my laptop using a heatsink when playing 3D games I would say that this is a rather poor idea. Unless you want to burn the CPU/GPU.

 

[Ken Fabian]

Nay. Miniaturizing the fans and having lots of them seems like choosing a difficult solution to an easy problem. Small fans need very fast rotation to achieve a fast enough blade speed relative to still air. At microscopic size the rotation speeds must be extreme to move much air.

I have noticed the cooling fan of my previous laptop was very quiet, but the one I use now is much noisier. I don't know what makes them different apart from build quality but "low noise" fans are available, as well as other kinds of cooling

[HawkII]

20 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:

Nay. Miniaturizing the fans and having lots of them seems like choosing a difficult solution to an easy problem. Small fans need very fast rotation to achieve a fast enough blade speed relative to still air. At microscopic size the rotation speeds must be extreme to move much air.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh but; At such a small size, there would be less to blow.

[iNow]

1 hour ago, HawkII said:

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh but; At such a small size, there would be less to blow.

That's what she said

[CharonY]

2 minutes ago, iNow said:

That's what she said

Not a fan of this statement, are you?

[iNow]

Your attempt to rotate my position blows

[Ken Fabian]

@HawkII That was my thinking, off the top of my head. Thinking about it more, I think I was wrong and rotation speed isn't such a limiting factor. For all I know someone is working on making thin sheets of micro-fans. Mary Poppins umbrellas come to mind as an application.

 

[HawkII]

2 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:

@HawkII That was my thinking, off the top of my head. Thinking about it more, I think I was wrong and rotation speed isn't such a limiting factor. For all I know someone is working on making thin sheets of micro-fans. Mary Poppins umbrellas come to mind as an application.

 

It was after 10 hours or so after reading your Post that I came up with the responce. I didn't read your post then have the counter point immediately.

[swansont]

On 2/8/2025 at 6:23 PM, HawkII said:

Okay cool.

I was afraid this was going to happen. 

I'm more interested in how feasable Microscopic Fans are in general.

Flow rate varies as diameter^3 and pressure varies as diameter^2 (assuming a given fan speed and all other variables the same)

But that means the power varies as D^5, so there’s a tradeoff if you are limited by power.

https://blog.fluidflowinfo.com/fan-performance-and-fan-laws/

(also given is variation with fan speed, so you can see how much you’d need to increase that if you decrease diameter)

[HawkII]

22 hours ago, swansont said:

Flow rate varies as diameter^3 and pressure varies as diameter^2 (assuming a given fan speed and all other variables the same)

But that means the power varies as D^5, so there’s a tradeoff if you are limited by power.

https://blog.fluidflowinfo.com/fan-performance-and-fan-laws/

(also given is variation with fan speed, so you can see how much you’d need to increase that if you decrease diameter)

This solves itself then.

A full rotation inside a regular Fan would be equal to lots of full rotations inside a Micro-fan.

[HawkII]

I had a new thought about all this. It could very well be a, close as you can get to a perpetual motion machine.

 

The slightest Breeze might kick start a Cyclone. The air it pushes out feeding back into it self.

[swansont]

A cyclone requires an energy input. It’s not something that just happens with a ”kick start”

[Ken Fabian]

For all the popularity of the "butterfly wings can lead to cyclones" meme, it actually takes warm ocean surface temperatures and low pressure weather systems. As swansont points out, it requires an energy input, ie heat in ocean water and pressure differences within the atmosphere (which arise largely from differences in sea surface temperatures). 

You won't get perpetual motion machines out of micro-fans. You won't get them at all - they just don't work.

Edited Wednesday at 08:29 PM by Ken Fabian

[dimreepr]

19 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:

For all the popularity of the "butterfly wings can lead to cyclones" meme, it actually takes warm ocean surface temperatures and low pressure weather systems. As swansont points out, it requires an energy input, ie heat in ocean water and pressure differences within the atmosphere (which arise largely from differences in sea surface temperatures). 

You won't get perpetual motion machines out of micro-fans. You won't get them at all - they just don't work.

Indeed, not every dust devil makes it out of the deserts of Africa, but they all start somewhere, and they all need a lot of encouragement to reach full potential; a butterfly in England is unlikely to contribute much, to the probability of creating a hurricane in America.

It might, but probably not... 🤒

Edited 17 hours ago by dimreepr