THe Sandia Cooler - Breakthrough in Air Cooling design

[aigomorla]

So, there are two main aspects of the Sandia cooler to consider: the air gap, and the significance of rotating fins.

1) The smooth, stationary surface of the bottom plate, and the smooth, rotating base of the spinning part. I think you're not convinced that the heat transfer between them can be good? In that case, consider standing between two trains moving in opposite direction - even though trains are relatively smooth (long car, brief gap, long car, brief gap), it's going to be pretty unpleasant. Now scale the distance down to 10 microns, and even with smooth surfaces I think intuitively it makes sense that the air is going to be moving a very violently. At one spot it wants to move 0mph, and a few microns away it wants to move ~15mph (for perspective there's a speed difference of ~6 million microns per second across a distance of 10 microns; the same ratio for a 1 foot gap gives a speed difference of ~400,000mph). The air only has to travel very short distance between the two parts, and each molecule will be bouncing across that distance incredibly fast, which means it will carry heat very effectively. Sound good?

2) The rotating "fan". In an ordinary heatsink with an ideal air source blowing from one side, you'll see something like this (this is a top view of a single fin; the fin is the thick black line at the bottom):

Before the air hits the fins, it's moving at the same speed everywhere. However, as it flows past the fin, the air very close to the fin gets slowed down significantly (the gray area), and the molecules that touch the fin really want to stop completely. This is true even for a very smooth surface - there is always friction between the air and the fin (this same friction caused the violent air movement in part 1 of the argument). In the Sandia cooler, the fin spins so that centrifugal force helps push those slowed-down molecules away. They aren't eliminated - there is still a boundary layer that sticks to the fins, but it's thinner, and doesn't block heat transfer as much. As an analogy, consider somebody hanging on to a car... some percent of people can hang on in a 55mph wind blast, but fewer can hang on when the driver is also swerving. Or maybe a better example would be weather reporters clinging to a merry-go-round in a hurricane .

Hopefully both parts were independently satisfying, and the whole story makes sense...but if not I'd, be interested in understanding what exactly still bugs you about it.

no because the density and the weight of air is very subjective dependent on the temperature the test is carried out on.
The Density and temperature of the air will also determine what the holding capacity is.
Ctho this is why we always include (T) temperature in anything we do themo because that T value can float many many places.
The T of the air will also determine the speed in which the molecules are traveling.

If the airpocket is less then 1BAR the thermo results change due to the lack of air and vacuum.
If the airpocket is more then 1BAR the results will change due to compression of air and pressure.
If the airpocket is hotter then 25 degree's C that will change STD conditions.
How can one ignore hydrodynmaics of AIR?

PV=nRT <--- uh huh.. there u got it.. i just pulled the infamous chem eq on you ctho!!! fear me!!
Help~ im confused even more now..

Hotter air rises... there is no static friction in relationship to hot air as it rises because its more diffusion then static friction.
Hot air will mix with cold air in diffusion... Static friction is ignored canceled, and diffusion is played out if u have a (F) force of fan blowing over the sink.
When one talks of air, one can't ignore GASES... as air is a GAS, and those obey the laws of thermodynamics and chemistry down to the letter.

You cant trap air in a pocket like that either due to the movement of air (F) and diffusion outside a unsealed system.
Also the specific heat of copper isnt as great as one thinks to keep a low delta.
You'd run into brick walls at the medium end... which is why i said u needed a unidirectionaly carbon nano tube.

Theres so many things the thermo inside me is screaming doesnt make sense.
Its breaking the second law of thermodynamics..

"The second law is an observation of the fact that over time, differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential tend to even out in a physical system that is isolated from the outside world. Entropy is a measure of how much this process has progressed. The entropy of an isolated system that is not in equilibrium tends to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium."

Its like your saying lets ignore the cosmos when studying stellar formation.
This is why im so lost...

lol... normally its not a cooling thread im lost in but a highly technical... but man... the more i try to read this article.. its appears to me that they are trying to milk more then what its actually accomplishing.

 

[Ajay]

The thread that would never die?

 

[CTho9305]

no because the density and the weight of air is very subjective dependent on the temperature the test is carried out on.
The Density and temperature of the air will also determine what the holding capacity is.
Ctho this is why we always include (T) temperature in anything we do themo because that T value can float many many places.
The T of the air will also determine the speed in which the molecules are traveling.

If the airpocket is less then 1BAR the thermo results change due to the lack of air and vacuum.
If the airpocket is more then 1BAR the results will change due to compression of air and pressure.
If the airpocket is hotter then 25 degree's C that will change STD conditions.

PV=nRT <--- uh huh.. there u got it.. i just pulled the infamous chem eq on you ctho!!! fear me!!
Help~ im confused even more now..

Hotter air rises... there is no static friction in relationship to hot air as it rises because its more diffusion then static friction.
Hot air will mix with cold air in diffusion... Static friction is ignored, and diffusion is played out if u have a (F) force of fan blowing over the sink.
When one talks of air, one can't ignore GASES... as air is a GAS, and those obey the laws of thermodynamics and chemistry down to the letter.

You cant trap air in a pocket like that either due to the movement of air.
Also the specific heat of copper isnt as great as one thinks to keep a low delta.
You'd run into brick walls at the medium end... which is why i said u needed a carbon nano tube.

Theres so many things the thermo inside me is screaming doesnt make sense.
Its breaking the second law of thermodynamics..

"The second law is an observation of the fact that over time, differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential tend to even out in a physical system that is isolated from the outside world. Entropy is a measure of how much this process has progressed. The entropy of an isolated system that is not in equilibrium tends to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium."

Its like your saying lets ignore the cosmos when studying stellar formation.

I'm having trouble following what you're saying. I'm not trying to ignore any physics, and if I have ignored some, I would like to understand specifically what I've got wrong. Just saying "thermodynamics" and quoting pvnrt doesn't help me... I've been through physic class and have been exposed to the fundamentals. It sort of sounds like your objection is a "gut feeling" rather than a complete physics argument you can lay out in any detail... if you do have a solid argument, I'm not understanding it.

 

[aigomorla]

I'm having trouble following what you're saying. I'm not trying to ignore any physics, and if I have ignored some, I would like to understand specifically what I've got wrong. Just saying "thermodynamics" and quoting pvnrt doesn't help me... I've been through physic class and have been exposed to the fundamentals. It sort of sounds like your objection is a "gut feeling" rather than a complete physics argument you can lay out in any detail... if you do have a solid argument, I'm not understanding it.

what there basically saying is the centrifical motion of the sink in combination to the thin base and trapped air creates a (F) which shoots heat off sideways.

Yes?

What im trying to say is basically no... causing (F) to to cover more surface area overall compared to a standard fan, where ur eatting up the dead zone a normal fan causes, hence not accomplishing anything significant.
(see my fan chart on other page)

They are saying i can ignore the value of Air that is trapped between the sink and the heat plate.

I am saying you cant ignore the value of Air because Air is a GAS and it follows GAS compression rules especially in a system which involves heat.


You said the author is stating static friction is holding the air in place...
I am saying the author cant be correct, cuz in a entroy system, the hot air will diffuse outside to equalibirum or find equalibirum in the sealed system its docked.

 

[sefsefsefsef]

[deleted] Sorry I guess I didn't read aigomorla's posts carefully enough.

 

[aigomorla]

[deleted] Sorry I guess I didn't read aigomorla's posts carefully enough.

if you see something wrong with my thermo please fix it.

I love topics on thermo.
I am also human and can be flawed.
Thats the reason i became a cooling mod more so then a cpu mod because of my passion in thermo.

 

[Idontcare]

You said the author is stating static friction is holding the air in place...
I am saying the author cant be correct, cuz in a entroy system, the hot air will diffuse outside to equalibirum or find equalibirum in the sealed system its docked.

Aigo you are making a very classic mistake here. I see this all the time. People get educated on thermo in an academic environment, taught the rules and the rigorously correct equations...and that is all well and good...but then they are given zero insight or appreciation for the fact that everything they were taught in the classroom doesn't apply to reality once they are in the field because thermo itself requires the system to be in a state of equilibrium.

And steady-state is not equilibrium, you cannot conflate the two.

If it were up to classroom thermo there would be no such thing as diamond wedding bands because diamonds, irony of ironies, are not forever. They are metastable creations living in a non-equilibrium bubble. They are kinetically stable, not thermodynamically stable.

And yet diamonds do exist.

Thermo tells you everything you need to know, provided you live in a world where everything is in thermodynamic equilibrium. A world where kinetics, steady-state, and non-equilibrium do not exist.

Unfortunately the real world is the exact opposite. Very little of what an engineer does in terms of engineering will involve dealing with equilibrated systems, and they are completely ill-prepared to deal with the reality of kinetics, heat-transfer, and energy manifolds in the non-ideality of the real world.

I've come to be of the opinion that college thermo actually does engineers and chemists a disservice because it gives inexperienced people a false sense of confidence based on the premise that they know thermo and therefore they know something once they enter the workforce.

And the work place spends the next 10yrs de-educating that person and attempting to re-educate them in terms of what actually matters, how non-equilibrium systems actually behave.

Personally I'm glad I learned thermo, it bounds the possibilities of outcomes for a given system. But I've seen so many of my coworkers struggle and never get their jobs done because they can't get themselves to see past the book knowledge given to them in school.

 

[aigomorla]

lolol..

but but.. if we ignore the rules of thermo...
then things like magic sailor outfit girls are within the relm of possibility...
and i find that more terrifying.. lol...

and IDC... isnt the creation of artificial diamonds a by product of chemistry and thermo?

:O

 

[Idontcare]

and IDC... isnt the creation of artificial diamonds a by product of chemistry and thermo?

Thermo is nature's backup plan, an uninspiring bare minimum, as well as its ultimate end-game.

But the beautiful things that happen in the meantime are barely indistinguishable from that of magic. And who doesn't love magic?

I'll take a sloppy non-equilibrium system any day of the week over that of a staid and stale system at equilibrium. And you do too, even if you don't recognize it.

Your CPU is the product of a series of processes that can only accomplish what they achieve because they intentionally operate in the realm of non-equilibrium.

Life itself is a non-equilibrium situation, and thank <insert preferred deity here> for that!

 

[KingFatty]

what there basically saying is the centrifical motion of the sink in combination to the thin base and trapped air creates a (F) which shoots heat off sideways.

Yes?

It's hard to tell if you understand what is going on. But can you appreciate that when moving air approaches a surface, the air that is very near the surface slows down? Let's call that point #1. Look at the drawing that was posted earlier, you'll see that gray part, where the moving air is slowed by proximity to the surface.

What im trying to say is basically no... causing (F) to to cover more surface area overall compared to a standard fan, where ur eatting up the dead zone a normal fan causes, hence not accomplishing anything significant.
(see my fan chart on other page)

So that's a separate issue, the dead zone of a fan. Don't let that distract you from point #1 above. A dead zone is just poor air circulation, and is a bit of a sideshow distraction. Of course it has an effect, but think about point #1 and how a fluid (air) behaves when it is in motion and flows past a surface. Have you heard of laminar flow?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laminar_flow

They are saying i can ignore the value of Air that is trapped between the sink and the heat plate.

So you are using the phrase "value of Air," but that sounds like a made-up phrase? What do you mean?

Also, you are using the term "trapped," but what do you mean? I think you are inventing problems that don't exist?

It also might help if you review fluid bearings, to see how they work and how this project works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_bearing

I am saying you cant ignore the value of Air because Air is a GAS and it follows GAS compression rules especially in a system which involves heat.

There's that phrase again "value of Air" that I think you are making up? We all understand that air is a gas, and it's compressible, but why do you think that's important here? That's another distraction that won't help you understand how this works.

You said the author is stating static friction is holding the air in place...
I am saying the author cant be correct, cuz in a entroy system, the hot air will diffuse outside to equalibirum or find equalibirum in the sealed system its docked.

Now you are bringing up diffusion and sealed systems, and again those are distractions. You seem to bring up scientific terms and throw them around as if that will help understanding. But I think it's showing that you are missing point #1 above.

So, if you could nail down your understanding of point #1, you can then begin to try to understand point #2: the centripetal forces here will alter the way point #1 works. By 'flinging off" air molecules, the 'layers' of flow will flatten and make heat transfer more efficient.

So maybe now can you identify if you disagree with point #1 or point #2? I like that you are bringing up additional concepts and getting discussion going, but if you fail to even comprehend point #1 or point #2, then any amount of additional scientific principles won't help.

 

[24HZ]

If the design is so good, why isn't it on the market yet? You can talk about the physics forever but a good old real world controlled test should settle things pretty well against the best of the current crop of heatpipe coolers.

 

[Gideon]

If the design is so good, why isn't it on the market yet? You can talk about the physics forever but a good old real world controlled test should settle things pretty well against the best of the current crop of heatpipe coolers.

There could also be other factors, like the super-low tolerances required to build it, making it too expensive to mass-produce for the small improvement it gives.

 

[KingFatty]

If the design is so good, why isn't it on the market yet? You can talk about the physics forever but a good old real world controlled test should settle things pretty well against the best of the current crop of heatpipe coolers.

I think one big factor against this product going viral with PC enthusiasts is currently the PC cases have plenty of room. Also there is a "modding" wow factor to a big impressive CPU fan and separate big heatsink. Is it so important to shrink the size of the heatsink in your PC (e.g., combine the fan and heatsink into one smaller unit)? When you open the hood of a car are you impressed by how small the engine is?

In small form factors like laptops, I wonder if this invention could be made to be worthwhile, seeing how the separate fan/heatsink combos are sufficient and the drawback it would solve would just be cooling with less noise - do people want to pay a premium for a quieter laptop?

 

[Idontcare]

There could also be other factors, like the super-low tolerances required to build it, making it too expensive to mass-produce for the small improvement it gives.

There are the technical challenges, clearances and material lifetimes, to be mastered by engineering, but there are also liability challenges that must be comprehended and factored into the product as well.

Nobody will insure a company whose premiere product looks like it will turn the customers fingers into hamburger.

I also think people vastly underestimate the development costs for a boutique product like this. It doesn't take too many engineers, a dozen or so, before your product ends up requiring an ASP in the hundreds per part just to recover the development costs.

If you are trying to develop a boutique product without making it cost a small fortune then you have got keep the design team tiny, just a few engineers, and give them a few years to get it done.

Look how expensive water kits are, and that basically repurposed hardware from fishtanks and refrigerators.

Anyone can say something ought to be simple, that it ought to be done in 6 months with no more than 2 or 3 engineers on the project...but anyone who says or thinks that is living in a fantasy world that is not grounded in reality from my experience.

It would be cool though if this became a kickstarter project just so there was more visibility and transparency given to the development timeline. As it stands now it is a blackbox and that lends itself to the quick interpretation that nothing is happening (which might be true too!).

 

[gorobei]

everyone seems to forget what the original target application for this coolers was: low profile, low weight, non clogging cooler for military electronics in adverse environment.

military vehicles with advanced electronics(jets/helo/afv) need to be able to survive massive inertial moments(high g-force, high frequency bouncing) and a 16cm tall tower HS jutting off any bracket would rip the pcb apart in short order.

the sandia cooler is low profile and sits close to the pcb, so no leverage. the razorblade-esque impeller array is high rpm to throw off dust, and more than likely loud as a blender(no one other than submariners care about noise.) the main thing is that the cooling performance is on par or slightly better than a larger tower hs which cant be used in the military environment.

in other words: THIS ISNT MEANT FOR YOU(consumer hobbyist system builders).

[also in the original videos, the developer states that the open top fin array(sharp bits) can be covered, so it wouldnt expose the edges.]

 

[24HZ]

a 16cm tall tower HS jutting off any bracket would rip the pcb apart in short order.

You're taking a consumer targeted tower and retention design and calling it flawed for a totally different usage scenario. Are you saying a heatpipe cooler could not easily be designed to last in the harsh scenarios that you're describing?

 

[gorobei]

You're taking a consumer targeted tower and retention design and calling it flawed for a totally different usage scenario. Are you saying a heatpipe cooler could not easily be designed to last in the harsh scenarios that you're describing?

any heatpipe solution in the same size constraints as the sandia would have multiple pipes clustered together with fairly high number of fins for surface area in a C-loop or use the larger box/chamber type heatpipe. either one would still have to have a 80 or 90mm fan mounted on top of it pointing the airflow down or up perpendicular to the pcb. they already use this design in some of the military applications and the c-loop fin array with fan ends up clogging with dust and dirt. most of the the commercial low profile c-loop types are on the really poor end of cooling performance.
the sandia cooler is an 'outside the box' attempt to solve the design limitations of stacked planar fins+fan that is failing in current military applications.

 

[bradly1101]

If it ends up working in the military, I hope there eventually will be a consumer version.

The only way around clogging now is to use filters or vacuum the system out (a lot if you're in the middle of a desert).

The problem with filters of course is that they impede airflow. They also add more of that rushing air sound (and would have to be cleaned a lot).

A solution that gets around all that would be great.

Edit: I got a HS that would work if the fan ever died. What would happen if the motor died on this?

 

[CTho9305]

everyone seems to forget what the original target application for this coolers was: low profile, low weight, non clogging cooler for military electronics in adverse environment.

military vehicles with advanced electronics(jets/helo/afv) need to be able to survive massive inertial moments(high g-force, high frequency bouncing) and a 16cm tall tower HS jutting off any bracket would rip the pcb apart in short order.

the sandia cooler is low profile and sits close to the pcb, so no leverage. the razorblade-esque impeller array is high rpm to throw off dust, and more than likely loud as a blender(no one other than submariners care about noise.) the main thing is that the cooling performance is on par or slightly better than a larger tower hs which cant be used in the military environment.

in other words: THIS ISNT MEANT FOR YOU(consumer hobbyist system builders).

[also in the original videos, the developer states that the open top fin array(sharp bits) can be covered, so it wouldnt expose the edges.]

The 2013 technology brochure indicates this design will be consumer-friendly:

The heat-sink-impeller fin geometry is designed to cleanly separate and rejoin the flow field passing between adjacent fins. This translates to extremely quiet operation. The above benefits have been quantified on a proof-of-concept prototype.

Q: I watched the video of the older version (v4) of the Sandia Cooler at http://youtu.be/JWQZNXEKkaU that Sandia prepared for the 2012 R&D 100 award competition. Have you now implemented the silent brushless motor to address the noise problem?
A: Yes. In version 5 the brushless motor noise is negligible and the rotor cavity is completely sealed.
Q: When are you going to show data for CPU overclocking performance?
A: Soon. We are putting together a test bed with 3 identical Core i7 processors, one equipped with the stock Intel CPU cooler, one with a Noctua NH-D14 cooler, and one with our version 5 Sandia Cooler.
Q: Have you made measurements of acoustic noise yet?
A: Because the device is very quiet this hasn&#8217;t been our top priority. But we are planning to make detailed acoustic measurements in an anechoic chamber in the coming months.
Q: Some people have speculated that the rotating heat-sink-impeller, which is made of aluminum and looks kind of like a circular saw blade, might be dangerous (e.g. to fingers). Is this true?
A: Because of the backward-swept and rounded-edge geometry of the fins, placing your finger in contact with the rotating blades at 2500 rpm feels like running your finger along a picket fence. And in an actual production device a metal grill would be included to prevent anything from coming into contact with the rotating heat-sink-impeller.

edit: That youtube video linked above actually addresses a lot of the misunderstandings people seem to have. I'd seen an older video before, but not this one.

 

[UaVaj]

non viable design milking government for more wasteful spending.

 

[yournamehere485]

Long time lurker here. Anyways, I thought I&#8217;d chime in on this topic as it is one of the few here I do have some background in. (B.S. Physics, and M.E.) Caveat, I am quick rusty in the subject matter. Anyways, I haven&#8217;t had a great chance to look into this in great depth, but from what I have read the idea is quite sound.

Typically when a fluid flows over a flat plat (unheated), a region develops near the surface of the plate called the velocity boundary layer. Additionally, on a heated plate a region will develop which we called the thermal boundary layer. This thickness of the velocity boundary layer greatly influences skin friction drag, and the thickness of the thermal boundary layer greatly influences heat transfer. Don&#8217;t check me on this because it is late, and it has been a while, but if memory serves, the termination of the boundary layer is typically defined as the point at which the fluid velocity/temperature reaches approximately 98-99% (so boundary layers are very thin) of the free stream velocity/temperature. Regardless of the nature of the flow (laminar/turbulent), the boundary layer will always be present.

Side notes:
1)In heat exchangers turbulent flow is desired as it rapidly mixes regions of difference temperature. Whereas slower flows (creeping/laminar/unforced), greatly reduce heat transfer.
2) Reynolds Number... (Google it) if you are interested in determining if a flow will be laminar or turbulent.
3)This type of flow is a shear driven flow, it is not driven by pressure gradients, I am not sure if it has a precise name, but is similar to a flow type called a Couette flow.

Back to the point. One of the most famous (and in my case dreaded equations) in fluid mechanics is called the Navier-Stokes equation. It is quite usefully, however there are not always exact solutions to it. In the case of this heat sink, the high speed rotation of the fan places the boundary layer in a non-inertial frame of reference. This adds a term to the equation. I believe this would be what is called a body force term (think gravity). This new force acts upon the entire length of the fan blade, and is probably a function of position (from center), blade curvature, and maybe a few other things.
Ultimately because of this new force term, we can expect that the boundary layer will be thinner (I&#8217;d have to read more to find out what order of magnitude it is thinned, but I would expect it to be significant).

And when you can thin the thermal boundary layer, well you are going to greatly increase heat transfer.

The second thing I noticed some people questioning is the nature in which heat is transferred from the processor to the fan. Essentially what they are claiming (correctly), is that heat will transfer quickly through the air gap between the fan, and the processor. A limited case, and with quite a few assumptions, is that a rapidly rotation disk, is suspended above a stationary disk, where the surface area of the disks is on a much larger scale than the air gap. This region will be quite turbulent, and rather chaotic, with tremendous shearing. Considering that the air gap is small, the flow is extremely chaotic, and the surface area is large, I would expect that rate of heat transfer is most likely at least as high as some thermal paste.

If I get a chance, I&#8217;ll probably go dig up some of my old text books on the subject, and refresh myself on the subject.

P.S. the design reminds me a micro pump called the Von Karman Viscous Pump. Which features a flat rotating, circulate plate. It requires very little input power.

 

[jackstar7]

Welcome to the boards, YNH. Thanks for offering your insights.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Anyone can say something ought to be simple, that it ought to be done in 6 months with no more than 2 or 3 engineers on the project...but anyone who says or thinks that is living in a fantasy world that is not grounded in reality from my experience.

Funny - that sounds just like some of the managers at work :whiste:

 

[Idontcare]

Funny - that sounds just like some of the managers at work :whiste:

I love when a clueless manager type thinks they've done the hard part because they dreamed up the objective, the final product.

I see it in the business financials all the time. The CEO will make some unsupported statement like "we will grow revenue by 10% every year for the next three years".

Then they turn to their middle management team and say "well I've done the hard part, the objective has been defined, now all you guys have left is the easy stuff - go figure out how you are going to make it happen and get back to me when its done "

 

[aigomorla]

So you are using the phrase "value of Air," but that sounds like a made-up phrase? What do you mean?

Also, you are using the term "trapped," but what do you mean? I think you are inventing problems that don't exist?

There's that phrase again "value of Air" that I think you are making up? We all understand that air is a gas, and it's compressible, but why do you think that's important here? That's another distraction that won't help you understand how this works.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/air-specific-heat-various-pressures-d_1535.html

You can clearly see the SP for air changes at different temperatures + Pressure in a system.
The part that is confusing to me is how that value can be uniform everywhere on the plate even with laminar flow.
The F is obviously directed at the center... its like a black hole which shoots air out.
Then i would assume a pressure would be formed at the center of the disk.

This is where i am getting confused. The value for air will not the same at the center then it is on the edges.

Side notes:
1)In heat exchangers turbulent flow is desired as it rapidly mixes regions of difference temperature. Whereas slower flows (creeping/laminar/unforced), greatly reduce heat transfer.
2) Reynolds Number... (Google it) if you are interested in determining if a flow will be laminar or turbulent.
3)This type of flow is a shear driven flow, it is not driven by pressure gradients, I am not sure if it has a precise name, but is similar to a flow type called a Couette flow.

Couette's flow!
OK so thats im assumption that u have complete uniform motion on the plate.
But even in couette's flow, the density of air seprates which ring its gonna make.

Now assume bottom and lower plate was put together to compress that ring.
U see how you would still get different gradiants because the medium (AIR) is not equal all throughout that plate.

BTW thanks for Couette... i totally forgot about the name...


@ King and Yourname... thank you for trying to help me make sense of this...