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Intel Claims an Advance In Wireless Power
Many readers are sending in coverage of a demo at Intel's developer forum of a wirelessly powered 60-watt bulb. The NYTimes gives background on Intel's improvement to the 'wireless resonant energy link' technology pioneered at MIT, where researchers achieved 50% efficiency of power transmitted several meters via magnetic fields. Intel reached 75% efficiency. Now they just have to make those coils a lot smaller.
With all the EMF in the average home, with AC wires in every wall and appliances always running, and as little power as a calculator or wristwatch uses, why they need batteries? It seems like a coil and a rectifier circut should be enough.
I'd probably know why if I were an electrical engineer.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
This is not a new technology but it is helpful to have refined, although the first use when the technology matures will be short range devices (1-2ft) not long range devices (10-20ft).
A4tech made a series of wireless battery free mice that use the same technology (I've been using those for about 4 years)....they were cheap pricewise too. A4tech appears to have lost their sql server/domain (at a4tech.com), so I'm linking one from a shopping site:
http://www.ecost.com/detail.aspx?edp=39484911
These types of things are actually really nice, it makes the mouse extremely lightweight as well.
However, I seem to recall people saying the wireless transmission aspects will enable to create a "charging pad" whereupon you can place any device and simply charge it without having to connect it, and thus would be the basic use - put an ipod, a phone, whatever on said pad and charge ahoy.
Nah Tesla made something better he realized wireless power was stupid but wireless power that is a weapon is smart. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17623644.800-tesla-and-tunguska.html
Nikola Tesla demonstrated wirelessly powered fluorescent lights more than 100 years ago.
Nevertheless, it would be interesting to see practical applications and commercial implementations for this old idea, and hopefully help us reduce cable clutter a bit. I just hope that accidentally resonant circuitry in the vicinity of transmitters won't suddenly fry itself and cause random fires.
You already have pulsating magnetic fields in your house. In the US, AC current is 60 hz, so you have a constant 60 hz magnetic field. That hum you hear is the oscillating magnetic field moving steel back and forth.
Your TV has a tremendous magnetic field, as do subwoofers.
The magnetic field won't hurt you. My dad was an electrical lineman for forty years, often working on the 30,000 volt towers. He couldn't wear a mechanical wristwatch because it would become magnetized. He just turned 77 and he's healthier than a lot of guys my age.
If magnetic fields caused cancer, linemen would die of lukemia right and left.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
The house wiring doesn't create much field, electric or magnetic. You would have to be right next to the wire to use it.
Magnetic - The current going out the hot wire is exactly matched by that returning on the neutral. The fields due to the two currents cancel.
Electric - The hot wire has 120 volts on it and that would create an electric field but the neutral and ground wires are right next to it. That means the field, while not completely shielded, does not go very far.
OTOH: some appliances create pretty hefty fields. CRT TVs and monitors, motors and subwoofers come to mind. As long as you're willing to sit your calculator on an old CRT TV, you should be able to power it easily. ;-)
We've already got enough wasteful energy tech "byproducts" heating the air without converting 25% of our mobile power into hot air in our homes and offices. That needs to be airconditioned away, which itself operates at something like 20% energy efficiency, so that extra 25% will cost an additional 125% in cooling power. The 75% used for charging will consume an extra 150%, so the whole affair will consume 3x the power it delivers to devices, for 33% efficiency, not 75%.
And if the chargers are on all the time, they're going to be wasting that extra energy all the time, the way wired adapter chargers do now. All those "always on" chargers use a significant percentage of the world's electric for no benefit whatsoever.
We should be working on tech that reduces these electric wastes, not multiplies them. We don't have enough energy to waste now, let alone to waste many times more.
--
make install -not war
Exactly. My design back in 1992 had zero waste when an item was not near the mat. (I invented the "charge mat" for my final thesis for my EE degree.)
I simply looked for a change in inductance to detect if a device is local for charging, if so I switched from detect to charge and pulsed back to detect every minute. Also I did not have a 25% loss, but I was only supplying 10watts. (I was charging devices not powering them.) From what I remember losses went up ad the power range went up. Plus I used simple inductance not som fancy phased power system.
Side effect, keys on the mat will get warm, floppies and zip disks erased.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
One thing that seems to be missing from the articles and discussion about this technology is a comparison to the current tech (in this case, extension cords/power strips). What is the loss that exists right now?
I'm no electrician, but as an attempt at a ballpark I looked up a voltage drop calculator at http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm, plugged in 18AWG, 6 ft cord, 120V 1 phase power (an average extension cord from what I can determine) and got a 0.33% voltage drop. I don't know if voltage drop is a good indicator of total energy loss, but my rudimentary electrical knowledge suggests it might be.
Regardless, if that figure is even remotely accurate, it means we're comparing a 25% loss to a 0.33% loss, so the technology has a quite high efficiency cost compared to the current technology.
It might be more fair to compare the new system to a "wall wart" charger system, unfortunately I don't know what the typical gauge of wire is for that application, so here's a spread of guesses, with the power also adjusted to 6V DC and 1A (a more-or-less typical "charging" load)
30AWG 14.07% voltage drop
26AWG 5.6% voltage drop
22AWG 3.2% voltage drop
Obviously, the thinner the wire the more drop, but even if we're comparing 25% loss to 2.5% loss, that's an order of magnitude better than the assumption of comparing it to an extension cord.
Anyway, please elaborate on this if you're knowledgeable about it, I'm curious now.
This is not a new technology but it is helpful to have refined, although the first use when the technology matures will be short range devices (1-2ft) not long range devices (10-20ft).
Keep in mind that there are already quite a few of these in use today. My Sonicare toothbrush has no external contacts or wires, and charges quite well in its base. Recently I discovered that it will also charge if you just stand it *next* to the base. Pretty cool tech if you ask me, I just hate the fact that I cant replace the Li batteries (which are exactly AAA size) when they fail.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order- Ed Howdershelt Via Tass
how about all manufacturors agree on a single plug for their power supplies
This doesn't even happen within a single manufacturer. Every time LG makes a new phone, for example, the charging port changes.
And guess what? They do this to make more money. When you lose (or break) your (very shittily designed) charger, you can't just go to Radioshack and buy a $7 universal one. You have to go back to the manufacturer and pay $30 to get a new one.
Even chargers based on a worldwide standard are locked out on a manufacturer basis as well. Try plugging a Blackberry USB charger into a Motorola USB charged Verizon phone. It'll read "Unauthorized Charger." Not "Incompatible," but "Unauthorized." That means that the manufacturer (and probably Verizon, because they just know you'll show up at a store to buy their overpriced replacement shit) has decided that you'll only charge your phone with equipment that they deem fit to perform the task, despite the device's adherence to a worldwide open standard.
In short, you've got a fantastic idea, but greed-driven economics dictates otherwise.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
IIRC (And I may not), he set up a big demo for the press. They all trekked up to his compound. He flipped the switch and it APPEARED to work. And a bird apparently flew into the path of the transmission and the bird just fell like a brick, as if it died instantly.
Many people speculated that it was a hoax or, if not, it was at least very dangerous.
The story goes further that when he died, the Gov't confiscated his papers. US Scientists looked everything over and concluded it to be impossible.
Then, during the cold war, US Spy imagery showed a huge complex being built in a remote location in the USSR. The military had trouble figuring out what it was. Eventually a Gov't scientist familiar w/ the Tesla work had the 'aha moment' and he pulled-out the tesla papers and sure enough, it seemed as though the Soviets were building an energy weapon of some sort.
Again, IIRC, they never were able to make it work, which is why it's not famous and in school books. But it is interesting that they TRIED and I'd love to read about that project.
(Heard all this about a year ago on a radio program by either NPR or PRI)
1: Scale that up to orbital range
2: Put a giant solar collector in orbit
3: Profit
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.
Somewhat pun intended, but to blue sky here a bit, wouldn't it be interesting if this type of technology was not limited by a few meters, but rather could be translated a much higher distance?
I am thinking of orbital solar collectors sending power earth side, to solve our power woes, with no impact.
Or even a step farther, set up solar power generating stations on the moon to the same effect. Now I guess this technology uses magnetic fields to transport the power, so perhaps earths natural field may muck that up, also delivering accurately to a very small area on earth might also be rather hard to do.
Anyway interesting food for thought, if only for science fiction.
Actually, these days physicists commonly think that Tesla was actually trying to use the (relatively static) magnetic field of the earth as a carrier for pulsed power. This turns out to be not quite as far fetched as it seemed at the time, and may actually be feasible.
Much like the difference between AC and DC current in copper (AC is significantly more effective because it essentially vibrates electrons back and forth rather then sending them all the way along the conductive medium from source to target), theoretically one could 'ring' the magnetic field of the earth with a large enough installation and appropriate frequency controls, and local power stations could use that 'ring' or oscillation to do work.
Much like how the AC power grid works today, except you are using the earths magnetic field to transfer energy between remote locations rather than our power grid, which is essentially a huge network of copper wires.
So it is not at all clear that what stopped Tesla was actually the laws of physics, it could have been any number of things and the basic idea may actually be sound.
These days if anyone is playing around with trying to manipulate the earths magnetic field, even for altruistic goals, i hope they think about the potential seen and unforeseen side effects. Which despite his genius Tesla clearly did not generally do. No one really knows as yet (to my knowledge, anyway) what the long term effects are of exposure to large and/or rapidly fluctuating magnetic fields. Heck, we still dont know what the real biological effects are of various electrical fields.
Upshot: not at all clear that Tesla's scheme to implement wireless power on an extremely large scale was stopped by the laws of physics - the possibility of something similar to his designs being able to accomplish some part of his goals still appears to be a real potential.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Sure you can - meet Mr. Dremel Tool. Use one of those nice, thin cutting disks and cut the bottom out (or the side on some of the newer ones). Replace the battery. Seal using weatherstripping cement or similar.
For extra credit, attach a mini web server to it and have it start a conversation with your toaster.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Edison was not a hacker. Tesla was brilliant but could not see the limitations in his own work (which is not always a liability). Everything I have seen so far in wireless power is nothing more than I demonstrated in my basic physics classes - just with better efficiency.
PinkyGigglebrain posting as AC because I'm at work and don't remember my password at the moment.
As a Hacker I am trying not to feel insulted. Edison wasn't a "Hacker" in any sense of the word. He didn't do something just to see what would happen or if he could do it. Edison was a business man who would only work on something if he could make money from it.
In regard to the gp, it wasn't physics that stopped Tesla's energy transmission research, it was people like J.P. Morgan pulling the financing because they where making money from selling electricity sent through wires and didn't want Tesla to rock their boat with "free energy you can pull from the air".
Tesla was not just a visionary, and a pure Hacker, he was a Creator. His ideas where so far beyond what his contemporaries could imagine that most of his work was ignored, try looking up "Tesla Turbine" on utube, 70% efficiency but so "out there" in its simplicity that the engineers I know think its a joke until they see it working.
People like Edison could only build on what others had already done, the light bulb existed for years before he made it commercially viable, dito for the phonograph and movie projector.
I fully concur with the parents post about Tesla being one of the most important men in history. At the very least he was the greatest Hacker/Creator/Visionary of the 19th, 20th and 21st (so far, we NEED someone like him right now).
"Inner workings of the universe at an intuitive level" What a stupid statement.
Except that it wasn't. You have an understanding of the universe based on a bunch of abstract systems that were spoon fed to you. This guy figured it out by looking at the world with wide eyes, understanding it, then putting that understanding into practice.
To quote PBS on the subject, contrasting Tesla with Edison:
That's where the similarity ended. Tesla relied on moments of inspiration, perceiving the invention in his brain in precise detail before moving to the construction stage. Edison was a trial and error man who described invention as five percent inspiration and 95 percent perspiration.
The man understood things by creating a model of the universe in his head and achieving a Gestalt moment, where he saw the coherence of everything and the consequences that implied. This is very different from how most people think, and is a big part of the reason why he has a cult following among those who see those qualities to some degree or another within themselves.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth