Slashdot Mirror
Hand-Powered Hardware?
quiddity writes "Following the Goofy USB Devices post, one has to know what can be self-powered when the batteries all die. You can handcrank your Gameboy, recharge your cellphone or pda (even grandpa), wind up a webserver (with minions, a beowulf..), see in the dark, and project a movie. What else can we propel through the next blackout/apocalypse?" Some of these devices have have been on Slashdot before; what cool hand-powered tech hasn't been and should be?
So that's what they're calling it these days...........
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Not an academic question -- we lost power for 5 days last December and again for 4 days last January.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Say a Mini-ITX low power, embedded OS on flash with a broswer & email. Modem and Ether net. TV output for my battery powered TV.
Yeah, I use Beowulf to power my server.
...
Every day, I toss in the pallets of discarded Beowulf pallets from geeks who though it told you how to build a redundant array of inexpensive computers (RAIC).
...what the fuck is a "Minnesota wristwatch"? Could someone take just 30 seconds to tell me what it is?
I remember reading about a device developed specifically to assist third-world countries with their crop planting and communications via a radio that is hand-cranked and provides a large amount of listening time per crank.
:).
Apparently these countries suffer from a lack of information about weather patterns, which would greatly assist with the crop planting, and which is provided by the hand-cranked radio
An example of geeky inventing that actually has practial application, rare on slashdot
Post apocalyptic gaming goodness
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/07/24/1628214.shtm l m l
http://slashdot.org/articles/01/06/18/1953203.sht
Even if we have some cool hand-powered hardware, how are we going to use it properly?
Maybe a power-generating keyboard and mouse, so the faster you type and move your mouse, the longer your hand-powered PC will stay on.
Freeplay are a company that specialise in wind-up electronic toys including a mobile phone charger.
I have this radio, designed by Freeplay that has a wind-up charger and solar panel. Works on FM, MW, SW and LW with a 30 station memory. Its not bad, works well and with good sound quality. It also doesn't look dorky like some of their earlier models.
Unknown host pong.
What else can we propel through the next blackout/apocalypse? I'm going old school and cranking up the old 8 tracks with some Barry White and my wife fsck all that other stuff. I'm contributing to the kids... segment lub dem kids
MoFscker
Sell energy back to your local utility!
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
This is nice and all but I would much rather see a device (like your cellphone, pda, or gameboy) take advantage of the piezoelectric effect so the batteries charge when you use the device.
The Cell Phone hand crank article wasn't too clear, but can you only wind for 6 minutes of call time at once? The way i see it, if 30 seconds of cranking gets you 6 minutes of call time, then why don't I just crank for 5 minutes and get a whole hour? The article, however, kind of implies that you gotta crank it everytime you want to make a short call. Which would suck.
I recently broke my cell phone charger (cheap POS from sony ericcson seperated, leaving the plug in the phone and the leads not). I'm too cheap to replace it, and the car charger is too inconvenient (I don't drive much). Something like this would be terribly convenient, except replacing my real charger would probably be cheaper.
A well-trained human body can produce around 100 W of motion effect for a couple of hours. (bicycle style)
...without display.
So don't even think p4 ok?
maybe an via mini-itx or something
Warning: This sig contains a small bug. ==> *
I think it would be really cool if someone would invent a two wheeled electric scooter, with a seat, and add pedals, so you could charge the battery. That way, instead of constantly going home to recharge, you could just hop on, turn the pedals, and ride it all day...
--- Generation X: The first generation to have SIG lines inferior to their parents... ---
For a physics assignment last year a friend and I created a hand-cranked generator using an old windshield wiper motor. It worked pretty well: we were able to power a boom box, a Game Boy Advance, a small water pump, a large light, and a few other items.
We were thinking of selling it on the street during the blackout last summer, but decided that its nostalgic value would end up outweighing any monetary compensation we would gain.
---
Hello, Slashdot user. My name is Dr. Sbaitso. I am here to help you.
2-and how many of these gizmos would be killed by a nuclear EMP anyway?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
How about pedal-powered aircraft as the ultimate human-powered tech-toy?
One problem is the low power budget for human-powered systems. The average fit adult can only crank out about 75 W. (No specs on the power output of the average computer user). Even a athletic cyclist only puts out about 200W.
A cyclist should be able to power a laptop, but running much more than that would be difficult.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Somebody forgot to check the geek's survival store.
Work sucked, until it became unemployment, when it became slightly more tolerable. -Tet
I wonder what kind of portable hardware could you keep powered up just by using reasonable size solar cells. Like a laptop with its LCD backside/cover covered with them, so you direct it towards the sun (the cover casts shadow on the screen for better contrast, and even partially transparent for free backlight) and it runs, charging standard battery... Of course it won't be a P4 or such, but with current technology, how hard would it be to create extremely-low-power 486 clone with flash instead of HDD, no fan, low-speed cdrom...
Say what you want, Linux runs nicely on 486 with plenty of RAM.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
How many slashdot editors does it take to handcrank the slashdot servers?
Why hand power it when you can get mice to do it for you
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
My sex life.
Hate me!
This site sells stuff that can be powered from your telephone line. Clock radios, calculators, vibrators, police scanners, wet dry brooms,etc.
weird...
Telco powered electronics
when playing Gameboys and other such devices, isn't it possible just to harness all the extra energy expended beyond that which is required to tell the device, "Yes, move up, and then left, and then..."? Don't mod this up to funny: I'm serious. Think of all the energy that is wasted by just heating the plastic, when it could go into powering the device in the first place.
[ home ]
Doesn't that make five?
1 + 3 + 1 ?
*has a flash back to the movie Clue. "1 + 2 + 1 + 1"*
If you can figure out a way to convert such a paltry amount of heat into useable electricity, tell me, and we'll both be billionaires.
-Reid
oo difficult to convert energy in the form of pressure into something the device can use. This is the same reason we don't "hook batteries up to lightning rods", as many electricity novices suggest. The equipment required to convert from a megavolt spark to a sustained output at a reasonable voltage is too expensive and inefficient to make it cost effective. The energy output from button mashing isn't enough to overcome the losses you'd incur converting it from erraticly pulsed, short-throw kinetic energy to steady, usable voltage.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
so the post is about human powered tech, not alternate power tech. they're already being looked at for militay boots ,but i'd like to see the piezio electric shoes/boots for use with an integrated system of things like woven heaters in pants/coat/shoe liners, entertainment/communications. a powered antennae woven into the back of a jacket would be a leap on signal strength and have the added bonus of being shielded, most use handsfree anyway so just plug into the clothes. granted, it is a specialized and initially costly set of applications but over time (assuming there's a technology rich future available to us given current events and lessons of history, but i digress) we could see such things as being more easily available.
And oh yes, hand-cranked ice cream freezers never fail to produce a product that beats store-bought hands down. :-)
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
This is just a bad idea! Forcing nerds, geeks, and dweebs into physical activity would give them the ability to finally defeat the jocks and get the girl.
Personally I prefer this hand-powered flashlight. Squeezing is a much more natural motion than shaking or winding, though it requires an extra gear or two.
While I'm on the subject, pretty much any device that you use infreqently and for short periods is a good candidate for cranking. IMHO, those noisy, em-field producing, plug stealing or battery eating electric toothbrushes they have these days are really good candidates for this - twist the handle until it stops, and it brushes your teeth for one minute. The kids'll love it. Also shavers, cameras, and yes, vibrators.
In addition, micropower devices don't even need cranks, and could get their power just from piezo electric button-pushing or shaking, or photovoltaics. Remote controls, smart cards, calculators, watches, smoke detectors, etc.
To say nothing of mechanical devices that don't need to be electric.
Really, there's way too many wasteful items requiring expensive, toxic batteries that would require replacing. Hell, how about an exercise bike that plugs into the wall to put power back in the grid?
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Thinkgeek has the Forever Flashlight that uses Faraday's Principle of Induction to generate power for superbright LEDs.
here
:)
That radio was distributed in war zones and refugee camps.
By the way that's a great article on subject, i.e. personally powered devices
How about this?
It'll work if you have dry tinder, basically it is a iron and flint thingy. I remember using them as a kid trying to light paper; took awhile, but could be made to work. The flint wears out eventually, though. I think a Zippo would be easier.
And why does this thread remind me of a Prodigy song?
Fellowship 9/11
Thats a great idea, a universal Dynamo that can power any portable device. Then if you hands get tired, you could build another device with a motor & batteries to turn it for you and..
oh.. hang on a minute..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
Someone else might have mentioned this, but I would like a AA or AAA NiMH charger.
Many MP3 players use just one AA or AAA.
You'd probably want to just charge one or two at a time so the charging would go faster.
Are there any broadcast stations on MW and LW? I wasn't aware of any - maybe it's just where I live though...
Where do you live? The US?
There are quite a lot of MW stations in the UK; BBC Radio 5 Live, some commercial stuff using old BBC frequencies (for BBC stations where FM coverage is now almost universal); and there are also local stations which nowadays use their FM and MW bands for totally different services (local MW tends to the MOR/retro stuff, FM for more modern music).
LW is... not much used, except for BBC Radio 4. Sometimes LW Radio 4 broadcasts different stuff to FM; they use it for cricket commentary for example. Atlantic 252 (kHz)- a pop/rock station- started in the late 80s; that frequency was sold at some stage to a talk station, but it seems to be silent now.... so Radio 4 is all alone again.
I'd guess most UK radios support MW (usu. labelled as 'AM'), but less than 50% have LW, and very few ordinary radios have SW.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
You mean one of these? You can't shock people with them but you can give them a nasty burn :)
Lighting candles with this thing isn't easy, unless you know plenty of campcraft as it only produces a glowing ember, like flint and steel or rubbing two sticks together.
The average "elite" level cyclist can sustain about 700W, which is darned near 1 HP. Pretty impressive but, based upon some reading I've done in the wake of the death of Marco Pantani, I'm beginning to believe that it's also inhuman. It's starting to appear that the UCI actually permits athletes to artificaially bump their hemocrit levels, they just limit the extent to which they can do it...but I could be wrong. I'm not a doctor, but I am an engineer and constantly overdriving a system generally means it won't last as long.
Lance is fast - a monster climber and excellent time trialist, but if you really want to see impressive short term output, look at your sprinters.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
The original LUFO hurricane lamp-powered radio was designed as an alternative to hand-cranked radios with the added benefit of providing heat and lighting.
Traditional paper publications have never needed batteries, work well in low light and extreme glare, and can even function underwater if you're careful when you turn the pages.
Talk about a limitless resource of energy!!! Put a heel activated pedal crank/thingy (sort of like the foot switch for a sewing machiine) at every desk, give out free coffee, and let nature take it's course!!! (relieves stress, too!!!)
Karma: Bad is the liberal way of saying this guy won't drink the kool aid here on slash dot. I wear my Karma with pride
I've tried the Sidewinder cell phone charger once. After that, the battery emptied in less than half the time it originally took (a single day instead of more than two). The measly instructions accompanying the product did indeed warn against its actual use. Should have RTFM'd before I tried, huh?
JeR
You might not be able to run a P4 and a subwoofer, but you could easily light a room (LEDs), or power a small radio I would imagine.
"Powers. I have them."
Dutch designer Dick van Hoff recently designed beautiful hand-powered kitchen utensils. To quote:
Dick van Hoff's Tyranny of the Plug series of kitchen machines chop, churn and blend, but don't require electricity. They are powered by human energy-- by pulling on them, turning them or moving them to and fro... and they function beautifully.
Pictures on Designboom and Slowlab.Van Hoff is calling into question the fact that members of contemporary society readily accept new objects that are powered by electricity, yet rarely contemplate where the power is coming from. Instead, his products make people invest their human energy into powering them.
Sleekly yet simply designed of cast iron, chrome, glass, and wood, these machines run smoothly and with efficiency, while fostering awareness and contemplation.
If there is one on the market, I know I would like to get one. Being lost in the middle of nowhere and finding out that the batteries in the GPS are dead, sucks.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs