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Roomba Radiator roves around your home sensing out cold spots
with
its temperature gauges. When it finds one, it switches on its built
in
radiator, then delivers jets of heated air via sets of directional
nozzles.
It periodically switches off the heater then moves around a little
to
see
if the local region's ambient temperature has increased
sufficiently enough to allow it to begin searching for another cold
spot.
Systematically recharges its storage batteries by plugging itself in
to
the mains.
De-lux version can also sniff out and quell nasty odours then
deliver a range of
scented smells, using the same principle.
stalking_20heat
See anotation by [Aristotle], Feb 18 2010 [pocmloc, Apr 21 2014]
[Matthias Wandel] built something like this
https://www.youtube...watch?v=6kK3xF1REHo
It doesn't drive around, but it does track people in the room and aim the heater at them. [notexactly, Mar 24 2019]
Another one like the above link
https://www.instruc...ike-Radiant-Heater/
It's built around a bike frame, but still [edit: DOESN'T] drive around the house [notexactly, Mar 24 2019, last modified Mar 28 2019]
[link]
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If it followed you around, you wouldn't need to heat the house. All the more so if it could reconfigure itself into a comfy chair when necessary. |
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Once a week it would be necessary to use all the old radiators you recover from the old system to overheat the bathroom. |
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The only other adaptation I can think of would be that your toilet seat would need a built-in heating element. |
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Something about this idea reeks of fire hazard, don't
you think? |
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Can't see it as a fire hazard.... just eliminates cold spots with a bit of hot air. |
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Alright then, Roombas for all the cold rooms. |
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Batteries have far too low an energy density
to deliver a useful amount of heat,
particularly for space heating. A liquid fuel
system for easy recharging would be better-
for preference, something hypergolic, that
won't boost humidity or release too much
CO. Nitrogen as the exhaust would be good … |
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Ha - there are cars running on batteries now..... so the Roomba Radiator should be able to last a while before needing to plug itself in again. I have great faith in my new Roomba friend. He could be like Henry my faithful vacuum cleaner, except Roomba Radiator probably looks like a friendly dragon with a hot breath and a wagging tail. |
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As far as the heating goes, Roomba could occassionally plug into the electrical socket and remelt the salt that is starting to crystalise in the molten salt heat sink. That way all the batteries have to do is move the Roomba around. |
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If you go with the cheapskate option that just heats the person instead of heating the space, you'd need two Roombas that change shifts every now and again. |
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Actually with molten salt heat storage, the Roomba could get into the shower with you, and you wouldn't have to occasionally heat up the bathroom air. |
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Your guests would have to endure some discomfort, and your pets would have to stay right by your side. There would also be some drafts to enjoy the freshness of. |
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Yes, because nobody has ever had problems with
pressurized liquid sodium before. |
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Oblique reference to the Soviet nuclear submarine
program--they used liquid sodium instead of water because
they could crank more immediate power out of the
reactors (I am not at all clear on the technical details), and
it caused them no end of hilariously fatal problems. |
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If molten salt escaped, things would burn. If the Roomba carried fuel and it leaked, catastrophe would not be guaranteed, so I suppose that's enough to tip the safety factor favourably in the direction of the gas tank. |
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(Likelihood would matter less than the best-disaster-scenario? - I think so.) |
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Imagine the fortune you could make selling "stalker heaters" that look like Daleks. |
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Yeah, they had fires, immolations, radiation leaks,
radioactive liquid sodium leaks that caused fires and
immolations...fun times. |
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At least molten salt wouldn't be reactive, itself (like sodium or NAK <-- ? ). |
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Actually the very high temperatures at the molten phase could be offset by jacketing with water? (Out-of-depth-error is registering on my processor). A small quantity of very hot salt, in a less small quantity of water, adds up to lots of steam, but maybe no fires. You just need to get below the activation energy for the reagents, carpet and oxygen. Maybe it's necessary to go too far below 800 C? |
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I suppose before one even gets there, one has to make sure not to melt the container the salt is in. |
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The reason for the salt is its extremely high specific heat capacity, so I suppose another thing to find out is whether the solid phase has this property. If so, why melt it? (Apart from energy density). |
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Any takers for some very hot Lithium salts patrolling the house? |
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(Or lets forget the salts and trundle around loaded with hot Cesium. I hear you don't need a radiator, even with cold liquid Cesium.) |
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Use wireless power transmission and everything will be toasty. |
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Maybe an alloy of Caesium and Plutonium would give you a warmer version of NaK? (See how I cunningly wormed my way around two spelling errors of the kind I heartily disapprove of ... or did I mean to say "heartlessly disprove" ? ... I forget now ...) |
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Molten salt remote-control robots equipped with
easily programmable circuit boards... what could
possibly go wrong? |
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I would also consider radiant heating, and thermal vision. |
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// (Likelihood would matter less than the best-disaster-
scenario? - I think so.) // |
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For consumer acceptance, yes. |
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// Imagine the fortune you could make selling "stalker
heaters" that look like Daleks. // |
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This is all incredibly inefficient. What is the purpose of
warming a room? Presumably, to make the occupants feel
warmer. Ergo, a robot with a powerful directable microwave
transmitter could achieve the same result for far less power. |
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Ah yes, but that's not much help to the 8 foot tall
cactus in my sun room, or next door's cats who live
permanently on a special fleece blanket in the roof
space, or for drying out whatever project I'm doing
that needs to be dried out. Warm air also deters
condensation, and there's nothing quite like it
around the bare feet on a chilly day. |
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[+] A warm breakfast bar croissant |
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You’re thinking of a Doomba. |
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That's the roomba coffin. |
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