Using Air to Recharge Your Cell Phone

sanspeak writes "Now you do not have to look for a power outlet to charge your cell phones. Department of Industrial Design at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi have come up with a mobile turbine which generates around 3 to 4 watts of energy - sufficient to charge a mobile phone. It costs around $4, fits in your pocket and runs on air ;-). What else do you want ?"

Comments

You're going to WHAT?!?!

[ackthpt]

... a mobile turbine which generates around 3 to 4 watts of energy - sufficient to charge a mobile phone. It costs around $4, fits in your pocket and runs on air ;-). What else do you want ?"

First impression of "in your pocket and runs on air" is this is charged by hydrocarbon emissions, i.e.

I am not "just" farting, I'm recharging my phone, and it's a renewable resource!"

Logically followed by

"Now you're going to hold that thing to your face?!?!"

The device is best suited for coastal areas where the wind flows almost continuously.

They must eat more lentils there...

"ahhhhh, go blow yer phone!"

Re:You're going to WHAT?!?!

[mmaddox]

Run, Tommy! Run like the wind! ...Can you hear me now?

Alternatives

[fembots]

Why not use Faraday's Principle of Induction like these LED torches or a windup charger? Both are independent of external factors.

Hanging out your phone from a car, bus or (shock!) train is pretty dangerous stuff, maybe superman will find this thing handy.

I hope they haven't patented this technology yet, 'cos I'm rolling out my air-powered fan next month.

Re:Alternatives

[antifoidulus]

air-powered fan next month.
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Blow or run really fast

[nizo]

I can't wait to see people blowing into their phones before they make a call, unless they do what the article recommends:
The device will help mobile phone users charge their phones while travelling in a bus, a car or a train. All they need to do is -- place the turbine against the wind flow.
In other words, hold it out the window. Can they get sued when people drop their phones, or lose an arm while holding it out the window?

Re:Blow or run really fast

[Anonymous Coward]

But that's stealing energy that rightfully belongs to the train operators.

No air indoors

[KinkifyTheNation]

What about us people who never leave the house?

Re:No air indoors

[kitty tape]

How do you breathe?

Re:No air indoors

[rtaylor]

What about us people who never leave the house?

Simply place a fan next to the turbine.

What else do you want?

[SeanTobin]

Great.. A cell phone that charges by air. Now all I need is a light weight air compressor with an efficiency greater than unity and I'll never have to plug my phone in again! At least, I won't have to plug it into anything aside from the turbine and the perpetual motion machine.

I still prefer the alternator strapped to a cat with a slice of buttered toast strapped to its back.

Re:What else do you want?

[SeanTobin]

If you think about it carefully, the buttered toast has to be strapped to the cat's feet ;-)

Not in the "classical" buttered-toast-on-cat scenario. In the classical scenario, a slice of buttered toast it attached to the back of the cat (usually with duct tape) so that the buttered side is facing up if the cat is standing on its feet. When the cat-buttered-toast object is dropped from any height two laws regarding the components come into play. Firstly, a falling cat will always land on its feet. Secondly, a falling piece of buttered toast will always fall buttered-side down. When the cat-buttered-toast object falls, one of the "laws" will be violated assuming the cat-buttered-toast object does indeed hit the ground. Again, in the classical scenario the cat either ends up perpetually spinning above the ground, or simply floats in mid air.

In your example you are using a non-traditional cat-buttered-toast model in which the cat is placed on top of the buttered toast in such a manner that the cat ends up with buttery paws. This model is not used for various reasons. Firstly, the difficulty of attaching toast to all four paws of the cat is at least an order of magnitude greater than simply attaching the toast to said cats back. Although various attempts at slicing the toast have overcome this difficulty, the amount of effort required is always greater than attaching the toast to the cat's back.

In any event, the results of the non-traditional model are usually the same as the classical. Our cat with buttery paws is dropped from a height and attempts to land on its feet, however the toast that is attached to its feed attempts to land buttered-side down.

Now, it should be noted that defenders of the classical scenario usually point out that the toast, relative to the cat, has already succeeded in landing buttered side down by the nature of it being attached to the cats paws. If the cat were to hit the ground while standing on the toast, it would be akin to someone steping on a slice of toast after it has already landed on the floor, buttered side down. Basically it would be irrelevant as the goal of the toast to attach its buttered side to a surface has already been acomplished.

So, although I used the traditional buttered-toast-on-cat model and the non-traditional models are at least partially flawed, I believe I made the correct decision in its use.

Re:What else do you want?

[Noofus]

I attempted this experiment. I tied a piece of buttered toast to my cat's back and dropped him off the side of the table. The cat landed on his feat and the toast slid around his body under the string and hung, butter side down, on his belly. It then slipped out of the string and fell butter side down on the floor.

Granted my experiment might have been more sound with better method of toast attachment, I do believe this proves that neither law can be violated. Were I to more securely attach the toast some other method of getting both the toast butter side down on the ground and the cat on its feet would present itself ;)

well, for one thing...

[EsbenMoseHansen]

...what else do you want

Does it run linux?

What else do you want ?

[davecb]

How about an adapter to connect it to my propellor beanie?

--dave

compressed air

[psyklopz]

I once thought that it might be an interesting idea to store compressed air in a tank and then let it out at a controlled rate to run a turbine.

In essence, the compressed air tank would be a battery (it would 'hold' the energy that was used to pump the compressed air in).

I don't know a lot of about high pressure tanks. Does anyone know if this would work at all? Would all the air come out too quick to make it worthwhile?

Re:compressed air

[rd4tech]

buy a second batery

Re:compressed air

[mmontour]

I don't know about individual off-grid use, but this idea has been used commercially. Here's one link.

There's also a compressed-air car.

What's next?

[bigtallmofo]

We've seen hand cranking chargers, now windmill charging... How long until someone packages and sells a DIY Dam & Hydroelectric Cell Charging kit?

Also, I understand that Iran is currently importing plutonium from Russia in an attempt to make a personal, portable nuclear reactor capable of charging cell phones.

But,

[jim_v2000]

How long does it take to charge, and wouldn't you have to leave it somewehre with a constant air flow? Like, outside, or in front of a fan, or does it strap to your side so it uses the breeze when you walk?

I can just imagine someone talking and their battery's about to die, and all the other person on the other end hears is "Wait, my phone is dying...hold on a sec *blowing sound* Ok, now where were we..*blowing sound*...Oh yes, about the *blowing sound*..."

air vs wind

[Hanzie]

I think it might be a little more correct to substitute "wind power" for "air" in the writeup.

Essentially, the idea is to incorporate a windmill to power the phone.

Saying the phone is "Air" powered implys (to me, at least) that some chemical reaction is taking place using oxygen or nitrogen.

It is a cool idea, and the article implies that normal winds are sufficient to power the cell phone.

If the generator is small enough to actually be part of a cell phone, I'd think that scaling the design up might make economic sense for generating normal electric power. Unfortunately, there weren't any specifics, so it is tough to make any extrapolations.

Other good uses too

[nizo]

I just realized, there are other good uses for "blow phones" too: simply add a breathalyzer to avoid those embarrassing late night drunken calls to your ex.

Re:uhh...

[Tackhead]

> > "It costs around $4, fits in your pocket and runs on air"
>
> Is that a turbine in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

From the Department of Industrial Design at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

I believe you meant to say "Please be telling me is in your pocket a turbine, or are you happy to be seeing me?"

Now, if you'll pleased to be pardoning me, I have another caller in my queue. Some woman named Paris Hilton needs to be blowing on my hard drive to reboot her Windows.

Crank Alternative

[4of12]

Compressed air is an interesting idea for storing energy.

But I have to wonder how it compares to the alternatives.

How about a capacitor bank and a hand-crank generator?

If you're out of compressed gas or batteries in the middle of nowhere it's hard to replenish your cell phone. Turning a hand crank would make use of cheap, available human power.

You've obviously not seen

[donutello]

... how people travel in India.

$4? No it doesn't

[DrXym]

If / when it appears in a commercial form it might costs $4 in India perhaps. But in the US it will cost $50.

Why? Because people are suckers.

yeeeeeeehaw

[Anonymous Coward]

That was really funny. It would be good for people who run in rodeos and then go home and ranch their cattle because there is a lot of wind on the praire and they would be riding around on horses, which is a lot of fun.

The wind would blow, and then the battery would get really recharged. They could talk forever:
Sample conversation

Customer service: This is a Sprint customer service person, how may help you?

Cowboy Neal: I would like to order some pizza
?

Customer service: This is not a pizza place, this is Sprint Customer service

Cowboy Neal: Oh, sorry, I just pressed some random buttoms because my battery is really charged up.

Customer service: Oh you have one of those new air chargers, those are really cool

Neal: Yeah, I like them a lot.

Sprint customer service: Hey have you played Zelda: The wind waker?

Cow Boy Neal: I hear it is awesome.

Sprint person: Can you hear me now.

Cow Boy Neal: Yes.

ACME Industries.

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

O.K.,

I have a hundred of these, mounted on the roof of my Prius. Next...

If only they could scale this technology up....

[mikael]

.... then we could have an electric powered car which recharges the battery automatically.

Re:Now..

[narcc]

No, but I have a go-cart that's powered by my own sense of self-satisfaction...

Perfect for motorists!

[Cyn]

Now if your cell battery starts to get low while chatting to your friend while driving, you can just crank up your A/C, roll down your window, and hold one arm out the window while you eat and change the radio station with the other.

Or for when your battery is a little low, but you just really need to call someone - you can blow on your phone for a few minutes, then pass the phone to a friend (if you have any left) and they can call 911 since you're hyperventilating.

Seriously, in public transportation - of the times when you can hold your phone up to a window - you might want to purchase some tshirts that say "I'm an idiot, steal my expensive phone after I get off the bus". Any other times, you should be able to find a much more efficient and timely manner of charging your phone. Windows down + A/C up == your car is burning excess energy.