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A New Wireless Power Transmission Sheet
Roland Piquepaille writes "Several companies have started to sell power 'pads' that can charge your cellphone when you put it on the pad's surface. But these silicon-based pads are expensive — and relatively 'specialized.' Now, Japanese researchers have built a plastic sheet which could power all the devices placed close to it. So far, this 4-layer sheet, which uses printed organic transistors and plastic MEMS switches, can deliver up to 40 watts of power — enough for some laptops. The technology is apparently efficient and inexpensive to produce. But as the devices to recharge will need to incorporate a special receiver, don't expect to see these plastic power sheets on sale before several years."
Sorry to be blunt, but this is just stupid. Plug your phone into the little wire, and be done with it. Plus, it's going to waste a lot of extra electricity.
I don't respond to AC's.
I really do have a large mess of cables everywhere (desk, house, around my bed, etc.) and I'd love this. It would be great to get rid of these.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
How many laptops are there that use 40 watts? I don't know of any, thats a little over 2 Amps at 18 volts, i guess they exist.
:)
Still, sounds interesting but as always its going to take some massive manufacturer to incorporate it for it to take off. Probably Sony
Monkeyboi
i remember this. good to see it's making its way to the market.
this one's tagged "fuckroland ohnoitsroland pigpail pigpile shill"
Just like every Chinese fab is making electronics accessories for laptops and cell phones and such, expect that, if these things get cheap enough, we'll start seeing adapters to clip onto the bottom of phones that will take power from the pad.
Shortly after that, expect to start seeing universal adaptor kits at Radio Shack with a switch-selector voltage output, and 87 plugs, to connect to a generic charger. Maybe a charger base with 3 outputs.
The application for such a pad is MUCH larger than the article implies. It won't require manufacturers to integrate such receivers until well after their acceptance, which will drive down the price per unit to incorporate them into devices.
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
Now, I may be wrong, but I believe that 93% is the efficiency of electricity being generated at the power plant and then sent to you, however many miles away. So it's not an either-or thing, it's an extra loss. Instead of losing 7% of the generated electricity, you lose nearly 25%. This is ridiculous compared to the effort of just plugging your damn devices in.
Just build it yourself! Its a simple induction circuit! implement it into your technology today! Don't wait + pay!
...don't expect to see these plastic power sheets on sale before several years."
Seriously, how hard is this editing schtick? Did you know there are lots of resources on the web for proper sentence structure?
Sure it's cool to charge your gadgets with a little plastic pad, but I contend it's more fun with a Tesla coil
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
And I probably Th3se early
Just sit on it for a few minutes, and, voila, you are sterile (at least for a while). The possibilities are endless!
Another Roland article. Time to rack up more advertising hits....
:)
Please tag as 'ohnoitsroland' -- thank you
sigfault (core dumped)
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Why don't we power cars like this? I can see how 'charging' stations (or, I guess, tesla coils) can be installed every mile or so and be used to charge electric cars, making it so that recharging our electric cars becomes rare. I see this as an option to one's electric bill. It certainly would make owning an electric car a lot more practical, and more enviro-friendly. Yes I understand the power has to come from somewhere, but chances are the electricity is coming from, at least partially, renewable sources rather than burning gas. Is this feasible?
This is a great idea. But it needs to be standardized, so everything recharges from any pad. Otherwise we'll be back in wall transformer hell. This one is about the third scheme for doing this, and so far, they're incompatible.
If it's done totally wrong, there will be an encrypted handshake between the pad and the device receiving power, so only authorized devices can recharge. Like printer ink cartridges.
Is that your life has been a living hell for the past several decades due to the maddening fact that you had to plug things into the wall. At long last, your troubles are over. A separate charger for every device? That's not a world I want to live in.
a guy named Tesla. you have a half-million volts running around the place, it doesn't take much of an antenna for induced voltage to hot up any circuit in the area.
;)
not to mention, you can't pull big-ass arcs with a pencil off anything metal when you're near that little charge-o-pad, can you?
entertainment worth a few semiconductor junctions
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Just build receivers that fit the battery slot.
Here someone is suggesting letting free many watts.
Just ain't going to ever be approved.
It doesn't take much power, under a watt, to make instant cataracts. Ask any old radar operator.
The parent makes an excellent point. This tech is a complete waste of electricity for a very minor convenience.
The problem I see is that you are losing 20% of your power for the sake of convenience. The last thing we need is another way to throw power away needlessly. We should be looking at ways to increase our power production and transmission efficiency.
I'd love to lose the power cords, but not at the cost of destroying the climate.
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra
They could have used an inductive coil to transfer energy. It's much cheaper! An electric toothbrush I had
used this technoilogy. I'm also designing a charge pad for a robot I am designing, simple inductive
connection. it seems like some engineers don't understand AC electricity or the work that Nikola Tesla did.
No need for expensive pads!
Wireless Keyboards, Mice, Monitors, Printers all powered from the middle of a chunk of wood. I'd buy that.
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
Have the charging pad double as a mouse pad, and the phone double as a wireless mouse. For me the key is limiting the number of devices I carry, and the amount of crap on my desk.
hawass
My toothbrush does this already...
Is a bit of a misnomer in this context. It's more appropraitely power for wireless devices is it not?
The opinions listed above reflect the positions of management, largely cause I am management.
Indeed. Why not put effort into standardizing power connectors (magnetic, or did Apple manage to patent that?). I'm all for labor-saving devices, but this is absurd.
A product which started out as a joke, which someone didn't get... Hmmm, wireless phones, wireless networks, how about wireless power! Ha!
The whole point about wireless is mobility - with this you still have to put the device in a particular place.
until this came up I had no idea how it worked:
its officially true that slashdot has a use.
educating stupid people like me.
www.tdobson.net #### Dare to Dream #### blog.tdobson.net
plastic sheets transferring power to cableless devices with cables powering plastic sheets...
There is an American company, Powercast, which is claiming to already have FCC approval for wireless power transmission.
If everything needs to be connected to a special reciever for the pad to work, then what's the point of the pad? The only way such a "Transmission Sheet" would be logical is if it could power/recharge appliances SANS adapter.
So what if you could power a laptop? Here's the current method of powering a laptop versus their way:
Current Method:
1) Plug AC adapter into appliance.
*OR*
1) Plug appliance directly into wall.
Proposed Method:
1) Plug appliance into adapter.
2) Place appliance onto pad.
3) Plug AC adapter into pad
Most people have either an AC adapter at work, at home, or both, and the AC adapter is usually left plugged into the wall all the time. Plus, with a corded AC adapter, I can walk around the room, moving between the couch, chair, table, or floor without having to unplug or find a hard surface to plug my laptop into.
A pad is just another useless pice of crap idea to get in the way. It's a fancy way of being less efficient:
1) With a pad, you would need to find a flat surface to put it on, so the pad won't slide off of the surface and the laptop won't slide off the pad, and the pad will make uniform contact with the adapter.
2) The pad will, most likely, require it's own AC adapter. Another annoying cord to get in the way.
3) The adapter will probably plug into the existing AC adapter socket on the laptop, which means that if you want to use a regular AC adapter, you would first have to detach the adapter. I suppose you could put a corded ACA socket on the pad adapter, but then you would need to get the correct voltages, polarity, and post/barrel sizes (if your laptop uses a generic post/barrel configuration), or whichever adapter type the laptop's manufacturer uses. Additionally, you would need even more adapters is you want to use the thing on a plane, and finding space for your pad is unlikely, except if you travel First Class or Business Class. What's more is that a rigid plastic pad is going to take up space, and a flexible plastic pad could get creased, torn, or otherwise damaged.
4) The pad will have to be taken EVERYWHERE you take the laptop. If you want to take the laptop anywhere, you will be balancing the laptop on the pad. This also means that flexible "Power Sheets" are impractical.
5) Expect maddeningly slow recharge times compared to current bare-contact AC adapters. lage power transmission would most likeley result in a field that could possibly damage electronic circuis contained within the appliance.
With a standard AC adapter, all you do is plug in/unplug. Easy. If you want to travel, all you do is wind up the cord and stick it in your case. Most good AC adapters have interchangeable attachments for car and air travel that take up almost no additional space. Plus, AC adapter cords stay secured to the laptop. You can also move about the room carrying just the laptop: No additional equipment.
While interesting, this idea was a massive waste of time, effort, and money, since the old, low-tech plug/unplug method is far simpler and more adaptable then this whole "Power Sheet" concept.
The reason this technology hasn't gone very far past being used in toothbrushes, RFID, Maglev, and stovetops is because it is impractical to use it anywhere else.
High Tech? Yes. Practical? Hardly. Better than current Low-Tech technology? Definitely not!
It's not cordless: The pad still requires a cord to power it. Plus a specialized adapter sill has to be plugged into the laptop/appliance.
So much for Japanese efiiciency.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
China is already going down this path:9 _334047.html
http://english.people.com.cn/200612/19/eng2006121
Hey, folks -- long-time Slashdotter here (check out my 1337 usernumber :) ), and full-time freelance writer. I don't have any inside information about the invention, just the original paper and a FAQ that the developers provided me. And of course I don't speak for Nature or the inventors. But I'm happy to respond to anyone who replies here.
--Tom Geller
http://www.tomgeller.com/
Tom Geller
The power receiver would have to do a bit of voltage conversion and regulation anyhow. No reason it can't do overvoltage protection at the same time.
So why bother having a variable-output base if the receiver needs to convert anyway? Plus, what if you toss multiple devices on the pad at the same time, each with different power requirements? This is the reason I'd want one of these, to eliminate multiple chargers.
Where did it say the output was variable?
The only thing I saw in TFA was that the power was switched off from those sections of the transmitter that didn't have a load sitting on them. This is reasonable: Thin printed conductors means resistive losses. Why waste power heating the coils where nothing is sitting there to be powered?
That doesn't in any way imply that the transmitter changes its output in some way to match the voltage requirements of the ultimate load: That's the function of the antenna and associated electronics on the load.
The transmitter system, like any other transformer or transformer-analog, will change the amount of CURRENT it pulls from ITS power source, depending on how much energy is sucked out of the field it generates. But that's inherent in the physics, not a separate bunch of equipment to perform an additional function.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
But as the devices to recharge will need to incorporate a special receiver, don't expect to see these plastic power sheets on sale before several years."
Having not yet RTFA (this *is* slashdot) I'd say that if this lack of built-in receivers is the one thing the author thinks will hold it back, he's wrong; the receiver tech should easily be built into dongles attached to standard power connectors that plug into existing devices.
Me lost me cookie at the disco.
Evanescent Wave Coupling