Can anyone help me on creating an automatic Fan?

Question

Can anyone help me on creating an automatic Fan (no electricity, which blade knots enough to produces some air) a good engineer can answer that without any difficulty, I hope you can answer that in time, it’ll be very useful to me, I tried to search but couldn’t find anything, just like an automatic wrist watch, no batteries but still moves.

Well I can't say much but so far the answers I got are very creative and I am thinking about it, My Application is a fan producing air through loops of it's what should I say blades, I don't want to use solar panels as it will be used indoors and electricity is of course I don't want in the first place, help me guys

Answer 1

Well without using electricity (which would I assume rule out solar cells which would have been my first choice), you will need to use a different power source. "No electricity" would also rule out thermocouples or Peltier junctions, though these would be a distant third or fourth choice anyway due to their poor efficiency.

Look into "Stirling Engines" -- they take heat and convert it to rotation. When it starts getting hot, the fan should start spinning. Normally they require a high degree of thermal differential, but I believe there are low-temperature Stirling designs available. Just remember, it is very hard to harvest energy from minor temperature differentials, harnessing energy from major temperature differentials is much easier and more efficient (this is just basic thermodynamics).

You could probably use a thermal type solar panel to heat water or oil or a similar working fluid, boil either that fluid or a secondary working fluid (depending on the amount of solar energy available at your location), and use that to spin the fan -- a more complex and expensive process than solar cells or even a Stirling engine but still fairly simple to build.

Answer 2

I would need to know your application.

There is no way to move air without an energy source. The energy can come from lots of things besides electricity. You can use a wind -up spring for example, or pedal-power, or wind power, or a steam engine.

If you are trying to cool something, there is some tricks to facilitate air flow across hot surfaces using chimney effects. Even better, use heat pipes. Heat pipes are completely self-contained and efficient. Plus, they are cool (bad pun intended :). Check the link.

Answer 3

The link below is to a company that produces fans that run off the heat wood burning stoves. The second link is for a fan that runs off an alcohol lamp. Both use stirling engines for their power.

Answer 4

What you are describing is perpetual motion. You haven't given any details with regards to its environment. The watch is "perpetual" because it is always moving on someones wrist. The engineering behind that utilizes the motion of ones arm. If you sit that watch on your dresser, eventually it would stop working because energy is no longer being exerted on the internal mechanism.

Re-think that question and include the application in which you wish to use it.

Cheers!

Answer 5

1st you need a power source to make this fan move,,either mechanical or electrical or both..2ed you can do something like wind mill which use wind power or solar fan were you need photovolatic panal and battery or utilize any source of power can suply your fan,, good luck

Answer 6

I saw an old episode of 'Antiques Roadshow' that had a fan powered by a small heat source. Unfortunately, I don't remember how it worked.