Hitachi Shows Off A Fuel-Cell PDA

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Hitachi Shows Off A Fuel-Cell PDA

Posted by timothy on Tuesday March 30, 2004 @12:18AM from the wouldn't-you dept.

prostoalex writes "Hitachi made a PDA, powered by a fuel cell. The device runs for 5 hours, and they plan to expand the battery power to 40 hours. It weighs 700 grams, which makes it heavier than most of the models out there. The commercial production will start next year, a picture is available from MobileMag." (This earlier mention of Hitachi's work talks about how such fuel cells could be used to charge or power other things, from cellphones to laptops.)

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Methanol by carm$y$ · 2004-03-30 00:22 · Score: 3, Interesting

I'm not sure I'd like to walk with methanol in my pocket. Hell, one whiff and you're blind... not sure even if it's allowed in a plane.

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1. Re:Methanol by carm$y$ · 2004-03-30 00:49 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Please check the "Acute effects" here:
  http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/hlthef/methanol. html
  Lists "inhalation" as well as "ingestion", and I personally know a guy who almost got blind when a 200 gallon container fell on the floor and spilled the methanol inside (dangerous workplace...).
  
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  -- No sig today
Shouldn't they just concentrate on laptops by mustrum_ridcully · 2004-03-30 00:27 · Score: 5, Interesting

Wouldn't it be a better idea if they concentrated on fuel-cell powered laptops instead of PDAs? I would kill to have a laptop whose battery lasted 40hours, and was topped-up using cigarette lighter gas (butane)!

I don't see the battery manufactures jumping for about this one, if fuel cells do get sufficiently small and cheap then there'll be a few very worried companies out there.
1. Re:Shouldn't they just concentrate on laptops by no+longer+myself · 2004-03-30 01:14 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Fuel cells won't make any corporations worry one bit. First of all, the typical corporation has "Covenants Not To Compete", so the only way they will displace existing technology is if the biggest corporate powers deem it to be in their best interests.
  That being said, the cost of using these devices will undoubtedly be familiar to purchasing printer ink. 40 hours my seem like a long time, but that can be used up in less than 2 days. There's also the "depending on the device load" clause that will no doubt be bundled into the EULA. Oh... You forgot to mention that you had to agree to terms and conditions just to use a new-fangled battery.
  But wait! They've got this stuff all laid out! If you thought the price of conventional batteries would drop... BZZZZZZZT! Nope. They've got a dual edged blade on this one. "Well the demand for conventional batteries has decreased, so we can't make them in the volumes like we used to, so the price has to increase." Oh yeah, so the fuel cell cost will drop? BZZZZZZT! "Due to the increasing demands and the difficulty in producing the PIM material we have no choice but to raise consumer prices." I hate to break it to you, but it's not a carrot on a stick. It's an orange turd!
  Will it leak? Will it explode? Can I take it on a plane? Will the exhaust (steam) burn you?
  These are all questions that will work to artificially keep the price high. The manufactuers will whine ad nauseum that the FUD is holding them back, and they need to be subsidized and then de-demonized by the evil-libral-media-machine.
  Legislatures will have endless uses for this technology as well... in the red herring department. "Oh look! Someone just effed up the rights of millions of people! Quick! Let's stir up some controversy over fuel cell technology so people won't notice!"
  Of course you've go the whole chicken vs. egg hydrogen economy issue as well. Since hydrogen is derived from less clean energies, then it's already tainted. Nya-nya-nya-nya-nya-nya!
  I used to be waaaaaaaaay optimistic about the whole fuelcell revolution, but now that it's future has already been carefully laid out by corporations, it hardly thrills me as anything more than one more piece of technology that will somehow eventually be used against me or perhaps even you when you most depend upon it, and least expect it.
  Sorry so long, and I know it's not very optimistic, but thanks for listening... Try to have a nice day. :-)
2. Re:Shouldn't they just concentrate on laptops by Lumpy · 2004-03-30 01:20 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  That is the funny part, most people dont realize how much power generating capacity they have around them every day. I do long range biking and camping. My cellphone, zaurus, GPS, digital camera, and toshiba Liberetto all get recharged with either the solar panel I have, the Motorola hand crank charger they made 2 years ago for cellphones, or from the generator I have on the bike. I have never had to want for power on long camping/biking trips away from a car or electrical grid. Now some of you nature freaks will lose their mind at the amount of gear I carry with me but I prefer to document my travels and take gobs and gobs of photos (uploading to the liberetto at night is nice to clean out the CF cards and gives me a chance to look at the shots) I can recharge all my gear sitting and connected in the left rear pannier bag from the bike mounted generator that runs on a tire, within the 7 hours I am riding that day and is trickle charged by the Smallish solar panel on top of the pannier bags.
  
  this fuel cell devie is cool, but still nowhere near as clean and renewable as human power/solar... and their first products needs to be a pocket power source instead of a laptop or PDA.
  
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  Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Re:Nice idea for the road-warrior.... by fireman+sam · 2004-03-30 00:33 · Score: 2, Interesting

Why not just slap a GPS unit in your pack and leave this brick at home. I've never heard of a GPS unit using batteries in 5 hours.

(And yes I do know what a GPS system is *ducks*)

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Re:duh uh by mirko · 2004-03-30 00:36 · Score: 3, Interesting

Parent's right, it's too heavy for a PDA.
Let's call this a CDA (Carriable Digital Assistant).

I personally use a Samsung Digimax Battery to achieve around 11 hours uptime with my Zaurus which is definitely more portable than this.

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Trolling using another account since 2005.
A little uncertain about a few things by Phekko · 2004-03-30 00:41 · Score: 4, Interesting
- A fuel cell is a pollution-free and highly efficient power source and it is expected to be used for automobiles and in households, although its greater cost than that of traditional power sources limits its applications at present.
This refers to using the cell, not getting the power in it I'm sure. I think making alcohol takes more power than you get burning it, does the same apply to burning in a fuel cell? Or did I accidentally smoke the wrong stuff again?

Another thing I didn't get is the expected lifetime of the cell. IOW how many times can you expect to charge the sucker before the same happens to it as did to all of my cellphone batteries. If you are expected to get as much as 40 hours from a cell (which, stripping the marketing hype and suchlike, translates to roughly 20 hours, maybe) does it mean you get 95% of that after the second charge? Or after the 100th charge? Or what? Sorry for being ignorant. If you know, please enlighten me.

I sure hope they get PDAs to the point, where your battery lasts a week again (as it did in my original Palm Pilot) and hopefully it can be done in a somewhat environmentally friendly way, too. Is this the way? You tell me, please (pretty please)
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Re:Nice idea for the road-warrior.... by GORby_ · 2004-03-30 00:43 · Score: 2, Interesting

Because... if you go out for a 2 week hike away from civilization it might be harder to find a wall outlet than just grabbing the bottle of methanol in your backpack and giving it some more juice in a few minutes.
wind-ups by Anonymous Coward · 2004-03-30 01:38 · Score: 3, Interesting

I think wind up technology is more impressive and practical. I own two baygen windup radios that store the energy in a coiled spring, then drive a mini generator to power the radios. They work, the concept works. I also have a small tri-power radio that is very interesting. Shirt pocket size, multiband. It has a built in solar cell which will charge internal fixed batteries (ni cads I guess, never looked at them). There's also a battery bay that holds conventional AA batteries. That's a redundant power supply. In addition, there's a small fold out crank on the side that runs a mini generator to add-to any of the solar input, a couple minutes of very easy cranking gives a long radio play time. That particular thing doesn't involve a spring like the baygens, but it could. either way it works as advertised, it's spiffy.

I think a PDA could be constructed along those lines somehow. The chemistry involved with using normal human muscles is very efficient, much more than other other fuel/power source. A similar PDA could also have an external jack for charging from a normal AC to DC wall wart or another DC source such as from your car while driving or an even larger solar panel/whatever, making it quad power.

zogger
Water powered Fuel Cell Toy Car by Daido Metal by i4u · 2004-03-30 01:44 · Score: 2, Interesting

http://www.i4u.com/article1266.html
Sweet... by interactive_civilian · 2004-03-30 02:17 · Score: 2, Interesting

Dude! That is pretty kick-ass! Just out of curiosity, about how much did all of that gear set you back? I would definitely be interested in throwing stuff like that together for my gear.
Right now, most of the gear I carry around consists of my PDA (an old 8MB Handspring Visor, which routinely gets up to a month of use on a single pair of AAAs...) a couple of film cameras (a small "Lomo" point and shoot and a Nikon FA SLR) and when the backlight was working on my iBook, I used to carry it around all the time (and plan to do the same whenever I get a new laptop). I also enjoy cycling, especially for long periods of time (I spent a month last summer cycling around various places in Japan), so a set up like yours would be pretty cool.
Also, about your set up, how many modifications did you have to make to get the proper voltage and current? If you have a website or something with information about your gear, a link would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers. :)

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"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
1. Re:Sweet... by Lumpy · 2004-03-30 02:54 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I built most of it because of the huge hole there is in portable power generation. The most expensive item was the military surplus Solar panel kit, an aluminum book that when unfolded exposes 2 high efficency "purple" solar cells that generate 12 volts at 200ma in bright sun.. I can get almost 250ma out of them if I point it directly at the sun instead of laying flat. closed it's the size of a textbook and 1/2 inch thick. The motorola hand generator was bought at gander mountian on clearance. it's for motorola cellphones and was limited to 3 volts until you remove the NICAD batteries inside and re-solder the winding points. I now get 12V @100ma out of that also. finally I modified 2 of the cheapie bicycle light kits that have the generator for creating the electricity. they each generate ~7VAC 250ma(ok so they are altenators) so I simply recitify the voltage and use one backwards to generate about 13 volts DC. total money spent WITHOUT the Military solar panels is less than $50.00US the solar panels cost me $150.00US but were worth it due to the high output and efficency. I charge NiMh AAA and AA cells during the day off the whole thing as well as the cellphone and laptop. One of the key's though is that my battery packs are all fresh and I leave fully charged. you dont usually drain everything dry and try to recharge but I generate enough electricity during the day to replace what I use.
  
  I could generate more if I modified a kiddie trailer to hold bigger solar panels and gear driven generator off the wheels.... but you don't want to get too ambitious to generate power... or you will end up reducing your ability to bike very far and reduce the gear load you can carry. (generating 1.2 amps at 110V will get you about 30 minutes before being wiped out.. you also want to disengage all your power generators when you are looking at a hill.. it is suprising how that extra resistance can make a difference when you are going uphill!
  
  finally, I use a libretto because of the low power consumption with a self modified battery. the older 50C had nicad batteries which are complete crap. you must hand rebuild with li-ion or Nimh and learn to love a P-I 45Mhz processor... (Yes, Linux + blackbox + abiword + other apps are very useable on this slow of a laptop.
  
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  Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Not pollution free by jludwig · 2004-03-30 03:19 · Score: 2, Interesting

Two things... first, pollution free must be an outright lie, they are using a carbon based fuel therefore it must generate carbon based waste. I have no idea how they can make claims like this...
Secondly, fuel cells are nothing more than batteries. None of the proposed "fuels" are available in ample enough quantities in nature to make them attractive as fuels. The likely scenario is a standard power plant generates electricity/energy which is then used to make H2, methanol, ethanol, etc, etc. Its pollution free in the sense the pollution is removed from the mind of the consumer and shifted to larger facilities that do the polluting for you. This might have some pros (easier pollution control at large scale for example), but its important to see the entire supply chain for power. Unfortunately, it seems if most people can't see it directly they think they are doing the earth a huge favor... its this type of NIBY environmentalism that is very dangerous. The real environmental breakthru must come on the large scale power supply side, not the consumer device side... Li ion batteries are as non-polluting as fuel cells in this respect and in fact even less so than this device since they won't produce CO2/CO.
Jeff