h a l f b a k e r yWhy not imagine it in a way that works?
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Side mirrors get raindrops on them making it hard to see. A vent at the top of your side mirrors with an intake vent on the front of the mirror housing redirects air over the mirrors while you drive. As you speed up air blows the water off. Bonus feature: the vent will act like a slotted flap and
reduce the area of drag behind the mirror, reducing your car's total Cd by .01%
[link]
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Can it also be engineered to generate a uselessly tiny
amount of downforce, like those silly little canards I see on
the front valences of tuners? |
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How do you keep the vents from introducing as much rain as they remove? |
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First, have the scoops on the underside directing air
upwards to deflect falling rain before it hits the
mirror (although, I guess, mirrors don't get rained on
while you're moving). |
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Second, put a small slot in the curved air-channel,
on the outside of its radius. Incoming rain will be
thrown to the outside, and thence out of the slot,
whilst the majority of the air (now rain-free)
continues around and up to the mirror. |
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I think we should spurt a little gasoline into the intake
and light it so the air coming out is hot. It would dry the
mirror if it's wet. |
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//spurt a little gasoline into the intake and light it// - thus generating a uselessly tiny amount of thrust in addition to the downforce? |
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Maybe it could be marketed as some kind of "afterburner". |
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And then on a frigid winter morning watch in horror as the sudden blast of hot air we were hoping would defrost the mirror instead causes it to shatter into a zillion tiny shards... |
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No, because this will be controlled by the computers that run the fuel injection, and the climate sensors will not activate it when conditions exceed operating parameters. |
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There will probably have to be a warmup cycle, then gradual introduction of more and more heat |
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This shouldn't add more than a couple of thousand dollars to the cost of the automobile, and will probably greatly reduce the lifespan of the mirror, but what price fashion? |
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It crossed my mind to blow exhaust over the mirrors, but that causes some CO issues if you put your window down. |
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With some fairly simple ducting, air collected
from a jacket around the exhaust manifold
could be routed through into the mirror
shroud. |
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The ram effect from a front-mounted intake
scoop ahould provide enough flow. The heat
of the manifold will flash off any entrained
moisture. |
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No fans, no fuel injectors, no temperature
sensing, no hookup to the engine
management. Just "free" heated air passed
over the mirror by the effect of the vehicle's
motion. |
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I've always been a fan of small, extremely vain demons harnessed to the mirrors who keep rubbing them clean with their shirt sleeves so they can see themselves better. |
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// With some fairly simple ducting, air collected
from a jacket around the exhaust manifold could be routed
through into the mirror shroud. ... The ram effect from a
front-mounted intake scoop ahould provide enough flow.
// |
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No hood scoop required. This is how I heat the cab of my
Deuce in the winter. I was planning to blow air through the
manifold jacket using a small squirrel-cage fan, but I found
that blow-back from the big radiator fan in front of the
engine does the job nicely. I installed an air-actuated* gate
to turn the heater on and off, and in the summer I just
remove the whole jacket. |
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* I did this because my kitbashed air system runs just about
everything that's normally controlled by a solenoid or
mechanical switch, so adding one more outlet was easier
than running a cable into the cab. For those who aren't
systematically replacing every well-ordered electrical relay
in their vehicle with a psychotic rat's nest of unlabeled air
lines, I'd recommend a 78¢ solenoid switch from your local
NAPA. |
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My mirrors have defrosters in them and basically they also dry the raindrops.(not thoroughly, so OK- this sounds like a good idea.) [+] |
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"And on the afternoon of the Sixth Day, God created Audi, so he could have a good laugh at the people who'd bought VW's ..." |
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//basically they also dry the raindrops//
Its most irritating when my raindrops get wet, and I would like to have a device to keep them dry. |
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Actually, the thing to use would be a blast of compressed air. Suitably placed and profiled nozzles could be used to clear the mirror, with additional units to clear the side window. |
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Running a flexible high-pressure air line into the door presents no practical problem. However, the majority of passenger vehicles lack a ready source of high-pressure air. |
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An engine-driven pump and air receiver will be relatively expensive for the functionality delivered. |
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A small electrically powered compressor could be the basis of a useful aftermarket kit. It wouldn't need much capacity - enough to keep a one litre vessel topped up with 4 bar air. The air blast would only activate on command from the driver, for a few seconds at a time. |
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But, once you *have* said air reservoir, adding an air-horn is
so dead-simple it should be reflex. |
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