Dyson Hair Dryer Becomes Jet Engine

While Dyson makes some good products, they aren’t known for being economical. Case in point: [Integza] spent $500 on a hair dryer. While he does have a fine head of hair, we suspected he wasn’t after it for its intended purpose, and we were right. It turns out he wanted to make it into a jet engine! Why? Oh, come on. The fact that you read Hackaday means you don’t need that question answered. Watch the video below to see how it all turned out.

What got [Integza]’s attention was the power of the very small motor. So he immediately, of course, opened it up. The build quality is very impressive, although for $500, shouldn’t it be? While we are sure the Dyson dryer is more robust than our $9 Revlon special, it seems doubtful that it would handle the high temperatures of a jet exhaust. In fact, he’s had plastic meltdown while trying to build a jet before. So this time, he had a different plan.

That plan involved designing a replacement shell for the dryer and having it 3D printed in metal, which may have cost almost as much or more than the dryer. It came out great, though — and some fuel lines and a spark plug later, he was ready to fire it up.

Did it work? You bet. Test equipment was melted accidentally, and eventually, the engine looked like it flamed out. But it generated some very hot exhaust. We’d like to say that no tomatoes were harmed during the production of the video, but we can’t because of our well-developed sense of ethics. Poor tomatoes! We might have used a Mr. Bill doll, but that probably infringes on someone’s copyright.

If you don’t want so much melting, maybe try water cooling. If you could make this reliable, the modification to your car becomes obvious.

18 thoughts on “Dyson Hair Dryer Becomes Jet Engine

  1. Is this one of these crazy projects where wasting an incredible amount of money is part of the draw to watch the video? The horrid expression captured in the “sample” or whatever it is called just makes me eager to find the “next” button.

    If you want to impress me, Build a jet engine from a $9 hair dryer from a thrift store. Or better yet, parts from a dumpster or the landfill.

    1. He’s built plenty of other stuff out of plastic and garbage, so I suspect he’s using the dyson because it resembles a jet while not being intended as a jet. Also because he tried something similar before, and it is a good comparison. And because he intends to print something better out of metal, but this was a test run that let him just duplicate an existing product. Some people find it interesting to see what happens when you creatively misuse technology. “Hey look at my first trial run of a 3d printed jet” is less interesting than “Hey look at what a dyson could do if it had been made of metal with a combustion chamber and such”.

      1. Good comparison?
        This guys tests his contraption by putting his hand and tomatos in front them and going “crazy”, and not actually use them for anything worthwhile, like propelling anything or testing the thrust with a load cell.

        His videos seems interesting going in, but when i get to the end i invariably feel like i have wasted my time. And not the good kind of waste, like a nap, or a movie (even mediocre one).

        This might technically qualify as a hack, but I have learned nothing i can use from it.

        1. I mean, he goes by the seat of his pants and make various mistakes instead of measuring things properly, but the important part is usually pass/fail – does it run at all? Does it fail in a way that teaches something? Success! Because usually it’s about getting the chance to attempt and show off a neat concept in an approachable way.
          This one in particular… Eh I already knew a better way to do jet-like things with fans – Tech Ingredients had a few much more in-depth videos in which they made a jet with ducted fans meant for RC purposes. But a few minutes to see the inside of a dyson hairdryer and see something fun done with it is not that bad imo.

    2. You mean like the bullet proof suit featured earlier?

      This one does start with an overpriced hairdryer, which he states is overpriced, and the only reason he chose to buy it was because the motor in it is really compact and powerful. The only other thing he got which might be expensive is a metal 3D print, though, it looks like he got it as some sort of sponsorship deal.

      (He did melt a tripod, but, that looks like it was just not thinking things through)

    3. materialism and burning piles of cash, sometimes literally, is exactly how MrBeast made his fortune. The way YT works now is if you aren’t catching people with luxury and destruction you aren’t getting enough clicks to show up. If you want to see what YT looks like for 99% of children and young adults, log out of your account or use a private browsing tab.

        1. Pretty much. “Ow My Balls” starts to seem like high brow entertainment.

          Watching the Youtube shorts especially, the most common video is “I’ll give you 20 bucks if you can name three countries starting with A” – and most people don’t get it. It’s videos about people spending $1000 on pizza, breaking gigantic air balloons, or “You wouldn’t believe what this little girl said to the homeless guy”.

        2. Though there’s no such thing as private browsing on YT.

          I like to watch weird videos sometimes, like movie trailers in Hindi just to throw Google off track. Similar videos pop up on incognito mode, using a different browser, cookies cleared, consent requests fabricated etc. on all the computers I own.

  2. Dyson stuff is definitely expensive. I am not sure how good all of it is. I bought a vacuum cleaner because of a promotion (hefty rebate). I wish I had kept my money and my old vacuum. There is no “sanitary” ejection of dirt. The front is square, so it is constantly caught on walls & furniture. The motor unit may have lots of “suck”, but due to the way some of the elbows are made, much of the “suck” is lost in poor airflow design. The accessories are not well designed, again resulting in poor suction and difficult to use. My old vacuum would pick up plant droppings with no problem. To get the vacuum to pick up the droppings, the floor piece has to be removed, and then move the open tube close to each of the droppings. Stuff my old vacuum would suck into the bag gets stuck in the last elbow or the motor unit. I could easily vacuum door tops and tops of door frames, picture frames, etc., with my old one – the Dyson parts flop around so badly it is difficult to get them in place to do those areas. Neither of the floor pieces is suitable for vacuuming small floor mats – the brush trys to eat them, the other floor piece just flops over and won’t stay on the mat.
    Yes, I know, this is not a comment about the hairdryer to jet engine conversion. It is a comment on how some Dyson parts are over-engineered and some under engineered.

    1. Yeah, some of it like his is unusual enough to be interesting, other stuff less so.

      I was gifted one of dyson’s bladeless fans; it was loud for the airflow, pretty impossible to service or clean all the dust out of, and died after a few years. It also was not really possible to salvage much from it, although I do still have the air guide which might be useful at some point.

    2. My wife got the hair dryer after a hair professional recommended.

      I was impressed by the output when I used it as a heat gun. My harbor freight heat gun may get hotter but the air flow felt much less turbulent.

    3. I got some of those fans, or clones, on Alibaba. They are 300V DC (for 220V countries) and run so fast you can hardly hear them. The energy above audio range might be significant.

      They reminded of the DC motors on deep ocean ROVs. IIRC the one MBARI has based near Monterey (MOss Landing?) uses 4000V DC in order to get significant power and keep 5km of cables manageable.

  3. Not that I would recommend this but it seems like he needs some of the asbestos fabric I randomly found in a renovation project.

    Works amazing.

    Mesothelioma included.

    😅

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