Charles J Knight wrote:
>
> > I think that it's the temperature differential that causes the (low
> >voltage, highish current?) thermocouple array to generate power - all
> >those wires should conduct SOME heat, I'd think
>
> Here's a thought. One of Forrest Mims III's books at Radio Shack has
> plans for a very low efficiency thermocouple. Basically it's two
> different
> wires, wound together...simplicity itself.
>
> What about a cloth woven with those two wires...one used for the warp,
> the other for the weave? Wouldn't that produce the thermocouple we
> need, in a wearable format? Efficiency wouldn't be very high, but the
> number of junctions would be enormous, and over a large surface area.
>
> I know that at least some of us are working with conductive fabrics
> already...is this feasible at this stage?
>
> -- Chuck Knight
You need one set of junctions at one temperature, and the other set at
another temperature, to get usable power from these (You wire them in
bunches in series, could group them in series parallel if you had enough
couples, I guess.)
HOT OBJECT
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
| | | | | | | | | | | |
O---|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-+
O-+ | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
V V V V V V
COLD OBJECT
(where ^ and V are couples - you want pairs of couples.)
Each couple only generates a little tiny voltage differential, so you
want LOTS of couples, thus lots of wires from you nice hot skin to the
nice cold COLD OBJECT, freezing your A** off in short order <G>
Maximizing the temperature differential is THE whole idea, too (I
don't think a cloth such as you suggest would do anything but weigh you
down.)
Mark
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