| Author | Message | ||
     Anonymous |
i have lots of snow here and was watching the news and saw something that they put snow in and heated metal plates melt the snow and allow the water to drain from the bottom. everyone's cars are snowed in and this helped but it dosent work if its not in your area (its not in mine). anyway, i was thinking of a hair dryer and thought why dosent someone take a leaf blower and somehow attach some heating coils to it so whatever you aim it at it will melt the snow. i would do this myself but i cant figure out a way to power the heating coils. soo if anyone can figure it out post it here and someone try to make it.(try some online photos of your ideas). | ||
| Ryan Somebody |
This is kind of tricky. Personally I feel you would be better off buying an industrial heat gun (1000+ Farenheit) or space heater. Heres the best I can do to come up with a heater design for the leaf blower- use NickelChromium (I think thats the name of it_ bar or wire. You don't really wan't a coil if you can use bar because you want the largest surface area exposed to the air. The most efficient method I can think of would be a reverse PC heatsink- have several fins of NiChr bar or wire bent into S shape. NiChr is used to cut styrofoam due to its high resistance. You should be able to run it off a small lawnmower/recreational battery (12v). Careful with this stuff- it gets very hot. If the heat output isn't enough there are two paths- increase the surface area of nichrome exposed to the air or higher the voltage. Of course a stronger leaf blower works too. If you don't use a thick enough gauge of wire it will just burn up.  | ||
| Ryan Somebody |
This is kind of tricky. Personally I feel you would be better off buying an industrial heat gun (1000+ Farenheit) or space heater. Heres the best I can do to come up with a heater design for the leaf blower- use NickelChromium (I think thats the name of it_ bar or wire. You don't really wan't a coil if you can use bar because you want the largest surface area exposed to the air. The most efficient method I can think of would be a reverse PC heatsink- have several fins of NiChr bar or wire bent into S shape. NiChr is used to cut styrofoam due to its high resistance. You should be able to run it off a small lawnmower/recreational battery (12v). Careful with this stuff- it gets very hot. If the heat output isn't enough there are two paths- increase the surface area of nichrome exposed to the air or higher the voltage. Of course a stronger leaf blower works too. If you don't use a thick enough gauge of wire it will just burn up.  | ||
| Anonymous |
That idea is sick!!! I like that ,with the leaf-blower and heatsink!!! I want to build that!!! -Nick a-k-a Vanilla Gorilla | ||
| hellfire |
How would you suggest mounting the wire since most blowers tend to have plastic tubes. Would it be better to make a metal tube instead. | ||
| Anonymous |
you could use a heat gun to melt the snow but wouldnt the melted snow just refreeze and make ice. if you live in a fairly warm place you could have heating wires set in you concrete to melt snow. this has been tried on roads with little success but it may be more feasable on a small scale. | ||
| Anonymous |
Just take some active plutonium, stick it in a blender, then pour the little chips all over your drive way etc. It'll melt the snow were you pored it for a couple years from all the emiting radiation. That is until the rain washes it into the sewers. And hey, in less then three days, you'll have a great tan. In fact everyone living in the block will too! | ||
| Simon Quellen Field (Sfield) |
You don't need plutonium, which can be difficult to find. From the Congressional Record Weekly Update October 14-18, 2002: In January of this year, three hunters gathering firewood in a forest in the former Soviet republic of Georgia found two abandoned cans of strontium-90, each containing 40,000 curies of material. Because the heat from these sources melted the snow for yards around, the hunters were delighted to find free warmth for their tent. They picked up and carried off the sources in their backpacks. All three woodsmen were critically injured, but since they did not break open the two cans, environmental contamination was limited. A team from the government of Georgia, assisted by the International Atomic Energy Agency, recovered the sources, but several more are apparently missing and unaccounted for. The nuclear industry of the former Soviet Union made hundreds of similar devices. In fact, 40,000 curies of strontium-90 represents a small source by Soviet standards. A string of 131 arctic sites in Russia is powered by radioisotope thermal generators--portable power plants that draw energy from the heat liberated by the decay of radioactive nuclei. Each site uses a 300,000-curie source. That raises the maximum damage that a terrorist dirty bomb could do by a factor of ten beyond anything the Committee heard at our March hearing. | ||
| Jared |
Hey, how do you paste a paint document like Ryan Somebody did?? | ||
| Simon Quellen Field (Sfield) |
See this page. | ||
| Bull Winkus Unregistered guest |
The problem with a hand held snow melter is that it takes a lot of calories of heat to melt snow. If it didn't there would be commercial snow melters sitting in the stores next to the snow blowers. It can be done, though. Get a propane tank heater. The heater mounts directly on top of a 5 gal propane tank. Fire it up. Head outside and aim the heat blast at the frozen stuff. Watch as it turns to liquid ... very ... slowly... Perhaps a better idea is a flat bed rig for roadway removal that moves ... very ... slowly ... along the street, heating the snow at the leading end and blowing the road dry at the trailing end. Feelers made of flat steel that ride under their own weight across the top of the snow at various points along the bottom of the rig could give the driver an indication of the appropriate speed. | ||
| lysdexia Unregistered guest |
thermite, Bull Winkus, thermite Or... fight water with water, split into a monohydrogen flame. | ||
| Simon Quellen Field (sfield) New member Username: sfield Post Number: 55 Registered: 12-2004 |
It takes a lot less energy to move the snow to another nearby location than to melt it. It doesn't matter if you use thermite, nuclear power, or gasoline. | ||
| lysdexia Unregistered guest |
Of course, melt only enough to be able to move the snow. | ||
| SORINER Unregistered guest |
Since it takes so much energy to melt snow with hot air, why not use hot (or very warm) water? I envision a device where you could hook your hose up to a sprinkler like system which heats the water to a warmer temoerature. You could then go back inside and just let the sprinkler run (so even if it took a while it wouldn't be a problem). | ||
| Simon Quellen Field (sfield) New member Username: sfield Post Number: 97 Registered: 12-2004 |
It takes the same amount of energy to melt the snow no matter what method you use. | ||
| doop Unregistered guest |
True, but there could be definite advantages to using liquid over air (namely efficiency and time). | ||
| Anonymous |
What is the practicality of using a steam pressure washer? | ||
| Simon Quellen Field (sfield) New member Username: sfield Post Number: 158 Registered: 12-2004 |
Why are you all still thinking of melting the snow? It takes far less energy to move it somewhere else than to melt it. That is why we use snow plows and snow blowers. | ||
| Anonymous |
It's true that a lot of energy is required to melt the snow, but when you have blizzard conditions, as we did this past weekend in the northeast, then you'll need to get rid of it somehow. The plows just pile it up to the side, which causes havoc with the parking (and therefore business.) | ||
| lysdexia Unregistered guest |
Heat the snowmoving tip so that it melts the parts joining the snow layers together. | ||
| Chris Bradshaw Unregistered guest |
I use a shovel - cuts down on the gym fees, and doesn't contribute to global warming (well, not much :-)...) or OPEC income. Just curious, though, how well would a solar parabolic mirror do (given sunshine and time). I was in Tibet a few years ago and saw parabolic mirrors for boiling water for tea, which took 20 minutes (it was at high altitude so lower boiling temp and stronger sunshine). Then again, the sun will work for you all day for free and not get tired... | ||
| Kyle O. Unregistered guest |
Well what about making snow? Personally in the South, I'd find much more use out of a snow maker during the winter months, versus melting "nothingness", due to the lack of snow. All I know is you need to atomize the water, and blow it out. How is this done? Simon, can you help me out on this? | ||
| Simon Quellen Field (sfield) Senior Member Username: sfield Post Number: 268 Registered: 12-2004 |
Google for "snow making machine". | ||
| Vi Tran Unregistered guest |
Um...Trying to defy nature? Don't think so...When this snow melts, it turns into water, which freezes again. The water may run off abit and freeze the edges of the sidewalk which forms a wall. And eventually you'll just have a sleet of ice. | ||
| greg koz (Greg1118) Advanced Member Username: Greg1118 Post Number: 51 Registered: 10-2006 |
Yeah, which is safer, a layer of snow, or a layer of invisible ice? |
