Instant de-icing film
While
not directly addressing vehicles, sibling-site's Engadget's post on
pulse electrothermal de-icing (PETD) technology definitely has applications in the automotive industry.Developed by Dartmouth college professor Victor Petrenko through his company, Ice Engineering, PETD uses a thin film applied to an existing surface that can break the two strongest chemical bonds between ice and a surface with a brief burst of electricity. Such a device would nearly make the hated morning ritual of ice-scraping a thing of the distant past.
There's no news of when PETD will be available for vehicles, but you can bet Lexus is already eyeing it for the LS sedan's novel-like list of standard features.
[Source: Cnet via Slashdot via Engadget]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
James Fabin 2:21PM (4/24/2006)
I'd pay to have that if I lived in an area where I got ice on the windows. I remember living in Ohio in the 90s and HATED getting up early to clean off the ice on my widows. I even had a remote starter to let the car warm up before heading out into the freeze to start removing ice.
James
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HardwareGuy 2:29PM (4/24/2006)
That works with a big block of ice stuck to the window, but does it work with a sheet of ice several layers thick that covers the whole glass? This "demonstration" seems far to trivial to impress me.
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dvd 2:38PM (4/24/2006)
This is great invention for all those living in the cold countries ;) As James I used to live in the cold climate and ice removal was a problem.
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Takeo 3:18PM (4/24/2006)
I know this is autoblog, however I think this is a fantastic development for the de-icing of airplanes. Traditional systems are heavy and complicated, I think a purely electrical system would be much better.
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Amir Sharifi 5:03PM (4/24/2006)
I'd like to see this product being tested on an actuall car before I'd start investing it. It looks promising so far though.
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Jaymez 5:55PM (4/24/2006)
Man, ice scraping is no big deal at all for me and I live in New England. Just cover your windshield with a small tarp and you're good. If you're worried about someone ripping the tarp off, put a giant "safety pin" through one of the eyes in the tarp.
My truck sat outside all winter long and I *never* scraped the windows.
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Paul Allen 8:00PM (4/24/2006)
Do you guys know how much instantaneous current FIVE car batteries can put out? If he can't do the demo with one car battery, it's not really a demo.
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Shifty 10:28PM (4/24/2006)
a few things i noticed
there is still a bit left behind
like #7 said, he is using 5 batterys, i would hope that melts ice fast
ford already sells a heated winshield on the sport trac for people that hate scraping
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Y2Breeze 11:49PM (4/24/2006)
Since I'm from Quebec, Canada, we know here what is really "cold weather". An invention like this looks promising, but also very far from production.
Windshield scraping really &%%#@.
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Bryan 11:03AM (4/25/2006)
When I was in Germany, I had a few rental cars that had heating/defrost elements in the windshield that did a fine job of helping melt thin ice (and cut down on fog as well). It was like the defroster in the rear window of most cars - thin wires running vertically down the windshield.
Always wondered why no cars (that I know of) have that option in the US.
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