EEbeat

Promising up to a 66% reduction in fan input power over currently available products, a ceiling-fan design dubbed MyFan by electronic designer John Noble was today announced as the winner of Premier Farnell’s 2007 Live EDGE Electronic Design for the Global Environment challenge Malaysia. The ceiling fan combines an electronically commutated motor and controller, an aerodynamically efficient blade design, and auxiliary output channels that drive up to 20 W of integrated LED lighting with up/down lighting modules.
Judges noted that Noble’s design demonstrated the best originality and innovation of the entered designs, the highest technical merit, a reduced effect on the global environment, provided the best feasibility of design, clearly showed efficient use of energy, provided innovative use of components, good cost optimisation, completeness of design dossier and excellent supporting documentation.
“It is a great honour to have my design recognised by such an esteemed panel of judges”, Noble said. “Live EDGE has provided design engineers a forum to focus more on the issue of sustainability and not just growth.”
Five runner ups were also recognized. Thomas Reiter a student from Austria designing a unique miniature battery saving switch-mode power supply, Minesh Bhakta from the U.K. designing an energy gauge that helps manage the use of electrical sockets, Carlos Marques from Portugal on behalf of his company ID-Mind, who’s design is for a 3D SunTracker optimising the effectiveness of solar panels, Dale Stepps from Florida in the U.S. on behalf of his company Inteltech Corporation for a solid state luminare and Alaistair Macfarlane from Scotland designing a LED intelligent light, all receiving $5,000 USD.
“Our congratulations go out to John, we look forward to working with him to register his design and support him through production into the market, said Harriet Green, CEO of Premier Farnell.  “With over 3,500 engineers from over 102 countries involved in this year’s Live EDGE challenge, we feel we have really provided an opportunity for environmentally friendly design and look forward to continuing this challenge in the future.”
More information about the Live EDGE Challenge is available at http://www.live-edge.com.