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Flexible, Plastic Sheets of Power
bethr writes "Imagine never having to plug in an electronic device to get power? Researchers at the University of Tokyo have demonstrated prototype plastic sheets with copper coils that wirelessly supply power to any device that touches its surface. You just put down your laptop and the pad sends it power: 'An array of organic transistors that detect the position of the gadget and direct current flow.' Apparently, the researchers had enough time to create a spiffy video of their doll house model, complete with a mini Christmas tree, showing off the technology."
Isn't this kind of like Slashpads?
They have reinvented the transformer, except this time there is an open end on it.
They had better paint it bright red and put warning signs over it, or it will start melting anything placed upon it.
(I assume I am not the only one to throw my keys and change and the rest of my pocket crap out when I get home)
liqbase
Last time I was buying them at home depot, a socket was 79 cents and a cord was a few bucks. Why should I want to replace an already mature, tested, cheap, reliable technology with something that costs a whole lot more, and may direct power to where it is not wanted?
Nicola Tesla would be proud...
How efficient are these compared to regular adapter + cable? The lack of a magnetic core may mean your utilities bill goes up x2.
So.. wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that it would cause serious electrical interference to sensitive devices, such as laptops?
Sigs are for the weak.
Remember the scene in A Christmas Story where the kid licks a metal pole? I keep getting this picture of a kid licking the power strip and the electronics deciding his tongue was an electronic device badly in need of a 120 volts. I can hear the chanting now, "you'll blow your eye out, you'll blow your eye out."
How does it differenciate between the different wattages that all my devices take? I don't want to start cooking my ipod because this thing is giving it laptop voltages...
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
Here's a few things I'd like to apply this stuff too.
... power strip stuff.
1) Wireless mouse pad
2) Magnetic track-type lighting
3) Stove top -- Pots/pans/ect would have their own unique heating elements & the entire stove top would be usable
I'm sure there's plenty of practical applications for somthing like that plastic power...
4) Power strips with 100% usable surface area.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Would be neat if we could put something like this in roads. Vroom! There's already a lot of power near roads. Electric cars that charge as you drive. Refueling is automatic; cars check in at a pay station once a month for a meter read.
Obviously the Tesla effect is not what's interesting here. Its the direction of power to the device that is interesting. You have this big power sheet and it only sends power where there is a device that needs it.
... maybe ...
The obvious place for this power supply is your chair and bed. You can sit down with your cell phone in your pocket and have it recharge while you work at your computer.
The big deal application of this kind of technology is probably computer implants. Its hard to change the batteries of a computer that's embedded in your thigh, but now it can recharge while you sleep.
I see a big market for upholstery and bedding growing out of this device.
Davis http://davis.foulger.net
You can easily try this at home yourself. Just disable the safety switch on your microwave, and run it with the door open.
You can induce up to a kW in things like forks and aluminium foil.
It even warms up my hands and head on the inside while I hold my devices near the oven.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Apparently a lot of readers don't understand what induction is, and that this power pad works off that principle. Power isn't routed to a device on top of the pad like many people seem to think. There's no electrical contact between the power source and the device on top of the pad. The device in need of power will have a coil of wire. The power pad will detect where on the pad the device is and then create a virtual coil of wire underneath the device. The two coils of wire do not touch, but they are near enough each other that they create and air-core transformer. In other words, AC current traveling in the pad's coil will electro-magnetically INDUCE an AC current in the device's coil. This is really, really old science. The problem is that in order to transfer a significant amount of power efficiently, the two coils have to be closely coupled to one another. This means that the power pad's coil has to have a small cross-section and be located directly under the device to be powered. By detecting where the device is with, say, a pressure sensor, and then using semiconductors to dynamically route a current in a virtual coil directly underneath the device, this power pad allows for the device to be placed haphazardly in virtually any location on top of the pad. This is the same principle that Sonicare toothbrushes use to charge, but imagine now being able to put the toothbrush anywhere on the counter to charge instead of inside a dedicated charging station.
For all known stove technologies, the heating depend somewhat on characteristics of the pots and pans used.
As others have mentioned, this induction technology is already on the market. We bought our induction stove 8 years ago. It is faster up and down than any other technology, including gas.
As long as we are using induction enabled pots and pans, the heat difference between each pot and pan is very small, and most important:
The differences are similar to the differences experienced with the same pots and pans on any other stove. As an example, a thick pan bottom will not change the heat effect, but temperature will change a little slower due to the extra heat capacity, while heat is distributed better due to the larger cross-sectional area.
Gas was once the best available stove technology. Today, it is only the best technology if you do not know induction or like to cling to old technology.
The coils do need to match up, and there are losses for coils running without a primary load (resistance in the coils themselves, for example). For a really large sheet of coils (there are multiple small coils in the sheet), that could add up, and add a thermal load to the space that might not be insignificant.
There are certainly some interesting applications, but the cost will likely be prohibitive for the "electrified wall/floor" in the foreseeable future. Working in the building industry, I can say for certain that the ability to correctly apply this product in a residential setting would require more care that exists in an entire job crew, including the cabinet, trim, and electricians combined. It's taken 10-15 years to get electrical floor heaters - simple resistance lines - to the point where you can trust a tilesetter to put them in, and they still have a pretty good failure rate (better then 1:100, if I had to guess). I'll admit one of my first thoughts after reading the moveable TV was to embed this in drywall. Then I instantly flashed back to how drywall is hung. Yikes.
Still, it would be nice to eliminate docking stations for all my gadgets, and be able to just drop the cell phone/ipod/pda/whatever onto a surface with embedded powered (desk/nightstand) or get it in close contact with the furniture to keep th charge up.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?