Migration Paths

The is the core forum of BFC. It's all about informal and random talk on any topic.
Forum rules
Post a new topic to begin a chat.
Any topic is acceptable, and topic drift is permissible.
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Migration Paths

Post by yogi »

Perhaps the reason you never found the patent for your mystery heating device is due to the fact it may never have been patented. LOL Seems unlikely, but I guess it's a possibility.

I'm not familiar with any technology that can produce "cold" heat. Infrared light is just the byproduct of a heat source, it's not the radiant heat itself. I guess microwaves could be generated in a cold picture and percolate your body tissues or possibly some radio active element could do likewise. Neither of those things would last in a consumer market if it ever got there in the first place.
Last edited by yogi on 05 May 2019, 17:16, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Kellemora
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel
Posts: 7494
Joined: 16 Feb 2015, 17:54

Re: Migration Paths

Post by Kellemora »

Well, I finally found it. Brand Name is AZTEC Radiant Wall Heater.
This one is Yellow with a Sun face on it. Mine was Red with the same Sun Face on it, only the Sun face was centered on mine.
Looks like it is a radiant heater.
Plug and on/off switch looks exactly like mine did. Also in the image below you can click right to see the back and sides.

https://www.ebth.com/items/6482703-vint ... sun-design
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Migration Paths

Post by yogi »

Searching for Aztec Radiant Heaters produces a bunch of them from various sources. I was interested in knowing the technology behind it, but nobody explained it explicitly. There were some references from other sources that call it infra-red heating, but that's as close as I could get to a description of the technology. I'll go with that because I can't think of anything better. LOL I'm guessing some ceramic core is doing the radiating.
User avatar
Kellemora
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel
Posts: 7494
Joined: 16 Feb 2015, 17:54

Re: Migration Paths

Post by Kellemora »

I have a couple of radiant space heaters here, and if I put my hand in front of them, especially if I touch the front of the units, I could burn my hands.
One uses clear ceramic tubes with a coil inside that heat up, the other uses opaque white ceramic disks that get hot.

From what I remember about the picture frame heater, it may be warm on the front, not ice cold which I may have alluded to previously. But I know it did not get hot enough to burn your fingers. But could have got up to around 120 degrees I suppose.

The thing I remember most about it was, if you were not going to be in the room, might as well turn it off, because it was not a space heater. It didn't warm the room, it only made you feel warm if it was on.
This is why I keep thinking it's not really a radiant heater, but works on some other principal, perhaps like an infrared light?

Aha, I think I found some info. Infrared panels are like heat from the sun, but without the ultraviolet. It heat's people and objects but not the air or space in the room.
Most infrared heaters have exposed elements and are ceiling mounted.
Low-power radiant infrared panel heaters are often designed as plain or decorative wall hangings.

I just found some simple fairly low in cost infrared panels, I may get one for my office.
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Migration Paths

Post by yogi »

My understanding is that infra-red refers to the light emitted by a source. In the case of infra-red heaters the light is a byproduct of the heat radiated by the heating element. I never saw an explanation saying the light itself is what makes you feel warm. It's the radiant energy from the source that does it. Microwaves, on the other hand, can travel through the air invisibly and cause you to heat up. That is due to their resonance with your body tissues. Those tiny little microwaves bounce around inside you and cause the fluids to become excited and heat up. Infra-red light doesn't do that because it's a different frequency that does not resonate with human cell tissues. I could be wrong, but infra-red does not react with human tissue at all. UV does.
User avatar
ocelotl
Posts: 268
Joined: 18 Feb 2015, 04:49

Re: Migration Paths

Post by ocelotl »

I've commented on the yearly arrival to this part of the Continent of herons and egrets every winter, also have seen more than one monarch butterfly trying to find its winter woods... Just a couple of years ago, I've seen parrots and parakeets roaming around, as well as starlings competing with our local finches, grackles, doves, orioles, sparrows, thrashers and mockingbirds, and chasing away he locla hummingbirds... And about climate... The good point of living in the tropics is that it almost never snows (last snowfall in Mexico City was in January 1967), and the good point of living 2260 m avobe sea level (7400 feet, give or take a few) is that heat doesn't accumulate too much. Anyway a car interior can easily reach 50° C or 122° F... On the bad side, since there is 30% less atmosphere above you, UV is a bigger issue that at sea level.

* Edit *

Forgot to add: http://bioteca.biodiversidad.gob.mx/jan ... s/6849.pdf
User avatar
Kellemora
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel
Posts: 7494
Joined: 16 Feb 2015, 17:54

Re: Migration Paths

Post by Kellemora »

One of the shops where I worked was sorta open air, like a covered pavilion. They had these orange glowing heaters on the ceiling, which apparently had no affect on the temperature. A thermometer on a post in the center of the pavilion gave the same reading as the outdoor thermometer.
Yet we all were toasty warm in the pavilion, even with a breeze blowing through.
When I first started working there, I thought what a waste of money trying to heat the outside.
I also figured we just felt the heat because we were under the heaters.
Then somebody said, they were not radiant heaters but infrared heaters, which don't heat the air, only the people.
I laughed because at the time I thought that was corny, hi hi.

For Oceloti - Many years ago I used to do a lot of hot-air ballooning. Some of the old-timers there had eye problems, they said came from going too high to often. I was 25 bucks short of getting my license, so didn't pursue the hobby after that, but did read in a few magazines about the sport that folks should wear eye protection if going over 5k feet up.
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Migration Paths

Post by yogi »

I'm thinking with all that thin air @7000+ up in the mountains, nearly everyone would be suffering from some form of skin cancer due to the intense UV at that elevation. I'm also slightly surprised there is such a variety of birds, but then the food supply must be there for them to be comfortable. That field guide you linked to, Juan, is simply amazing. Thank you for that.

Well, apparently infrared heat is one of those anomalies of nature where you can get from point A to point B without going through the middle. LOL I didn't think there was enough energy in light rays to heat up anything.
User avatar
Kellemora
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel
Posts: 7494
Joined: 16 Feb 2015, 17:54

Re: Migration Paths

Post by Kellemora »

Hmm, does an incandescent lamp put out UV? If so it is not much, or designed to minimize UV output.
As far as producing heat. A light bulb inside a reflective box build up enough heat to cook foods.
Remember the little toy Baker Oven for kids?

As far as the sun goes, just get in your car on a hot summer day. It's hotter than an oven in there, hi hi.

About Birds: Birds CAN SEE UV, something humans can't actually see, but can see the purple glow of UV in some cases.
Unlike people, birds are not affected as much by UV, and those who live in upper atmospheric areas, especially around the equator, appear to be immune to UV damage.
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Migration Paths

Post by yogi »

Few birds have bare skin exposed to sunlight, and I think that would explain why they are immune to the effects of UV radiation. Tungsten filaments glow heavily on the red side of the spectrum. I'm sure you ran into this when you took pictures and had to adjust the white balance for the ambient light. That red light probably has a high infra-red content as well, and to be consistent with the previous conversation that is where the heat is. The sun is a special case in that it has high concentrations of all light. LOL It also puts out some high intensity radiant heat. I believe that radiant energy is different than light waves, no only from the sun but also from light bulbs.
User avatar
Kellemora
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel
Posts: 7494
Joined: 16 Feb 2015, 17:54

Re: Migration Paths

Post by Kellemora »

I never really studied up on the different types of heaters much, other than to say I've owned several different types over the years.
I have an oil-filled baseboard heater here in my office. That sucker has to be over 35-40 years old and has been through two floods. Looks like it is exactly 38 years old. I bought it in 1981 when I built a bedroom the basement of my Creve Coeur home for my son to stay in while I remodeled the upstairs, turning a three bedroom house into a four bedroom house.
Then the frau and I moved into another bedroom I built in the basement for us, and even though we did have central heat, we needed a bit more heat down there. It was in continuous use in the heating seasons all the years we lived there, until after the second flood when we moved our bedroom upstairs, after my daughter went to live with her mom. Then it sat idle for a few years before I got married again and moved south and built this office.
I really loved this heater, and it never gave me a problem until this year when the thermostat won't shut all the way off, which is no biggie, as I can unplug it when not in use. It probably just needs cleaned.

In my bedroom here, I have a three tube quartz heater only used to break the chill before bedtime. Not real happy with it, but it works. I have a ceramic heater here under my desk to warm the floor and my space, but the heat from the computers scrolls behind me, probably from the baseboard heater at the other side of the room, and I turn it off after a few minutes.

And I've already talked about the panel heater which I never knew much about, other than it heated me instead of the room, hi hi.

Although the garage in a home I lived in, in Des Peres was heated with hot water radiators, it got darn hot in there in the summer. I had this huge 2-1/2 foot diameter old cast iron Emerson fan I mounted up by the ceiling for in the summer. A horizontally opening window, sorta like a casement window was next to at the back of the garage. At first I used a remote on/off switch to turn it on and off. But the air it drew in through that sheltered window sometimes made it too cool in there, with the wind chill from the fan itself.
So, I built a thermostat box. Just an old Intermatic Timer box with no guts, I placed a Relay inside with a furnace thermostat mounted to the cover.
I was doing saw and tool sharpening at that time, and an HVAC guy came buy to pick up his tools and spotted the thermostat going to the fan. He said you can't put a thermostat on a fan, it won't make any difference, all a fan does is move air, it doesn't change the temperature of the air.
I said you are right about the latter part, but only in a closed room.
I no sooner got the words out of my mouth and the fan kicked on.
Now naturally you will feel cooler with the fan running due to evaporation of our skin.
But I pointed to the thermometer on the wall, and said to him, just watch the thermometer, you have time to wait a bit.
Sure enough, about ten or fifteen minutes later, after the temp dropped back down a few degrees, the fan shut off.
I told him to go look behind the row of metal shelves. He did and saw the open window.
I then took him outside to that northeast facing large outside corner almost hidden by trees and bushes where the window open out to. It was at least ten degrees cooler in that corner than outside in the shade.
He finally said, well in your case, looks like I'll have to eat my words, hi hi.
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Migration Paths

Post by yogi »

The HVAC guy you describe is a good example of an expert at his trade but not knowing the physics behind it. Not knowing the physics caused him to draw the wrong conclusion. There are times in this very house were we prefer to push the air around with fans instead of turning on the A/C. When the temps get to 90F and above the fans just are not enough. The only problem I've experienced with the fan air is that it not only sucks in the cooler air from the outside, but it also brings in the odors that go along with mold and fungus.

We have used a few space heaters over the years, but only rarely. This house has 9 foot ceilings and an open architecture which means the living room with the television and adjacent kitchen is a huge box of air that is difficult to heat evenly. The thermostat for the furnace will say 74 but the couch by the TV is only 70. Never had such a variation of temperatures in a single room with the lower ceilings and segmented room divisions. To solve the problem wife got a box heater of some sort that fits snugly under the TV. It has fake logs in it and glows amber when the heat is on. A fan pushes the warm air out the front and onto my wife's kneecaps. That makes her feel good. To my amazement the containing box hardly gets warm, but the air flowing out is definitely warm. Not sure what kind of heating element is in there but it looks good and serves its purpose well. I sit in my Command and Control Center with all the computer equipment to keep me warm. Plus this room is directly above the furnace. LOL
User avatar
Kellemora
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel
Posts: 7494
Joined: 16 Feb 2015, 17:54

Re: Migration Paths

Post by Kellemora »

When I lived in an apartment in Brentwood, MO, it was a three story townhouse with a semi-loft type bedroom, and was impossible to keep heat on the lowest floor, which was actually originally the basement before the place was remodeled.
The front and back door were on the second floor.
This may be hard to picture, but from the front door 2/3 across the living room, it was open to the ceiling of the third floor from about 1/3 across the room, because above that 1/3 against the front wall was the bedroom.
From the first floor (originally a basement I'm sure), the back 1/3 of the second floor was open space, so you could look up from the basement to the ceiling of the kitchen on the second floor.
Starting at the front door, which was in the center of the apartment. On the right wall was a staircase leading up to the third floor. The upper landing was a third of the way back from the back wall, with a railing looking down into the basement. Under the staircase going up was the staircase leading down to the basement.
On the left side of the apartment, the third floor was about eleven feet wide, the bathroom door was just in front of the landing offset just a tab. Outside the bathroom was the walkway to the bedroom at the front of the apartment on the third floor. Since it was like a loft, it had a railing running the length of the hallway, and across the bedroom loft.
One heck of a lot of wasted space in that apartment, that's for sure.
The inside partition walls were done in like western cedar placed vertically, which made the inside feel like a modern day log cabin. And the right exterior walls were western cedar placed horizontally. The rest of the walls were just painted drywall. Well, except the kitchen which had tile anyplace there were not cabinets or railings.
The bottom floor had a row of closets on the left side, and the furnace room was on the right side, in the back corner under the landing, and to the right of the furnace room where the water heater was also located, were the washer and dryer area, boxed in with bifold doors hiding the washer and dryer. To the right of that was a built in bench with seats that lifted up to store things underneath. Nothing really good though, because it did get dampish in there a couple of times.

Almost forgot why I wrote all of that.
The bedroom loft was toasty warm, since it was on the third floor, but the living room/den below it was always really cold, due to the huge casement windows behind the couch facing out toward the street. Not thermo pane either.
I put two layers of plastic over these windows in the winter which helped some.
But then I bought TWO air moving fans that fit inside of dryer duct. Actually, they came assembled that way already.
I wanted them to be alongside the couch, but couldn't put them their because the loft was over the couch, so I put one dangling down from the third floor ceiling just outside the upper left rail, which made the outlet at the floor by the kitchen doorway. The other I put in the right corner against the living room side of the staircase.
These were two tiny fans about like you find in a computer, 4" diameter round and quiet. But they brought enough heat down from the ceiling and spread it across the second floor floor that we could balance the heat and also reduce our heating bill.
On the rail side of the kitchen where you looked down to the basement. I stretched a sheet of plastic from ceiling down to floor and from the stairwell to the behind the cabinets. This kept the cold air in the basement, hi hi. It also helped the basement from getting too cold in the summer when we had the AC on.
Needless to say, the ducts downstairs were kept closed during the cooling season, enough cold fell from the ducts up in the bedroom to keep it too cool most of the time.

When I see people buying houses with great rooms and 20 to 30 foot tall ceilings, I cringe.
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Migration Paths

Post by yogi »

The more puzzling question is why do builders make such monstrosities? Obviously, because people buy them. But, as you point out, you need a degree in thermo dynamics in order to set the air currents flowing in a comfortable pattern. Many years ago we were looking at houses to buy and one in particular still stands out in my mind. The interior was basically one room, approximately 30x30 with a staircase along one wall. The ceiling was vaulted if I recall and about 15-20 above the floor. The bedrooms were on what would be the second floor and they were accessed by that staircase. A two car garage was under the bedrooms (fatal flaw in my opinion). I marveled at the open space, but was immediately taken back by the challenge of keeping a place like that warm during Chicago winters.

One of my neighbors in the old neighborhood had a 5000 sq ft house. He had two furnaces and two air conditioners up in the attic area. Not sure why he had the furnaces up there but it made sense to put the a/c units above the ground floor. The cool air fell down like a waterfall in summer.
User avatar
Kellemora
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel
Posts: 7494
Joined: 16 Feb 2015, 17:54

Re: Migration Paths

Post by Kellemora »

When I was doing general contracting work, you wouldn't believe the designs architects would come up with.
Vaulted ceilings with a row of windows 20 feet up in the air.
No way to get to them to clean them or the bugs off the window ledges, and talk about cobwebs.
Whoever buys houses like that has to be rich enough to hire professional cleaning companies who do second or third story cleaning. Got to be expensive.

Many homes use two furnaces and two AC units, one at each end of a house. Hard to believe, but it is actually cheaper to run than having a single centrally located unit. Plus you have the added benefit that if one fails, the other can partially carry the house and prevent a freeze-up in winter.

Not houses I built, but a couple I've worked in, had zoned heating and cooling. Basically a thermostat in every room.
However, the thermostats do not go to the heating or cooling units, most of them only go to motor driven dampers in the duct-work leading to the thermostat controlled rooms. A main thermostat is what controls the furnace and AC unit, usually in a hallway. That was years ago when they worked that way.
Today's homes with individually controlled rooms are done using a computerized thermostat system, and will adjust the dampers a little at a time until it achieves the balance the thermostats in each room are requesting. If you want to spend the money for this type of all-rooms thermostat system, it really does cut down on the utility bills.
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Migration Paths

Post by yogi »

Oddly enough my neighbor with the multiple furnaces said the same thing. The costs of running them was not more than what I was paying in my smaller single furnace house. I can see how zoned heating could be cost effective to operate. The killer is what it costs to install. It's like buying LED bulbs that last 30 years and save me hundreds of dollars. That might be true if I used them enough, but I doubt that in my lifetime I'd ever recover their costs in my utility bill savings
User avatar
Kellemora
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel
Posts: 7494
Joined: 16 Feb 2015, 17:54

Re: Migration Paths

Post by Kellemora »

When they came out with compact-fluorescents, all the hype about saving money was just that, nothing but hype.
And on top of not saving you money, they added new problems most folks never had to deal with before.
Switching power supplies may be cheaper to run than analog power supplies, but they are short lived in comparison.
Compact fluorescent lamps burn out much faster than advertised too, often because the power supply goes bad, or runs out of spec and fries the coiled glass tube lamp. It is rare if I get over two years from compact-fluorescent.

Moving on to LED lamps. To make them work in a fixture designed for incandescent lamps, they too use a switching power supply, which fails quite often. When all they really need is a cheap voltage reducing transformer. I think a few are now beginning to go this route to make them cheaper to buy. They couldn't use resistive voltage regulation else there would be no savings on the electric. A resistor would have to burn up the excess wattage to get the voltage down low enough for the lamp. This is one of the reasons Rheostat type Lamp Dimmers were outlawed. The wattage was being burned up in the dimmer to make the lamp less bright, hi hi. So the same amount of wattage was used regardless of how much light you got from the lamp itself.

Most of the lights in my house now are LED lamps. Those that didn't last very long used switching power supplies, but the latter ones I've purchased use simple transformers, and they seem to last a long long time. Come to think of it, I don't think I've had one of the newer style burn out yet. Can't say that for the multi-led under cabinet fixtures though, more than half the leds in those are burned out already.

Some day, I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts, home will be wired with low 12 or 24 volt, maybe 48 volt, voltage to lighting fixtures, and LED's won't need the transformer or switching power supplies at all.

I do know a number of years ago, lighting circuits that were 110 volt, only had 24 volt wiring to the switches in the house. A wall of relays was placed usually in the furnace room, so when you flipped a light switch, it would energize a relay to power the 110 volt light that switch went to.
I really hated having to go repair electrical problems at homes wired in that fashion. More often than not, it was the tiny little bell wire they used going to the switches would have a break somewhere they may have vibrated for no logical reason.

OK, I'm rambling again, moving on.
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Migration Paths

Post by yogi »

I don't know how long LED bulbs have been available, but I do recall buying them shortly after they were. That was up north and it seems that I never had to replace one. Down here all the incandescent lights are now LED. We've barely been here three years and every one of those incandescent bulbs burned out. So far the LEDs are still going strong.

The problem with low voltage wiring is the line loss. You can have 24 volts at the source, but even the best copper wire will have resistance and drop down the voltage significantly. I have some 24 volt bulbs on the pillars of my deck and the wiring between them has got to be 10 gauge if not thicker. Fortunately the loop of bulbs is only about 30 feet long which isn't enough to cause much line loss with those thick wires.

I guess they could have used rheostats for light dimmers way back when. Every dimmer I've ever used had a thyristor controlled circuit. Then again, I didn't use very many dimmer switches.
User avatar
Kellemora
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel
Posts: 7494
Joined: 16 Feb 2015, 17:54

Re: Migration Paths

Post by Kellemora »

If you change your low voltage lighting from DC to AC you can use the thinner bell wire and still keep all of your lights bright. Albeit due to skin effect, AC shows more resistance than DC, but AC uses less amperage.

I'll use larger numbers here so it is clearer.

1000 watts of lamps, on 120 VAC, will only use 8.3 Amps of current. So will work on 12 gauge wire.
1000 watts of lamps, on 12 VDC, will use a whopping 83.3 Amps of current. So will require 6 gauge wire.
1000 watts of lamps, on 12 VAC, will also use 83.3 Amps of current, but can still be run on 12 gauge wire.

In yard lighting, due to the long lengths of wire in use, there will be major voltage drops along each step of the circuit.
I know the math shows the same for DC vs AC on long runs, but in reality, the voltage drops are much less on AC when all other things are equal. My only thought on this is because you can use higher voltage at a lower current draw with AC than you can DC. Yard lighting transformers usually have different voltage taps to make up for voltage drops in the line. An DC it seems if you have a long run of lights, the first light will be bright, and the last light dim. Move up on the tap and the first light will burn out from too much voltage. On AC, at least in the yard at my old house, all the lights stayed nearly the same brightness when I switched to an AC transformer from a DC transformer at the same voltage tap.
Trouble is, you can't run LED yard lamps on AC circuits, so if you use LED lights you have to use DC.
User avatar
yogi
Posts: 9978
Joined: 14 Feb 2015, 21:49

Re: Migration Paths

Post by yogi »

The formula is P = I x E
where P=Watts, I=Amps, and E=Volts.
It doesn't matter if it's ac or dc, the formula remains the same.

To achieve a given wattage the amps and volts can be manipulated an infinite number of ways, obviously. Our electric grid has some fixed numbers for voltage so that there isn't a lot of manipulating you can do on the grid. Individual devices connected to the grid, of course, can be manipulated to serve the needs of the device. The only thing I care about is the watts because that is what that meter outside my house is measuring, and what I am paying for. LOL :mrgreen:
Post Reply