![big pipe timeslice big pipe timeslice](https://mohanma.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/pt.jpg)
A year ago, ARM launched the Cortex-A15 MPCore processor. It turns out that using right-sized equipment is important for SoC design as well. Condensation on the ceiling panels equals indoor rain! When I explained the proposed system to the A/C expert at the Austin Green Energy Program (what he doesn't know about A/C isn't worth knowing) he said "Your house is going to be a fantastic science experiment! But if the experiment fails you'll have spent a lot of money on a house you can't live in". But the biggest problem of all was controlling the system accurately enough to keep the hydronic system above the dew point otherwise you could get condensation.
Big pipe timeslice portable#
I even looked at aquarium chillers (who knew there was such a thing?), portable A/C units (turns out they're actually not that efficient) and taking beer fridges apart (sacrilege, we Brits don't really drink warm beer) trying to find the right-sized chiller for the little system. Incidentally, I searched high and low for suitable A/C technology. If those two things change, and I'm willing to bet that at least one will (guess which?) then who knows, maybe it'll become common? OK, it's actually not that cool a name really but I'm not trendy and I haven't got square glasses so what did you expect me to know about cool? Actually, its lack of popularity is probably more related to the additional up-front costs of two complete systems and the relatively low energy costs we've all become accustomed to. I wonder why this type of A/C system hasn't caught on? Maybe it just needs a cool marketing name? 'Heterogeneous Big/Little Air Conditioning' is the best one I've thought of so far. But no one has yet built a residential system (except in arid climates like Arizona where dehumidification isn't an issue) and there doesn't appear to be readily available units sized suitably for moderate-sized residences. In these systems the Dedicated Outdoor Air System (DOAS) which brings in ventilation air from outside, dehumidifies it and exchanges it with stale inside air could be larger than the A/C system in most houses. These types of systems do actually exist for very large commercial projects (where energy costs add up to big numbers). Large cooling load powers would require the big hydronic system to kick in though. The small system takes some of the strain off the big system too, as it does provide a very limited amount of heating and cooling, which can cope with moderate loads. Effectively what you'd have is a very small A/C system for dehumidification and ventilation and a hydronic system for the large heating and cooling loads. Duct size and pumping losses would be much lower than a pure ducted central air system though, as the volume of air needed for dehumidification and ventilation is far lower than that for cooling. But this wouldn't dehumidify or ventilate, so you'd still need a very small A/C system with air ducts to provide these functions. Even though the water pipe is physically smaller than an air duct, in terms of thermal energy transfer capacity it's a fatter pipe.
![big pipe timeslice big pipe timeslice](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Dwex9AQ8IuA/SpRPK1k3wqI/AAAAAAAAMc0/4px0tSxgl9M/s280/rainbow-wraps-fruit-14.jpg)
Pumping water is a more efficient way to move energy than air. You could use a hydronic system like a traditional underfloor heating system as is common in northern Europe, but with cooling in the ceiling as well as heating in the floor. As we saw last time, pumping air through ducts is inefficient due to the wasted pumping energy. Increases in efficiency could be obtained by separating out these three functions and optimizing them independently. In Part 1 of this blog we saw how right-sizing of air conditioning is vitally important because it performs three different functions simultaneously: Cooling, dehumidification and ventilation. ARM Cortex-A7 processor.It's all about right-sized equipment.