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The Ubiquitous LED Becomes More Ubiquitous
LiberalApplication writes "Piezoelectric generators have been mentioned here before, regarding the military's plan to integrate them into the heels of boots for the purposes of harvesting electricity from the cumulative stompage of a soldier, but now someone has come up with the idea to combine them with LEDs and cast the entire assembly into a little block of resin. Well, a stick, really. If you were getting tired of seeing little blinky lights everywhere, you ain't seen nothing yet."
Now everyone will look like Vegas!
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
These things might make cool rave lights since they would glow so when people dance! And they wouldn't run out, so they would be reusable for the next event.
But seriously, PiezoElectric power will likely be used as a parasitic power source for lots of small devices. Self-charging laptops, Forever Flashlights, etc. It might be the only way to power nanoscale devices like found in The Diamond Age
These things look small and light.
I'd love to get a set of these and attach them to the spokes on my bicycle wheels. Swirly rainbow of light zooming across the dark.
No driver could miss me then.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
I think self-powered and self-contained light sources are really cool. I'd rather have a Glowring, but they can't be imported for resale in the US/Canada. Any enterprising folks across the pond wish to work out a deal and get me some? ;-)
Method of processing duck feet
Oh great, let's make our troopers into marching Xmas trees, why don't we? "Don't fire until you see the lights of their feet!"
but now someone has come up with the idea to combine them with LEDs and cast the entire assembly into a little block of resin
63 million years from now, some huckster is going to have an amusement park featuring cloned glowing lights.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
It might be interesting to embed these into the top of a sidewalk, then watch the sidewalk start glowing whenever someone walks on it, or whenever there are other vibrations in the area. Not necessarily useful, but interesting.
=Brian
There is nothing so good that someone, somewhere, will not hate it.
the military's plan to integrate them into the heels of boots
I wonder if they will resemble these.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
Am I the only one who thinks this would be a neat thing to embed in a clear drumstick and then use at concert?
Hell, disperse the little ones in the crowd and turn the whole place into a giant pulsating light...
You know, I've noticed glowing blinking lights embedded in children's shoes for years. Are those lights battery powered?
These things (or rather, an application of ther technology) would make amazing emergency lighting in offices or homes. Heck, even in non-emergency situations. Perhaps a walkway with peizo-electric flagstones to power the lights along its path?
I wonder how much power could be obtained from the highways and biways of America? All those cars racing over millions of little generators all day long should produce a pretty goo amount of electricity, I'd imagine. It would almost make up for the ridiculous cost of burning all those fossil fuels in the first place.
what the hell is a 'junk character', anyway?
The article claims that the piezo generator can crank out up to 10amps! Is that right?
www.linux-skunkworks.com
I know this is slightly off-topic, but -- are you sure it's safe to have that amount of tritium dangling from your keys? Those things look pretty bloody bright... just don't stick your keychain in your pocket if you wanna have kids in the future ^_^
Standing at the very edge of my imagination, I peered into the inky void and realised -- I couldn't think up a new sig.
Excellent idea!
The piezoelectric transducer is sealed with resins, but is planned to undergo future improvements of waterproof sealing. Shaken in a container having a small amount of water, the Light Emitting Stick looks beautifully luminous between light rays reflected from the water, Nissin Electric said.
I had an idea for luminous items in beverages before, but then I envisioned glowing beads that were neutrally buoyant so that any carbonation in the beverage would cause them to continously move around. I was going to call them "fireflies" and market them to trendy bars.
Of course they'd either have to be safe for consumption or have the beverage container's opening be filtered with a mesh so they couldn't be swallowed.
Think glowing skittlebrau.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
they got the idea from the airforce who uses this idea to damp wing vibration.
in both cases active vibration is lighter weight than passive damping materials. (unfortunately the K2s are still heavy as sin, so really it was a gimmick aimed at nerds. still it worked--I bought the skis!)
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
They're called "location markers", but could probably be keychains in a pinch.
t ml
http://www.ameriglo.net/pages/locationmarkers.h
I once disassembled a early model of solar-powered credit card-sized calculator (one with no battery at all). While holding the circuit board near a light, I noticed a little glow ont he backside of the board. The designer had used an LED as a cheap voltage regulator. The LED lit up to dump excess energy coming from the solar cells.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
american glowrings!
Neat.
But really, aren't these most likely to show up as toys ( both for children and rave-going tripsters ) ? At least on a consumer level, I'm having a hard time thinking of other good applications.
Of course, the article was a little thin, and I'm left asking questions.
How much light do these generate? I take it all the light-up kid's shoes we see have batteries in them, right? These won't compare to -or work for- that kind of thing... how many applications require that the light source _always_ works and doesn't need to be very bright ? Basically, I'm wondering if these won't be adopted too well because battery-based solutions will "outshine" them. And with LEDs, batteries last quite a long time. I know my son outgrows his light-up shoes before they stop lighting up...
Mix those P-LEDS plus a remake of MJ's 'Billie Jean' vid, and you'd have a music video that would appeal to the slashdot reading, pop-music loving "Gen X & Y"ers. Better yet, replace some of the LEDs with little speakers that say "Wooh!" Cool!
;)
Or not
0- Eamonman Proud member of DNRC
I forgot to make a joke about a record number of court martials for people trying to get out of the army by getting shot in the foot.
The Light Emitting Stick generates a current of up to about 10A
10 Amps ?? Is it just me or does this seem a little high to anyone?
I like the blinking light things because they remind me of the Diamond Age. (That was probably one of the weakest parts in the book, but still...)
No, because the highway doesn't flex; the tires do. Since it doesn't move, there is no work done. There is a very small amount of heat imparted on the roadway, but not very much. OK, so maybe you make the highway segmented, and use the weight of the car? Ok, the car still has to climb up to the next slab. There are two kinds of people: those who know the laws of thermodynamics are absolute, and those who think the laws don't apply to -their- pet theory.
In order for your idea to work, the highway would have to flex; it'd be like trying to run in the sand. Ever tried running in the sand? It's hard work if the sand is soft. Ever tried to -bike- in soft sand? It's damn near impossible. Etc.
Please help metamoderate.
I had an idea a while ago to get large piezoelectric strips and put them in the roadways of the USA. They would power LEDs in the little road-top reflector thingies for enhanced roadway visibility. It'd be costly, but man it'd be cool!
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
Also interesting: Under the ice for a hockey game or (more visibly) for ice skating... although they'd have to be really bright to show well thru the ice.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
i>One problem I have found is that they look like a cyclist's rear light, so on a road with these posts you can mistakely think that a cyclist's light is just a marker post.
I though cyclists rear lights were "aim car here" markers!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
People get all excited over this kind of thing, but it's nothing new. Long before there were piezo anythings, there were magnets and coils. Use a lever to disrupt the magnetic field through a coil, and the magnetic field colapses, generating power. I've even got one of these little thing embedded in epoxy, that was used as a gas igniter. You can replace the LED in the article with a capacitor and Neon bulb, and your've got the same thing -- only using technology that's been around for ages. Nothing really clever was done with that, and I doubt anything clever will come of this piezo-electric update.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
Don't-don't-don't-don't-look at what's in front of you.
(Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again);
Men-men-men-men-men go mad with watchin' 'em,
An' there's no discharge in the war !
'Tain`t-so-bad-by-day because o' company,
But night-brings-long-strings-o' forty thousand million
Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again
There's no discharge in the war !
--Rudyard Kipling, "Boots"
Now if those boots had had little blinking lights in them...
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
As for the LED's: A LED might well be able to handle this much current. Although continous current should not exceed around 20 mA on most models, most LED's can handle short peak currents just fine.
For a viewer, it would be difficult to spot the difference in a 1 ms 1 A flash and a 10 ms 100 mA flash.
Recent LEDs have also been produced with phosphors in them to make specific colors (and white). These phosphors can also help to buffer the peak of energy and emit light at a lower level for a longer period of time.
Am I somewhat correct?
Let's put some of those puppies in the platform on the Dance-Dance Revolution games in all the arcades in Japan. They'll become a world superpower by providing it!
I had a sucky sig.
DDR panels already light up when the player steps on them during game play.
I think the whole point was to harness the power of hyper-active dance-dance-happy Japanese teenagers...