Back in the 1920s, R Buckminister Fuller invented a device called the Fog Gun, which used air under high pressure (200PSI), a little water, and an atomizing nozzle, to produce a cleaning effect just as good as a regular shower, but using only about a pint of water per hour.
Although the idea never became popular, as a replacement for regular showers, there's no reason it can't be used for other cleaning purposes; for example, automobile cleaning.
When you go to an automatic car wash, it uses at least 15 gallons of water; when you wash your car at home, using a hose, you might waste as much as 100 gallons.
A car wash using a Fuller Fog Gun, whether installed in an automatic car wash, or used at home, would doubtless use much less than that.
For home use, I could imagine using a portable, handheld version, consisting of a carbon fiber air chamber, a water reservoir, a pressure regulator, a trigger/valve, and of course, the atomizer... hopefully with the whole thing being small and light enough to not be unwieldy.
One would of course have to recharge the handheld version between uses, using an A/C powered air compressor, but I don't think that that would be a problem.-- goldbb, Mar 16 2009 This would be good for lots of things. Link up some light Fog Gun reading, please.-- bungston, Mar 16 2009 Buckminster Fuller had been a hero of mine for, like ... forever. Until I found out that he had stolen one of his most famous ideas - Tensegrity - from one of his students - Kenneth Snelson. Plus, his "dymaxion" world map had been thought up before (he just exchanged an icosahedron for a dodecahedron). I hope his "fog gun" is original, though...
Either way, I think an atomized pressurized water/air combination for cleaning is long overdue [+].-- Wily Peyote, Mar 16 2009 I'm surprised they don't use this on the ISS. (+)-- MisterQED, Mar 17 2009 'Cleaning' as an idea is quite a recent social invention. The best way to save water is to stop cleaning everything. You will find most things work just as well without being cleaned. For cars a nice layer of dirt protects the paint just a well as an expensive polish.-- eight_nine_tortoise, Mar 17 2009 Is it really a gun ???-- wjt, Mar 17 2009 Worried about second amendment rights, [wjt]?
"You can have my showerhead when you pry it..."-- coprocephalous, Mar 17 2009 I thought this might be a "Car Wars" style device to blind over drivers.-- Aristotle, Mar 17 2009 Meh, adfogacy maybe.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Mar 17 2009 In all of the searches I did for R Buckminister Fuller's fog gun, it's described as a substitute for a shower -- a personal hygiene device only.
I'm suggesting (what I hope is) a new, novel use, for an old invention; a way to use Bucky's fog gun that no one has suggested before.
If I were going for a patent, and if, indeed, no one had ever suggested using a fog gun to clean cars, I'd probably succeed. (After all, someone managed to patent the use of a laser pointer as a cat excercise device).
If, on the other hand, someone were using fog guns as car cleaning devices, and I were saying, "more people should do this," then it would be advocacy.
Similarly, if I were to say, "more people should use the Fuller Fog Gun to clean themselves with," that would be advocacy.
But I'm not, so it isn't.
(As it happens, I *do* think it would be cool if Fuller Fog Guns, intended for people cleaning, were available in the "shower" section of the local home improvment store... but that's not what this idea is about)-- goldbb, Mar 18 2009 Please post an "laser cat exerciser" patent link. Well ... not necessary: somebody once patented the "footnote" for computers.* I'm pretty sure it's been rescinded.
* (or else we all owe a whole bunch of money...)-- Wily Peyote, Mar 18 2009 I can produce a cat that not only ignores a laser-dot but will eventually attack the person holding the laser.-- FlyingToaster, Mar 18 2009 I drove in back of a filthy car that had the windows marked with fingers writing: DO LIKE ME, SAVE WATER!
At the traffic light I asked them (a group of young men) if they know what's written on their car. They did not, and when I told them, they burst out in howling laughter.-- pashute, Mar 19 2009 Man, that Fuller guy... what was he fuller of: himself or bullshit? Ok maybe he was a genius too but what a fuckin prime-time prima donna airbag. Believe me I would know. I used to be totally enamoured of everything he wrote and said (or was said to have said) until realizing that most of it was internet-grade vaporware. That apocryphal pint-an-hour Fog Gun was nowhere to be found, so I even went so far as to build a version. The nozzle from a garden sprayer (the kind with a tank and a hand-powered air pump) welded up to 1/2" NPT coupling, in a regular old shower stall. It flowed a lot more than a pint an hour.. more like a pint a minute at 80 psi. Even at that rate, and the water on full hot, took a while to warm up under that thing. & it gave a bit of a stinging sensation like being poked with a thousand tiny needles. I kind of liked it but surely nobody else in the family did, & I heard about it. As wasteful as a regular showerhead is, carrying away dirt takes a certain amount of water, and there is a lower limit below which the fog and dirt just add up to mud.-- afinehowdoyoudo, Mar 19 2009 Wow, [iron_horse]; you may be able to deprogram an Scientologist. (So, Pillory me! But, to me, Scientology ISN'T a religion. Neither is Nation of Islam. Okay ... start throwing rocks...)
It's good to know that somebody else also "saw through" the cult-of-Fuller. It can take a while: the dude WAS a freaking genius. Yes, C-60 "Buckminsterfullerene" should have been named after him as a tribute: he did name and popularize the geodesic dome. He didn't invent it. Just ask an Inuit just how they build their houses of ice...
(Still laughing at "f*cking prima douche-bag donna"...)-- Wily Peyote, Mar 19 2009 Say, pashute, how do you *drive* in the *back* of a car?-- goldbb, Mar 19 2009 random, halfbakery