Saving 100 petajoules of energy and 14 million metric tons of CO2

If you haven’t heard, Alibre has identified a new CAD market, a market we're calling Personal CAD. I wrote about it last month in our newsletter and also blogged about it.

What defines Personal CAD?  Well, we define it as simply the ability for a person to break free of the restrictions imposed by the traditional CAD vendors and own their own CAD system, deciding for themselves how to use it. Personal CAD is accessible by anyone, without intervention; you don’t need an employer to buy it for you, or to teach you how to use it. It is my contention that broad access to professional CAD by anyone can and will have a dramatic impact on the world.

This isn’t just hyperbole, there are literally millions of people around the world with ideas, that if realized can change all of our lives for the better. Just as today’s advanced CAD tools help companies bring their ideas to market, professional CAD software can also help individuals bring their ideas to reality. And while there has been lots of debate about how saturated the market is for 3D CAD, all of this discussion has been in the context of commercial manufacturing companies. Until now, there has been little or no discussion about personal 3D CAD use, largely because it hasn’t been practical in the past, for all the reasons that I have raised in the post above, such as cost, complexity and so on. It is the untapped creative potential of the individual that I find so exciting, individual creativity unfettered by the day-to-day demands of a company that makes certain products for specific markets according to entrenched processes under the control of a particular management team.  What about just boiling it all down to what I believe to be a limitless supply of world-changing ideas that have yet to be discovered.

Maybe an example will help. John Nobel is a design engineer living in Malaysia. On hiatus from his job, he had been looking for ways to move his career in a direction that was more environmentally and socially focused.  The idea was right in front of him, or over him really, spinning right above his head. John noticed that he had nine ceiling fans in his house, and at virtually any time of the day or night several were running, often continuously. Literally the first thing he saw every morning when he awoke was a spinning ceiling fan and it peaked his interest. He discovered that the design of a common ceiling fan’s motor had changed little since their introduction over 100 years ago.

As you might guess, the 100-year old design isn’t very efficient. According to John, a typical ceiling fan is only 20% efficient, generating only 15W of mechanical power while consuming 75W, the remaining 60W being dissipated as heat. By redesigning the fan with modern components, such as an electronically commutated motor, he was able to increase the efficiency to about 60%, reducing the necessary power input to about 25W versus 75W. It’s estimated that in the United States alone, there are about 158 million ceiling fans installed, annually consuming approximately 150PJ – that's petajoules for those not familiar with the abbreviation. Fans designed with the high-efficiency motors chosen by John can reduce that by about 100PJ, eliminating 14 million metric tons of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere ever year.

Truly amazing.

While in the process of designing his dramatically more efficient fan, dubbed the “MyFan,” and searching for necessary components, John ran across a green design contest being run by Premier Farnell, a public company in the UK that distributes products ranging from electronic components to industrial products from over 3,500 suppliers. John submitted the design in the Live EDGE design contest -- along with 3,500 others from 102 countries – and won the $100,000 prize. There’s another contest starting up this year so check out the Live EDGE site at the link above for more detail.

I won’t dwell on the CAD product John used, but here’s what he said about it: “I’m an Electronics Engineer not Mechanical, so I hadn’t used 3D tools myself before. I didn’t have the budget for SolidWorks so I purchased [another product]. It’s interesting to see how 3D CAD has evolved. About eight years ago in New Zealand, a company I was working for bought SolidWorks for about $20K and the ex-auto industry engineering manager was marveling at how cheap that was compared to the $100K that 3D CAD cost just five years before that! Of course, [the CAD product I purchased] completely blows that out of the water."

So one individual came up with a better design for a product we all take for granted that will have a dramatic impact. That’s the Personal CAD market; you can learn more about it here and download our Personal CAD white paper.

Comments

[ohn bruns]

BTW, 150 petajoules, or penta-joules or 10E15 joules, is 41.7 MWhr, and the 14 M tons carbon dioxide is 27 % carbon by weight (and shows how capable carbon is at freeing energy) which then could be used to propel 1.53 million cars down the road for one hour, 60 miles or so. using grid power and 92% efficient motors.

[Dusty]

I am one of the people you are talking about. I am mentally disabled they say but I see things in things that to me makes them more efficient. Things and the mechanics of them fit in my head and make sense to me. I cannot draw because my hands shake alot but with a 3D CAD program I have been able to start shareing my idea of a car you can pedal. Please make CAD available to people who have little money.

[R.Paul Waddington]

Greg, releasing Alibre Express set the personal CAD 'scene' in motion for many as it has given the individual, hobbyist etc. access to an light industrial strength tool to work with and, at the same time strengthens the CAD market for all stake holders.
I don't use Alibre Express but have lost count of the students and 'part timing designers' I have suggested work with it; it is a worthwhile contribution to our industry that will go a long way to creating the Personal CAD space you talk about.
R.Paul Waddington

[Brad Holtz]

So, where can you buy a MyFan?

[Dan Conine]

Yet one more deceptive eco-inventor strikes.
Those 158 million ceiling fans are not on all the time. Most just hang there, collecting dust because nobody is in their house, and if they are, they are running the central HVAC instead. Nothing wrong with making them more efficient, but if they aren't used, it simply wastes resources to replace them. You only get ecocredits for the ones that people are actually going to use as ceiling fans, not the ones currently installed as decorations.