I hope my new minimalist shoes (see previous post) will reduce the need for this thing, but I made it it today and wanted to show it off somewhere.
The short version: it’s a shoe dryer! The two fans fit perfectly into the right side of the … cardboard duct contraption. The two tubes on the left go into shoes. Air blasts through the ducts and dries the shoes.
MOAR DETAILS!
THE FANS
The fan assembly isn’t new. I made it because temperature regulation in my office is a fiasco. In the winter my space gets really warm — 28 °C occurs several times a week — while the rest of the space varies wildly.
(on some days the number of people walking by to adjust the thermostat at different times is practically a parade)
I built the fan to fight those heat spikes. I also do exercises in the morning and it’s nice to cool off quickly after.
It was just the bottom fan for the first version but that was just barely adequate and I wanted more so I lashed a second one on there to make the beast you see.
Here’s a picture from a desperate day in late November when I put a cup full of ice-water behind it.
Since I spend much of my day delivering presentations by phone it’s important that my desk fan run quietly. I power these 12V fans from a 9V power supply which balances plenty of airflow with very low noise.
THE DUCT
When it comes to shoe drying, however, more airflow is better and never mind the noise, so I use a 12V power supply. The cardboard duct contraption adds to the noise so it basically sounds like a small vacuum when it’s running.
ECO-FRIENDLY
All of this stuff is re-used. The fans come from old computers, as do the brackets supporting the fans at the perfect angle — they’re slot covers. The top fan is lashed to the bottom using old wire. The screws holding the wire and the brackets are the ones that originally held the fans. Even the wiring and plugs are re-used.
Both the quiet 9V desk- and screaming 12V shoe- power supplies are re-used wall warts who lost their original poweree in the war on dead office equipment.
The cardboard shoe-dryer duct is from an old box; the tubes are from a paper towel roll hewn in two. Not a flimsy one like you get at home — our office bathrooms have thick, industrial strength paper towel rolls.
FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS
The 12V power supply I use is rated for 2A. The two fans use about 0.5A together. I’d like to make a heating element to go inside the duct. (what fire hazard? no see fire hazard!) A couple of big power resistors, maybe? I have a USB coffee cup warmer (which almost completely fails to warm coffee) and when I took it apart, that was all that’s inside — a big power resistor stuck with thermal paste to the warming plate.