Home Forums Bike Forum why no helmets with passive cooling?

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  • why no helmets with passive cooling?
  • oldnpastit
    Full Member

    Why does no one make a helmet with passive cooling?

    Nothing worse than a hot sweaty helmet.

    So, copper insert next to your head, connected via heat pipes to a big copoer fin or fins protruding from the helmet.

    Airflow would cool it all down a treat.

    oldnpastit
    Full Member

    Ideally have then adjustable. For long slow climbs up a hot mountain extend upwards for maximum air flow.

    When riding along the flat, they would angle back to reduce drag.

    Controlled wirelessly of course.

    goat
    Free Member

    Probably because a helmets primary purpose is to protect the ride in the event of an accident and inserting copper and metallic heat sinks in there is going to turn it into a weapon come a crash.

    Also, it’s pretty easily solved with vents anyway.

    wheeliedirty
    Free Member

    Big spiky tubes and fins next to your head in something designed to protect your head incase of a big impact?

    tall_martin
    Full Member

    That’s a great idea!

    How would you crash safely in it?

    Is there anything squashy that would so the same job as copper? Not sure I ride with a helmet that was full of potentially sharp stuff.

    oldnpastit
    Full Member

    In the event of a crash they would provide additional crumple energy absorption. So they would actually be safer.

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    Have you tried squashing copper pipe with your bonce ? When ever I’ve hit my head off pipework under the floor …..it hurts and the pipe doesn’t deform at all.

    oldnpastit
    Full Member

    Don’t be absurd. Water pipes are designed to withstand mains water pressure.

    tuboflard
    Full Member

    Early prototypes didn’t go down too well with the sponsored riders.

    oldnpastit
    Full Member

    You could also use one of those metallic foams but that would not look as awesome.

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    Don’t be absurd. Water pipes are designed to withstand mains water pressure.

    Ah so we are making pipes out of copper tinfoil now is that the plan ?

    Why not just use a heatsink in the form of a balloon of water ….. If you crash you have an extra layer of crash protection which bursts on too high an impact thus indicating that your helmet needs replaced.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    Just go fully active cooling. Solar fans ftw.

    oldnpastit
    Full Member

    For ebikers fully active is the way to go.

    A compressor hooked up to the battery and some piping is probably a couple of kilos in weight, so less than 1% of the overall system weight.

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    This gives almost as much funny as the guy changing his ebike with a wind turbine he proposes carrying to remote bivvy spots or the post about charging the e bike from some sort of turbo based charging system so he can pedal at night to charge his battery so he doesn’t have to pedal in the day.

    Mainly as …. Ebikers don’t sweat that’s what the motors for 😉

    thols2
    Full Member

    Also, it’s pretty easily solved with vents anyway.

    This.

    tuboflard
    Full Member

    For ebikers fully active is the way to go.

    A compressor hooked up to the battery and some piping is probably a couple of kilos in weight, so less than 1% of the overall system weight.

    You could also improve the ebike’s stability by putting four wheels on it and some kind of canopy to keep dry along with a more sophisticated air conditioning unit and……… oh hang on that’s a car.

    davros
    Full Member
    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    Surely the most efficient system would be some sort of evaporative cooling setup using airflow channelled through vents in the helmet to the head where they picked up moisture and cool the user?

    You could even have an absorbent fiber mat on the head to aid evaporation.

    Extra fluid could be kept in a small bottle on the frame.

    poah
    Free Member

    all helmets I know use passive cooling

    dyna-ti
    Full Member

    This gives almost as much funny as the guy changing his ebike with a wind turbine he proposes carrying to remote bivvy spots or the post about charging the e bike

    Now now, thats enough of that. You dont want me to hit the ‘report’ button now do you ?, especially with the mods all riled up 😉

    Besides, while the technical requirements arent there currently(pun), the concept is sound.

    Saccades
    Free Member

    The detritus thinking cap?

    Rip cuddy.

    DickBarton
    Full Member

    How heavy are ebikes if a coupe of kilos is less than 1% of the overall system weight?

    kenneththecurtain
    Free Member

    How heavy are ebikes if a coupe of kilos is less than 1% of the overall system weight?

    You forgot about the porker riding it 😉

    J-R
    Full Member

    Wear a wet light colour buff under your helmet – passive evaporative cooling.

    Keep it wet with sweat, more so when you get hotter.

    Sorted.

    Trimix
    Free Member

    You could just take the helmet off for the long, slow, hot climbs. You know, like sensible people would do when faced with a simple problem. Or just not wear one like the whole world prior to the very late 80’s.

    oldnpastit
    Full Member

    I tried removing my helmet for the climb up to Mt Umunum in California and got busted by a park ranger. They’re not optional in state parks.

    igm
    Full Member

    Early prototypes didn’t go down too well with the sponsored riders.

    Thats because he’s got it on sideways.

    Just go fully active cooling. Solar fans ftw.

    Banned, rightly for once, by the UCI because pros were pointing the fans backwards to both push themselves forwards and create turbulence trashing the aerodynamics for riders behind them.  If you looked carefully lead-out trains / domestiques on protection duty used to angle their fans outwards to create a bubble for the protected rider but create adverse airflow in the zones a competitor would enter when trying to attack them.

    thegeneralist
    Free Member

    So, copper insert next to your head, connected via heat pipes to a big copoer fin or fins protruding from the helmet.

    Big spiky tubes and fins next to your head in something designed to protect your head incase of a big impact?

    Is there anything squashy that would so the same job as copper?

    The solution is mercury. Obviously. It’s metallic and heavy so it’ll conduct heat away easily. Just bung a few pints of it into a used butty bag and pop it on your head. And as suggested by the water balloon chap it would also make a great shock absorber in case of a crash.

    zerocool
    Full Member

    What about designing it with a slot so you can insert an ice pack? Sure it would make it a bit heavier and probably not as safe.

    Or a little windmill on top that spins an internal fan?

    Jokes aside, in response to the OP, I have no idea if it would work and if it did would work better than decent vents and channels

    oldnpastit
    Full Member

    BinDun.

    1970, so expired:
    https://patents.google.com/patent/US3548415A/en

    2006, but apparently abandoned (can’t think why, looks like genius)
    https://patents.google.com/patent/US20080155991

    In a first preferred embodiment of the present invention, a helmet includes a shell and a cooling module attached to the shell. The cooling module includes at least a heat pipe, at least thermoelectric cooler, and a film type solar cell. The shell has an outer surface and an inner surface. The heat pipe is embedded in the shell and includes an evaporating section and a condensing section.

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    What about designing it with a slot so you can insert an ice pack?

    I’ve has an annoying undesirable characteristic of being pretty incompressible in its natural form.

    Not something I’d want between me and the ground as an interface barrier

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