Hey all, this ones a pretty interesting thread. Now on the same topic here's
one I thought up while walking home from the train station one night
in silence because my minidisk's battery had died. (don't buy a sony
minidisk, there battery life sucks! IMHO)
Where can you get energy in the field for a recharge? The most convenient is
plane old mechanical energy from you, but
you don't want to keep applying the energy continuously so you use a
mechanical battery ie a spring,
Picture This: A 65mm X 15mm X 5mm device (rough dimensions of the minidisk
battery) with a lever recessed into the side.
internally there is a SEVERELY stiff spring applying pressure to a micro
machined planetary gearbox geared up for > 5,000:1
to drive a dc generator, the lever operates a ratchet system to recharge the
spring and the fact that the gear's could only spin
so fast would mean that this thing would run for a few hour's (think of a
windup watch). Pumping the lever to prime this little baby
may take some exhersion, but nowhere near as much as walking to a shop to buy
a new battery.Alternatively the spring could be
loaded with > 60 kg of charge by just standing on the thing. I'm not a
mechanical engineer or anything so I haven't done any sum's
on how much power could be generated from this but I get the feeling it'd be
able to keep up with a AA for a short period of time.
Hope nobody can shoot holes in this theory, (but that's why i'm putting it up
for discussion)
looking forward to responses
regard's Shane Norris
((
) || ());
Charles J Knight wrote:
> While at a flea market yesterday, I had an interesting idea. (OK, so it
> may
> or may not be practical...it's clever!)
>
> I picked up a model airplane engine -- it weighs hardly anything, perhaps
> a few ounces, and has a drive shaft that's 3/8" diameter. Presumably
> this thing puts out a decent amount of power for its weight. Gotta' be
> better than batteries...
>
> As it's an off the shelf item, would it be possible to use one of these
> little engines to generate electricity for a palmtop class computer?
>
> Their power requirements are meager, and small generators would
> be capable of handling those requirements with relative ease.
>
> Since gasoline could run one of these little things for hours, if not
> days on end, with minimal weight...why hasn't someone done this
> before? It seems logical...
>
> -- Chuck Knight
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