Thinking about things in a wavelength that isn’t visual has kind of messed with me the last few days. I took a few photos around DMS with a FLIR E8 camera to see what was going on. I found some interesting stuff and figured I’d share it for those who are curious.
One of the 3D printers in action. Looks like a bit over 100F is good for enclosure temperature for ABS printing.
The copier generates more heat than I would’ve thought but nothing crazy.
The air compressor was hot as fuck. Every surface in the room was over 100F and the air in the room was probably 120F or higher based on how it felt. The compressor itself was 250F. It might be worth checking to see if this is within specifications.
The room the compressor is in can be seen behind the fired arts area.
The dust collector creates quite a lot of heat. I was hoping to catch the CNC router in action but it was idle at the time.
The insulated door seems to be working. This is the inside view.
And the outside view. Note the difference between the insulated door and the non-insulated door to the left. Unfortunately the building itself doesn’t seem to have much insulation.
The lights generate a surprising amount of heat.
These are the transformers in the parking lot.
The electrical car charging cable is significantly hotter than the surroundings. Nothing dangerous but I wasn’t expecting that. It looks like the battery is generating a fair amount of heat while charging.
The jump server.
One of the security camera servers.
Last but not least here’s @engpin with a stern look of disapproval. Tilted head and all.
The building is showing hotter due to the thermal mass from the heat picked up during the day. We use that in some of our comfort under floor systems. If the concrete gets hot it takes forever to cool back down. So if the building was having issues with their chillers it could take several days to cool the concrete back down to temp. 63 is about the normal for comfort cooling underfloor.
Note that heat is not necessarily heat transfer (aka power). More insulative materials like plastic light diffusers and concrete may be warm, but unlike the insulated door with a highly conductive metal exterior, they will show hot since they do not transfer their heat to the air as quickly.
Very cool Luke. When I was leaving Taiwan once (mid SARS scare) you had to pass by a similar camera before being allowed to enter the airplane. Simple and effective.
I’m not sure you’re understanding me, exactly. I’m saying that just because something is warm/hot does not mean it’s using a lot of power.
Temperature is also strongly related to how easily the heat can escape.
On the other hand, something that is thermally conductive AND hot like the air compressor or dust collector probably is using a lot of energy. The LED lights, though, probably not so much.
LED tubes are something like 18W per. Contrast with T12s at 40W per, T8s at 32W per, and who knows how much waste heat in the ballasts at a pair per T12 fixture or a single per T8 fixture.
A more useful comparison would be comparing a non-diffused fixture vs a diffused one (I recall a fixture over laser that was lacking a diffuser at one point) - that would help illustrate how much heat that the diffusers trap. I recall the non-diffused fixture over laser seeming brighter than the diffused fixtures - perhaps we should do away with the diffusers to realize more light yield and longer operational lifespans.
The tubes themselves have diffused lenses. Not sure if the effective surface intensity is much different from florescent tubes - they’re certainly easier on the eyes than similar models with transparent lenses and arrays of intense point-source LEDs.
