Ultrasonic clothes dryer

[basjoos]

Originally Posted by Gasoline Fumes

I line dry. My biggest complaint is the bird s***.

That's my main problem with outside drying, too many birds overhead. Also sometimes you can get a wasp or spider caught in the material of the clothes while drying and get an unpleasant surprise when you put them on. During the summer I dry a lot of stuff in my greenhouse as that time of year it is too hot for and empty of plants.

I always though an ideal clothes dryer would be a Trombe wall built with enough space between the glass and the wall to walk in and hang your clothes. The heat and humidity would be vented outside during the summer and inside during the winter. This would avoid the drawbacks (rain, birds, and bugs) of outside drying while costing no energy and heating the house in the winter.

[herbivor]

I am intrigued by the use of ultrasonic drying, but from my experience ultrasonic baths at work, they are very noisy indeed. Surely, a microwave system would work better (providing no metal s such as zips are included in the cycle!). It shall be called The Magnetron Tumble Dryer.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by herbivor

Surely, a microwave system would work better (providing no metal s such as zips are included in the cycle!).

Which means you can't use it to dry e.g. classic Levis and other jeans with rivets, among lots of other things. Then there's the change you accidentally left in your pocket...

Whereas I've yet to find anything that can't be safely dried on a clothesline.

And if birds bother you, get a roll of bird scare tape ($5-6) and string some up around the line. If it keeps them off my cherry trees - that is, very attractive food - it should do well on a boring old clothesline.

[oil pan 4]

I have a clothes line, near 100'F out side temperatures and 25% humidity and a breeze that will dry clothes in 10% to 25% of clothes dryer time.
If we hang out just sheets, the first ones are already dry before the last one is hung up.

[Xist]

Our dryer has broken down twice recently and the landlord came and took a again. There was a screw on the floor and when I closed the door, the front shook. I realized the bottom of the front was detached and I could pull it away from the dryer. When the landlord came back, he said he reattached the front, although the screw was still on the floor, and it did not seem much better. Somehow he did not understand that it did not work, nor did he realize he took my screwdriver, so I asked him to drop it off the next time he came by.

He gave it to me the next morning, but I was changing, so I did not take the time to ask about the dryer, and he was gone when I was dressed. I e-mailed him, but he did not respond, and I did not feel like wasting quarters just to find out.

I dried my whites on hangers in my closet and left my darks in the washer all day. The whites were dry, so I hung up my towels. I was surprised, those dried overnight. Our air conditioning is set to 77°, but I left the fluorescent light on!

I mentioned ultrasonic and vacuum drying to my roommate who says they line dry in their greenhouse. I asked "In't it too humid?"

"We don't have any plants in there!"

Oh.

Of course.

[Xist]

If I bought a scratch-and-dent dryer, or a used one in good condition, let's say I start by removing the heating element(s), vent, and closed off whatever intake there is. Why is there a rubber seal around the door? If I attached it to a pump and sealed off the dryer the best I can, how much of a vacuum could I maintain without strengthening the dryer? Since home dryers are unperforated steel cylinders, if the water boiled out of the clothing, wouldn't it just get tossed around until it is re-absorbed?

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Xist

Why is there a rubber seal around the door? If I attached it to a pump and sealed off the dryer the best I can, how much of a vacuum could I maintain without strengthening the dryer? Since home dryers are unperforated steel cylinders, if the water boiled out of the clothing, wouldn't it just get tossed around until it is re-absorbed?

The seal is there to keep airflow from entering or exiting from the door. You wouldn't be able to maintain much of a vacuum because even a few PSI creates hundreds of pounds of force. 1 PSI means that there is 1 pound of force placed on every square inch of the material.

You would have to constantly pump air out of the chamber as the water boiled into vapor. The vapor would increase the chamber pressure, so it would have to be reduced with a vacuum pump. I also suspect the cloths would freeze as the water boiled away, since going from a liquid to a gas removes heat.

[oil pan 4]

Just go on ecorenovator and search "dryer" in post titles only. 3 pages of search results come up.

[elhigh]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Plus, my clothes must be hung upside-down. Don't ask me why.

I have found that hanging pants to dry upside down keeps them in better condition. You can dry the creases right in where they belong and skip ironing on nicer slacks.

Sweetie likes towels that have been line dried to a nice, crisp 40-grit. It's great for shirts and pants and kitchen towels, but because our house is so close to the street, undies and socks go into the dryer. Just because.

[elhigh]

I think I saw this on Ecorenovator: take a conventional dryer, create a sealed plenum around its air intake on the back, and route a duct from that up to the attic space. Sucks in the solar-heated air from the attic, uses it productively and then ejects it from the house. In the same exchange, cooler fresh air is actively pulled into the attic via the gable vent.