MORE STUPIDITY

HARD TO BELIEVE BUT TRUE STUPIDITY

Ever hear of a company Hyperlight Mountain Gear? The company is located in Maine where it manufactures its products. They actually manufacture packs, tents and now clothing. The clothing caught my interest. Why (?) because they are making and I quote; “an unprecedentedly breathable, waterproof” garment.

They are using a fabric called Dyneema a composite fabric with eVent laminated to it. I am wondering where these people are living? In the world that I live in there is no such material made by man that has the two characteristics stated in the Hyperlight literature; a material that is “waterproof” as they claim and also “unprecedentedly breathable” also as they claim. The phase “vapor permeable” is not a part of their vocabulary since the fabric is not a living entity, so it cannot breathe can it?

This company is basically brain dead and does not accept that EVERY single material that is offered to outerwear manufacturers categorized as waterproof and breathable is not what is claimed; never has been and never will be. But they say their product only has a weight of 2 ounces and will fit a guy 6 foot 6 inches and weighing 400 pounds. Unprecedentedly light in weight! Imagine that!!!!

All I can say is there is no learning of materials and how they perform associated with the outdoor industry. Everything is based on the use of fictitious advertising. A perfect example of fictitious advertising is perpetrated by every company that either markets a material that states it is waterproof and breathable and every company that offers products that are stated as waterproof breathable. Hyperlight Mountain Gear has joined the crowd, unprecedentedly!!!!!

FOLLOW UP ON ELECTRICAL POWERED CLOTHING

The following e mail and article came to me from a friend who was a Lt. Colonel I met when he was the commandant of the paratrooper unit in Alaska. Here are his thoughts about battery powered winter clothing.

Jerry,

I saw this article and knew I had to get you to weigh in on this idea. For me, anytime I hear someone wanting to put another battery powered item on a Soldier or Marine I think about the additional weight, additional cost, and the additional resupply needed. This concept will be way out in the future because battery technology is just not there. Having almost been killed during a parachute jump because my rucksack was overloaded mainly with batteries, I have a certain reluctance to carry more batteries!!

A new high-tech fabric could mean the end of bulky layers in the winter

Imagine its freezing cold outside. Now imagine that instead of bundling up in a coat, all you need to do to feel comfortable is dial up the temperature of the base layer you’re wearing, like a heated seat in a car. Researchers from the US Army Natick Soldier Research, Development & Engineering Center are trying to make that scenario a reality.

At a conference of the American Chemical Society, Army researchers explained how they’re using a coating of fine silver nanowires on ordinary fabrics, such as cotton or polyester, as a way to potentially keep soldiers warm in extreme cold. The coating makes the fabric conductive, and with just a few volts of electricity, it can generate a substantial amount of heat. The researchers are working to develop a system that would allow soldiers to dial the heat up or down as needed, and Paola D’Angelo, one of the Natick researchers on the project, says the technology could ultimately make its way into consumer products too.

If it does make it to the consumer big deal. When it stops working the civilian goes inside, but where does the soldier go?

The Army started working on the coating to solve a very basic problem. The uniform soldiers wear in extreme cold can include up to seven layers, which makes it heavy and bulky. Inspired by the work of Stanford University researcher Yi Cui, whose team realized that silver nanowires could be used this way, the Army started working to optimize the coating.

I wonder if Yi Cui has ever made or had made a garment he could use when it is 20 below zero?

“We have found out that if we hook up a battery or a power source to this coated fabric, we can increase the temperature of the textile by up to 110 degrees Celsius, which is an enormous change,” D’Angelo explained in a press conference Aug. 22. “Obviously the soldiers wouldn’t need that kind of heat. But it’s just to show you the potential of how much we can heat up the fabric with just three volts, which is basically a watch battery.”

Imagine that, a watch battery powerful enough to bring the temperature up to 230 degrees F which is what 110 degrees C converts too. All from a watch battery, I say they who believe this are insane.

That voltage was the amount needed to heat a 1-inch by 1-inch fabric swatch. A full base layer would require more. But batteries are heavy, so the team is trying to collaborate with a professor at University of California-San Diego who has devised “a flexible, stretchable battery that can be incorporated within the textile,” D’Angelo said. “It’s basically weightless.” They’re also experimenting with a sweat-absorbing hydrogel that would keep soldiers dry.

Even to heat a 1 inch square of fabric is in my opinion lunacy. Weightless stretchable batteries? How can they be weightless? More lunacy in my opinion.

The nanowire-coating is so fine that it doesn’t alter the flexibility of the fabric. It’s also robust. “We have done a few laundering tests with detergent and everything,” D’Angelo said.

D’Angelo and her team have so far optimized their coated fabric for gloves, but they may soon add clothing base layers. Ultimately, it could make its way into consumer products.

Some brands are already experimenting with heat-generating clothes, including at least one high-fashion label. At Paris Fashion Week last year, French label Courrèges showed a trio of beautiful coats fitted with an interior heating system. Control buttons on the left bicep could make the back, shoulders, and even pockets heat up.

It’s like wearing a heated car seat.

So the beautiful people will buy one of these nonsense coats.

This testing will accomplish nothing, because nothing works as well as trapped air in lofty insulation where the air becomes stuck in a dead air space so it does not allow the heat generated by the person wearing the garment not to escape. In the 53 years I have been in the insulation business I have seen every product to come along and at this moment in time there is nothing that is even close to the continuous filament fiber, Climashield which is used to make Lamilite. And I firmly believe that nothing will come along for a very long time if ever to replace it.