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It seems like we should be able to devise some way of capturing the fluid that's sprayed on the windshield so it can be reused instead of just letting drip to the ground. I'm thinking of a collection channel running along the bottom of the windshield that would funnel the water into a cylinder. The
cylinder would spin while the wipers were on, forcing the water through filters to get all of the gunk out and then feeding it back into the reservoir. Whenever it was raining and the system determined you weren't using the cleaning fluid it would spin the collected rainwater back and forth to clean the filters and then open a hatch so it could just fall to the ground beneath the car. This would give us a self-cleaning system that rarely had to be refilled (a plus on the ecological side).
Hazel's take on the subject.
Auto_20Fill_20Windscreen_20Wash
[po, May 03 2005]
[link]
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// A plus on the ecological// ...aside from the vast resources needed to implement it in the first place. All in all, a vastly complex solution to a basically miniscule problem. Perfect. [+] |
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I like it! If you were to ignore the aerodynamic conciderations (and whistling noise) gutters could be installed all the way around the windshield, alowing this system to work even at speed, and to collect and use rain water. Perhaps a small tank of washer fluid concetrate could add soap/anti-freezee to the collected water for full effectiveness. I imagine a conductance monitoring device could reasonably determine when the water was too dilute and add more concentrate automatically. Sure it's complex, but I hate filling the resivior as much or more than the next guy! |
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I'm with Moomin on this, partly. How
many litres of screenwash could you
make for the energy and resources
expended to make the gadget?
Aside from that, I suspect
that you'd very soon be washing your
windows with a solution of insect
innards which, filtered or not, would dry
pretty nastily. |
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// solution of insect innards which, filtered or not, would dry pretty nastily// |
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You don't know the half of it. In northern Australia there are a lot of termites. When it rains the woulb-be queens and drones begin their mating flights. Driving through clouds of them results in a thick, opaque layer of termite on your windscreen. |
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It can be removed witha lot of scrubbing and petrol (gasoline). I swear it could have military applications. |
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In this case, the queen's bathwater may make good petrol better. |
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I like a good useless invention as much as the next girl but this one is a bit frivolous. The amount of liquid recovered over a year would amount to less than 2 litres in my case and, even on the planet of Dune, not worth the engineering effort. |
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Perhaps it would be a better idea to design a small toilet into the car, allowing the driver to replenish the reservoir with urine? |
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Piss can't be much less disgusting than bug guts, road grime and soapy water? |
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How about replaceable sponge strips that would retract to squeeze out water but hold the bug guts and mud like a Bee mop.
The wrung out water could be re-collected and drip filtered back into the reservoir. |
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Presumably the fluid used is aqueous. I'm aware that there are parts of the world where it doesn't rain as much as it does here, but as far as the British Isles are concerned, there's constantly loads of water falling from the sky, so could this not be collected and used somehow? |
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//Piss can't be much less disgusting than bug guts, road grime and soapy water// I don't want to drive a convertible anywhere near [UB] when he's cleaning his windscreen. |
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AWOL - thanks. You just made me spray coffee all over my keyboard |
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Did it get any of the bug-splat off? <goes off to work on new idea for Keyboard Guttering ™ > |
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In the UK, definitely collect rainwater and use it for screenwash. Reusing the old stuff doesn't seem a good idea to me - you'd have diluted bird poo being sprayed all over the screen. |
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//there's constantly loads of water falling from the sky, so could this not be collected and used somehow?//
I think you'll find that this actually happens. I recently re-filled my washer tank from the kitchen tap. The water had fallen from the sky, been collected in Kielder Reservoir (the largest man-made lake in Europe) and delivered to my house by the nice people at Northumbrian Water. |
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