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MS Design Lets You Put Batteries In Any Way You Want
jangel writes "While its strategy for mobile devices might be a mess, Microsoft has announced something we'll all benefit from. The company's patented design for battery contacts will allow users of portable devices — digital cameras, flashlights, remote controls, toys, you name it — to insert their batteries in any direction. Compatible with AA and AAA cells, among others, the 'InstaLoad' technology does not require special electronics or circuitry, the company claims."
Not Prior Art if it uses electronics, diodes etc. This is purely mechanical. I think it's the most brilliant thing Microsoft has ever come up with. Patent worthy? Quite possibly in my mind.
Thats one of lifes great problems solved. Any chance they can work on Windows stability next?
Bob.
Scotty will turn in his grave. MS killed the hyperdrive fix.
They even made a logo for it. http://www.windowsfordevices.com/images/stories/microsoft_instaload_logo.jpg
Neat but not buzzword or logo worthy.
For once, we're hearing about an authentically clever, afaik new physical design which solves a real problem and is actually sanely applicable to be patented. I wasn't expecting that when I clicked on this story. Gotta hand it to Microsoft for this one.
So, since Microsoft designed it, if the battery-powered device does not work anymore, we can fix it by simply removing the batteries and inserting them again...
I suggest you learn a bit more about electronics. Diodes have a voltage drop, 0.7V for normal diodes, schottky diodes go as low as 0.2V, but that's still a lot if you get only 1.2V to 1.5V from your battery.
And the summery clearly states that it is without circuitry. Which is not that hard to imagine if you LATFPITFA.
You guessed wrong, just like nearly everyone else above you.
I did the unthinkable and read TFA. They are not trying to patent the diode, they came up with a completely stupidly simple *mechanical* system which really allows to put the batteries in any direction you want without checking the polarity. it's one of the "so simple anybody could have thought of it" patents, and I must confess that I am actually impressed by its simplicity.
For once I must say "well done, Microsoft" (sadly I'm not really anticipating repeating that sentence all too often)
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
Wrong, actually. It has two separate contacts at each end--the positive "blip" will touch one contact, the negative pad will touch the other. If it works reliably, that's pretty neat.
Sometimes, I like to RTFA, just for the novelty.
It's actually not a diode, but rather new battery contacts that only make contact with either the positive or negative connection at either end (but not both). Simple, nothing new required but wiring and these new connectors, and nothing to get in the way of the function of the device. I'm actually mildly impressed.
Sometimes the stuff you learn in basic electronics can be really useful. In this case though it just made you look like a dick. RTFA.
Now if only someone could invent something that would stop my wife putting non-rechargable batteries in my charger and blowing them up. She said it was an accident... I just think she likes the explosions.
This is specifically for battery compartments with a physical parallel configuration, rather than a series configuration.
( 'physical configuration' as in the batteries laying side-by-side, rather than end-to-end, so the batteries' poles never directly touch eachother; unrelated to the electrical circuitry's configuration )
I'm trying to recall the last time I've seen a physical series configuration; but I just realized my old-ass flashlight counts as one.
( it's been replaced years ago by a proper wind-up for emergency cases and a decent Maglite-like one with a rechargable set for more frequent/high intensity beam use )
I think you should first analyze how the diode bridge works. FYI, it fixes polarity of DC input just fine.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I have to say it again. This is the most brilliant invention Microsoft has ever come up with. It fixes an every day niggle that every one has just accepted for decades. It's dead obvious but no one thought of it before (I assume so far). Perfect candidate for a patent. And for all those who don't read articles: No it does not uses diodes, it's purely mechanical therefore does not drop any battery voltage or waste power like a bridge would. It's probably as cheap to make as regular battery contacts. Just hope it is as reliable as normal contacts. Brilliant I say. Well done Microsoft. I always thought you had some innovation in you somewhere.
to be fair to microsoft, ive not seen many electronic devices where you didnt have to put a battery in in a certain way. indeed, the fact that this is probably trivially implementable, yet had yet to be implemented, means i think microsoft is more deserving of this patent, cause others are less deserving, as they didnt bother to implement it.
Do not do it serially. Keep in mind that you can design with batteries in parallel fashion, and then connect the batteries serially logically. The funny thing is, that I DID think about this 3 years ago. For the last 3 years, I have been putting loads of batteries in kids toys and some of them just plained sux to put batteries in.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
".... something we'll all benefit from. The company's patented design ...."
Something's wrong there.
".... something MICROSOFT will benefit from. The company's patented design ..."
There. Fixed it for you.
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
If you would have bothered to read the article, you'd have noticed that this is a mechanical solution not involving diodes.
Let's say it use 2 batteries and the user place them like this
[- +}{+ -]
Well... doesn't look like it's going to work...
Just when Microsoft thought they'd built the ultimate idiot proof device, nature comes along with a better idiot.
To be fair though, those sort of devices are less common, and it's easier to spot when you've got it wrong (two batteries nose to nose or tail to tail is more obviously wrong than a single battery in backwards).
I think this is a nice feature. What also surprised me as pretty cool: My Logitech mouse operates with two AA batteries, but if you want to reduce the weight, it works with only one. Great!
Microsoft has invented the diode? Thank goodness for that, I don't think electronics could progress any further without it.
If you insist on thinking of it as a diode, then it's a diode with a voltage drop of 0, which is pretty impressive!
I remember *some* devices that, instead of the cheap flat plate (positive contact) and spring (negative contact) configuration, had the housing built in such a manner that for the negative plate (which was semi-springy) it was full width, while for the positive plate it was shielded by the housing to just slightly over the width of the protruding positive contact of the AA/AAA battery.
That way, the battery could only be inserted one way. It solves the same big problem of inserting batteries the wrong way around and either the device not working, or worse.
It doesn't solve the "I wish I could put the battery either which way around so I don't have to use my square-peg-in-round-hole 18-month-old brain" problem, though - and it's still a fairly clever design. Now to see how well it holds up in mass production where tolerances of fitting such things in the housings are often seen as +-2mm and everything moves, twists and turns.
What about a battery that does not fit if it's inserted the wrong way? By the age of 3 we all learn to put pegs in the holes of the right shape, so it should be user-friendly enough. Let me just patent it before Microsoft will...
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
Heh.. my Microsoft wireless keyboard takes in batteries in physical series.. Guess they'd have to rework that one
Well when reading the news item as in "no electronics needed" how many people on Slashdot came up with the same idea in their head before reading the article? It's rather obvious how it could be done but yeah, many patentable things are. I just think it's sad people can patent such crap/simple stuff. Especially since many others could come up with a very similar product from just wanting to solve the same problem, and the patent would most likely cover that solution to.
I assume there's a reason it's not used already. Such as: It's not that hard to put the battery in correctly in the first place and maybe the connectors worn out faster / get bent more easily / touches by accident/moist/..
Well if you put it together like that, you are correct. However if you'll read the article you'll notice that the battery cradles are
[ ]
[ ]
instead of [ ][ ]
And the terminal contacts as well as the internal circuitry will sort it out.
It's a nice idea and makes life simple, especially for the people who are baffled by the battery diagrams.
-- Wiccan Army, 13th Airborne Division "We will not fly silently into the night"
Their hardware design works on batteries that have something in common. Batteries where plus contact is higher and minus is flat. Circuit has contacts for both in all locations. No matter how you put your battery minus contact on circuit never touches plus contact on battery and plus contact does not touch battery's minus. Everything else is wiring. It might be compatible with AA and AAA, but it is definitely not compatible with button cells.
You must be new here. This is Slashdot, and physics laws do not apply here.
Users will be looking at these abiguos contacs and not be able to figure out which way to insert their batteries.
(No it doesn't help that any way will do if the user doesn't know it.)
FRA: STFU GTFO
No. No, they REALLY did not.
Note: if a question actually has multiple possible answers, it's not rhetorical.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Which is weird since even the Slashdot news item specifically says:
the 'InstaLoad' technology does not require special electronics or circuitry
Guess even reading the news item before posting isn't obligatory longer.
Headlines 'ought to be enough for everyone!
diode battery isolation while "lossy" is a far better idea from a practical standpoint this idea is just silly - I agree after getting some dirt, moisture, a corroded battery it will be far less reliable - plus many devices need more than two batteries in series which means complicated additional wiring (to handle all the possible cases of screwed up batteries) - I just don't see it as practical in any way, in fact its ridiculous
Not only that, they patented an inferior alternative.
Diode bridges are near useless for dealing with individual AA or similar cells. In a bridge the power must go through two diodes. Assuming a drop of 0.2V per diode (which is pretty good) then on a nimh cell you'd be throwing away a third of your voltage just on the diodes.
This thing is mechanical, and looks to be designed with very tight tolerances.
mmm, I can see reliability being a problem with this design. Compatibility with the various brands of batteries that can be subtyly different shapes my be a problem too.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
...that someone who is too stupid to put a battery in the correct way round probably shouldn't be using an electronic device in the first place?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Sometimes, I like to RTFA, just for the novelty.
I'll start once they give out free shirts for everyone doing so :)
I'm actually mildly impressed.
There's probably both a positive and negative side to the design.
They didn't 'come up with' it, they re-invented it. I recall some of my childhood toys from the 80's that used this very concept. And, rtfa? wtf? asif.
I didn't really believe that Microsoft had patented the bridge rectifier.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Most devices that require more than two batteries use a series-parallel configuration for space reasons. Usually, it's two and two. For example, my universal remote, my first-generation Apple wireless keyboard, etc.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
It doesn't require complicated addition wiring - each cell will have one +ve and one -ve output in total, which can be wired in series as you see fit.
Microsoft has announced something we'll all benefit from. The company's patented... uhhh... Come again?
more obviously wrong ?
are you some kind of anti-gay righteous activist ?
You should just say "out-of-spec RadioShack batteries".
No need to be coy.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Well when reading the news item as in "no electronics needed" how many people on Slashdot came up with the same idea in their head before reading the article?
I personally found the idea quite obvious _after_ reading the article, but it never, ever occurred to me before, even though it is an obvious thing to want. Further, I don't think the patent was rewarded for the abstract idea of creating mechanical connections that work correctly with a battery plugged in either way, but for the actual implementation, which is likely not trivial. If it was as obvious as you think, why has no camera maker implemented it before? What about the slightly easier "put a picture somewhere that makes it really obvious which is the right way"? Even that is not commonly implemented.
You're right, but still, what happens usually is that you have two compartments side by side (either holes or slots) and then a wire connecting two batteries next to each other.
And that 'wire' is placed usually in a space constrained place (like a lid, in digital cameras)
how long until
I did as soon as I read the news item.
I just hadn't identified the problem yet ...
Once you think "How could I make it possible to connect to this battery no matter what position it's in?" the solution is easy to come up with.
What you are saying, reminds me of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus
...for version 1.1 thanks.
Don't think of this as physical placement, but logical placement.
You can do this in a remote even though the batteries are side by side and if their connection is serial or parallel is irrelevant (ok, if it's parallel it will probably go out in smoke if you place them wrong, still)
how long until
And before he starts to think about doing it parallell: It would be even easier.
... they won't only have to continue to teach users what the "any key" is, now they can teach generations of users how to put batteries in, all over again.
Remember, kids: it *always* a good thing if there's more than one way to do something; indeed, the more ways there is to do something, the better (*).
I always appreciate devices that treat me like an idiot, and attempt to do my thinking for me. I'm looking forward to my first device that is missing the [+] and [-] signs in the battery bay, because hey, it says there right on the box that I threw away half a year ago that the batteries can go in any which way. Duh.
(*) alert: sarcasm
yes, we have no bananas
A problem? I think you mean a golden opportunity!
For only 50-100% more than you have been paying for your misshapen generics, Microsoft's battery partners are proud to announce their new line of Premium Dimensionally Certified(tm) batteries: "Because that widget was expensive, and you wouldn't want something to happen."
... how long until someone FINDS a way of putting in the batteries where it STILL doesn't work? Smart money says about 30 seconds.
There certainly seems to be a polarised reaction from the Slashdot crowd.
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
you know, the MAIN business you actually were involved with ? the main business you have been screwing up with, while screwing with a lot of other fields ?
Read radical news here
I can see how this works with the mechanical differences of each end of a battery, but I'm not sure how this system will age. With the current treatment of battery terminals you eventually get to the point of having to bend the tabs in order to get good battery contact. As a mechanical solution this type of failure mode will also occur with the MS solution. However before if gets to that point I can see that there is a new failure mode that can occur. With just enough bending I can see the end cap of a battery potentially shorting out the positive and negative terminals. What this short circuit does to the remaining batteries in the system will be interesting in the least.
Trivia fact - Duracell makes disposable AA batteries in the US and their plant is rated for at least (pinky to mouth) 1.8 Billion batteries per year
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Perhaps Apple should patent their 'batteries not changeable by yourself because you are morons' system too.
So will we see the BSOD... Wait or is it Blue Light of Death?
never wired anything before huh - if its a 6 battery setup it will take twelve individual circuits (wires) to enable this "clever" solution - if those are wires you have to put them somewhere in the device, same for a circuit board - in a standard batter setup the contacts serve that function but don't have to span the length of the battery or the entire series combination of batteries
This will be a patented technology that will simply be ignored. I'll admit that on occasion I find it cumbersome to get the batteries in right, but for crying out loud! This is ridiculous.
Life needs these little challenges. Let's put it this way: it is well known that people who retire to a life of leisure don't typically live long after working their whole lives. When people stop using their muscles, their bodies turn to mush. And when things are too easy, people stop thinking as much and their minds turn to mush. Life without challenges is life that won't live long.
Okay, so that's the big picture. The smaller picture is where this stupid battery invention comes in.
And besides that, this only works with those types of cells. How about those coin and button cells that typically stack on one another to produce the voltage to power a TTL device? And beyond that, batteries have apparently, in spite of my personal resistance and preaching to the contrary, have gone to being non-removable for all of the most important and expensive devices. Where does this fit in any more? In wireless mice and remote controls? That's just about it these days.
If it works reliably, that's pretty neat.
It won't. There've been battery holders that locked out incorrect installation for years, but if the positive bump on the cell isn't long enough, or is too wide, it doesn't work. Unfortunately, it's rechargeable cells that tend to fudge the size specifications.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
What's a CR123 battery and if it's so popular why have I never heard of it?
more obviously wrong ?
are you some kind of anti-gay righteous activist ?
What sort of contraption do you have in your possession that is fueled by gay people? A 'fabulous' one I would guess.
ok, if it's parallel it will probably go out in smoke if you place them wrong, still
Nope. Even parallel using Microsoft's invention will still work. If the batteries were in parallel (a stupid design but they do exist) but one was incorrectly inserted this new connection would still wire them correctly.
Indeed. There is prior art on this, dating several decades back. They may have a patent on specifics (such as insulation etc), but the idea of having two connectors at different deph is a really old one.
If I remember correctly, toy makers dropped the tech because it didn't handle shocks from being dropped well, and there were some insulation problems as the battery compartment aged. Old age circutry tended to cost more too, and having it die because of short-circuit was just not cost effective.
...but I just realized my old-ass flashlight counts as one.
( it's been replaced years ago by a proper wind-up for emergency cases and a decent Maglite-like one with a rechargable set for more frequent/high intensity beam use )
Thanks a lot
no its universally silly, whether it had come from Sony, Apple, or Ronco - the other complication I see is that this will require each battery to have its own separate contacts (you cannot do direct battery to battery connection) this WILL make the device larger to accommodate the special patented contacts, in essence the space allocated for batteries just got bigger
Some just put out + and -, some others have a picture of the battery but molded into the plastic where it's not easy to see, some better have paper strips or something such.
But as said I just think people have accepted it and not starting thinking about / looking for a solution, as with many other popular simple items in your daily life. For instance atleast here in Sweden we've got those plastic scrapes to pick up the crap from the dish sink, and before someone invented that simple plastic scrape with holes in it people used their hands or a piece of household paper. Very simple and very comfortable vs using your hands or waste a lot of paper, but before doing that seemed like the obvious and normal things to do and most likely people didn't thought about it much ..
Now Microsoft had added the insulator part which atleast make it more reliable, if one had only cut two pieces of metallic then I assume it would had been easier for them to screw up than with a piece of insulator in between. Without the insulator / as a more simply and less refined design I assume it may have lost quite a bit in reliability for especially smaller batteries such as R03/AAA.
>And Sun Tzu also Said
It's Oracle Tzu now and it's not a strategic product anymore, you insensitive clod!
A Wheatstone bridge would suck in that type of application, as a standard diode comes with a .7 V voltage drop.
A standard AA battery delivers only 1.5 volt. You're then left with 0.1 volt per battery.
Well, let me be the first to suggest them to stick it up theirs!
But seriously: simple elegant idea, almost too good to believe it hasn't been invented before, and in fact it has... nothing to see here please move along.
Also, it's not even called a Wheatstone bridge, which is a measuring device. I think the term we're looking for is diode bridge.
As far as you know there's part which haven't been explored yet exploring may be quite simple, though eventually more challenging in his days in case navigation wasn't fool-proof yet.
To actually imagine that there may be parts missing / not accept the world as you see it / others know it is as the end of it all and finally have the courage to travel into the unknown most likely required someone special.
I wouldn't mock explorers, though once you knew the earth was spherical and that you where missing pieces and where you missed them on your maps it must have become much easier than before, especially if all you had to rely on was relative placement of areas and your perspective was flat.
Anyway, many solutions are seen as brilliant/simple/"why didn't I came up with that", in this case though I think the solution was easy to come up with, maybe not the insulator part but the middle piece vs outer piece design, but as with all similar products the real thinking goes into identifying a problem needing a solution vs just accepting and seeing everything as it already is.
+/- 2mm? Luxury!
Lemme know when you're doing machine work and need 1/1000ths of an inch (~25.4 m for the fraction/imperial impaired)
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
No. I'm not the original poster in this thread. I just stated AC has nothing to do with diode bridge working or not. The same voltage drop occurs in AC. The voltage drop may be unacceptable in certain scenarios, desired in others. 0.2V is often negligible. If your circuit is voltage-regulated, the initial drop will occur anyway so you can integrate the bridge circuit just as well - and voltage regulation is very often necessary.
No, you try to be snarky but you prove you have no clue over and again.
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that should read ~25.4micrometers.. the stupid Mu symbol didn't show up in that post..
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
This is done exactly the way I would have done it - it's a fairly obvious extension to the standard way of preventing an incorrectly inserted battery doing any harm by "hiding" the positive connector.
My bigger question would be how they avoid momentary (or longer) shorts to the battery as you are inserting it.
It doesn't look too difficult to get both the -ve and +ve poles touching the "-ve" connector and a naive wiring would have these connected together.
With the standard battery compartment with the "hidden" +ve connector it's hard to do any harm. Worst that happens is that the device just does not work.
Tim.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
The very fact that the solution is so easy and yet nobody's done it before should be proof enough that it's a solution without a problem. People are perfectly fine with getting the batteries the right way around. I guess the fact that they came up with a "trendy" name for it will mean it'll be in all cameras (making them more expensive for no real benefit) by this time next year though.
Unfortunately, the conducting diodes in a bridge rectifier knock 0.7v off the available voltage (assuming Silicon diodes) which makes using them for individual 1.2v cells (assuming NiMH rechargeables) a bit problematic.
Well, it could turn out that some portable radio maker in Dubuque actually did this in 1947 before the bookkeeper and the receptionist ran off with all the cash and put the company into receivership, but if it's mechanical and there is no prior art, I agree. I'm not generally a fan of patents as they seem usually to be privatization of the obvious, theft of the work of others, or attempts to monopolize natural phenomena. But in this case, it certainly is not obvious how to mechanically reverse polarity of batteries. If it were, everyone would be doing it.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
There are lots of inventions that seem obvious in retrospect but which greatly improve one's daily life (the sink things from your example). Then there are inventions that are obvious but do little other than to add to the production cost. I guess if you're a professional photographer or something this might be useful (although I think a lot of pros use those battery caddies pre-loaded so they don't need to think about this anyway), but for the average person who might use their camera three or four times a year and their camera phone the rest, I think they'd rather have a cheaper product where you just visually look which way the batteries go (I know I would). I can't really think of a battery hungry device other than a camera where this would be useful these days - most things either require battery changes so infrequently (remote controls, etc) that it's not worth increasing the cost/complexity to save a couple seconds every couple of years, or else they're using cell batteries and generally get recharged without the battery being removed (mobile phones, laptops, etc). Maybe torches are one example where it would be nice to not have to put the batteries the right way around (since the point you reach for one is likely when the lights have gone out).
When I read what the 'invention' does, my first thought was that I had never regarded getting the batteries in in the right direction as being a significant problem. My second thought was to imagine how I would solve that problem if I were going to worry about it. I immediately realized that there must be both positive and negative terminals at both ends of the compartment for each cell. I also realized that this could be made to work because the positive terminal on these types of cells protrudes. I imagined an annular negative terminal surrounding a slightly depressed positive contact in the middle. This would work and it is very similar to what MS claims to have 'invented'. I don't think I thought about it for more than ten seconds. I claim that the solution fails to pass the obviousness test. What had apparently not been so obvious was that there was any significant problem in the first place.
The truth is, it would be cheaper for most manufacturers just to spend a little bit more on tooling and do a decent job, and it would then not be necessary to have a relatively complicated bit of metal, 4 times. This is a BMW solution to a Ford problem.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
no. http://www.letsgodigital.org/images/producten/2210/testrapport/nikon-d3000-battery.jpg
I don't see any resistance to this device.
What, did you just get the first-post add-on for Opera?
[back on topic]
This mechanical battery solution is interesting but the main problem is that it becomes VERY HARD to take your batteries out again without a ribbon or some physical eject mechanism. The big advantage of the current battery holders is that the spring on the negative terminal end gives you just enough "give" to pop the battery back out. Of course this morning I filed a provisional patent to fix this battery removal issue. And it's a purely digital solution.
So reality TV has a sibling. If you're too stupid to put batteries in correctly you probably shouldn't be breathing.
I wonder what this "solution" cost? If I were a shareholder I would be pretty PO'd about this waste of money.
Do we really want to make life easier for the people who are baffled by battery diagrams? Natural selection has a lot going for it.
How could I make it possible to connect to this battery no matter what position it's in?
This is still not the solution to that problem. Unless the batteries end up being perfect cubes, I'm still restricted to putting the batteries in lengthwise. For each battery this increases my orientation possibilities to two from one. Nothing more.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Sure the idea is cute but in these applications I don't really see how it is going to make this a must have for most. If they came up with an application where the batteries could have been tube loaded by just jamming batteries in to the device that would be awesome for mag lights and such but when the entire compartment is already open most people are already trained to look at the orientation diagram. So if your average Jane consumer sees two similar devices but on costs more because they can put batteries upside down would they pay for that ability or take the difference in price and just buy more batteries? Overall I think it's really clever as a marketing move mainly because more and more various electronics will have some sort of Microsoft tag on it. Now mr average consumer will see Microsoft on everything and it will either give additional credibility to a poorly designed product or increased credibility to Microsoft on a well designed product, neither of which really have anything to do with Microsoft's contribution to the design, they just find a clever way of going along for the ride.
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
Indeed. I looked at the pictures in TFA (read it, you're kidding right?) and found myself thinking, "What was that thing I had when I was a kid that had contacts that looked like that?"
You're right about mentioning tolerances because batteries need to be held tightly in place hence the spring, however the spring is also to take into account that batteries are not manufactured to tight tolerances themselves and I've personally have experienced problems in certain devices with batteries not fitting easily due to being slightly longer.
Maybe they are using some kind of foam like material instead of a spring but I just can't see how this can be as robust.
If it had come from Apple, there would be Nobel nominations.
Apple would never invent something this stupid.
Microns? Luxury! Let me know when you're making telescope lenses and need 10-nm precision.
"Look at the fucking picture in the fucking article."?
People are perfectly fine with getting the batteries the right way around.
Actually no. My dad developed Alzheimers and I remember how he was so frustrated over the phone because he couldn't even get the batteries in correctly into a flashlight.
Though, yes, a special case, and the Alzheimers itself was a much bigger problem :/
And yes, a lot of the frustration most likely came from it being such a simple task which he knew he normally would had been able to manage so easily and now he couldn't.
Cameras with NiMH/regular batteries become rarer and rarer, almost all of them use lithium-ion.
And I think Canon think pressing a + sign into the metallic piece work good enough for the few cameras which actually use regular batteries.
Note: if a question actually has multiple possible answers, it's not rhetorical.
If a question is meant to illustrate a point or accomplish rhetorical goals, the question is Rhetorical.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric
The number of possible answers to a question has absolutely nothing to do with how rhetorical it is. Rhetorical questions are often asked in a way that doesn't expect an answer, but that quality of a question is distinctive from it rhetorical value.
Like most of /. I expected "ho-hum, something with diodes, how do they handle the voltage drop". Also like most of /. I didn't make myself look like a total mucking foron by posting crap like that without even so much as a quick look at TFA.
I'm surprised nobody came up with it years ago, especially since I've seen so many battery compartments in rechargers designed to merely not work when a battery was inserted backwards. You still have to put both batteries in the same direction if you have more than one end-to-end, but this is really pretty damn clever.
Of course it may turn out that after five years of heavy use it wears out or something, but that's no reason for someone not to have patented it long ago.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
LATFPITFA?
This is a total shot in the dark but I think it's "look at the first paragraph (or picture) in the fucking article".
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Except diodes have a foward voltage drop almost as high as a 1.1V battery, so now it would take an extra 2 batteries for a 4 cell device using your "trivial" design.
Besides, no one uses diodes anymore for rectification - that's what fets are for!
Ah, but this is from Microsoft, so "planned obsolence" is a feature, not an obstacle.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
That is SO useful! How can people be expected to look at a simple instruction diagram to find out which way to slot a battery into a gadget?
The marker is actually there, but it is difficult to find. I know that I had to look quite carefully before I noticed it.
I chose to end my comments, not with a rim shot, but a long decaying F#7sus4
If you put both terminals of the battery on the same end then, like a 9 volt battery, you risk shorting them accidentally. That's why 9v batteries come in individual packages and usually have a plastic protector over the top. I buy AA batteries in bulk and keep them jumbled in big ziplocks. I'd worry about these new ownes shorting together.
The other thing is, How can you use these batteries in an end-to-end configuration rather than parallel?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Spot on.
Microsoft has announced something we'll all benefit from. The company's patented design
It seems someone doesn't know how patents work. Or thinks "everyone" is Apple/Microsoft/Nokia and their consumers.
... in practice the major battery-related failure more isn't reverse polarity but failed (or poor) contact due to corrosion, moisture, physical breakage, leaky batteries, low-quality construction, ... . What this is doing is making an already fault-prone design even more fault-prone by adding finicky details to the contacts. It's a nice idea in theory, but I can't see it taking the world by storm.
Ok... enough of that rant...
I can think of a couple reasons. First is that with increasing battery capability it's getting more dangerous to put both contacts that close together. Think bent or damaged contact shorting out a lithium battery in your pocket. But the biggest reason is one everyone can understand - Cost. There are 4 contacts in this design instead of 2 along with whatever is needed to bring both polarities to both ends. Think about how flashlights often use the case as a conductor just to eliminate a simple piece of wire. Add on top of the parts cost a fee to the patent holder and poof - it can't be used in small toys. Throw in the potential fire hazard for high end devices and it's just not looking that great. Does it work? Yes (probably). Is it a practical solution to a real problem? No.
never wired anything before huh - if its a 6 battery setup it will take twelve individual circuits (wires) to enable this "clever" solution - if those are wires you have to put them somewhere in the device, same for a circuit board - in a standard batter setup the contacts serve that function but don't have to span the length of the battery or the entire series combination of batteries
Easy. Design each holder to present only one V+ and V- contact. There are no additional wires, just slightly longer wires that connect on both ends of each battery. Wire is trivially cheap, and this wiring can be trivially simple, easy, and out of the way. Batteries are cylinders, so the enclosure has extra space between the round battery and flat circuit board. Just run the two wires (OMG hard!!!) in that space. QED.
And 12 additional wires are not 12 additional 'circuits'. A circuit requires a return path.
If it's parallel, it's even easier, as you just connect all the V+ together and all the V- together. Even easier on a PCB, since the power is carried on entire layers of the board, so no additional wiring is needed.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
If a question is meant to illustrate a point or accomplish rhetorical goals, the question is Rhetorical.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric
The number of possible answers to a question has absolutely nothing to do with how rhetorical it is. Rhetorical questions are often asked in a way that doesn't expect an answer, but that quality of a question is distinctive from it rhetorical value.
Geez. Could you be anymore pedantic?!
:-P
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
You can nearly eliminate the voltage drop with MOSFETs.
I think the genius here is not actually the mechanism but simply the fact that someone finally thought that "hey there is a niggle here that should be fixed" unlike the rest of the world that just lived with it assuming that's how life is. After realizing a solvable problem exists the solution may be trivial. As some have said here. Best idea Microsoft ever had, just for that, even if it does not work out in practice.
If you`re such an idiot that you can`t put batteries in correctly......
The obvious next step would be to put a little microswitch in... If you push it in, it's the positive end. If you don't it's the negative end.
Do I win a hero biscuit??????
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
What about when, for example, you're out of AA batteries and need device X to work NOW, but you happen to have some AAAs handy, so you use those instead and jam a wad of aluminum foil into the extra space? Doesn't sound like that would still work with this design.
Now a gizmo that lets you use any size battery as well as in any direction - now we're talking!
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
And then how do you eliminate the cost increase?
Plus ... people won't be able to flip one of the batteries around for storage of electronic things without the batteries leaking.
No sig today...
So the cylinders will stick out sideways and toast your shins?
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
We all know this isn't going to work until the third version, anyway. :-)
Or perhaps someone had thought of it, and found that different batteries from different manufacturers with different nipples and dimples on the ends rendered their contact design unreliable across different battery brands.
I've seen similar mechanical solutions before and they had the problem you stated. IIRC it was in portable vacuum tube radios that had a seperate bias battery. (1950s)
Then why isn't there a patent already on it? How long have we all have to deal with this (granted, "small") problem? I don't see any electronic devices that have it solved now. Sometimes the patent doesn't need to be so complex no one else would be able to invent it. It's really a matter of getting the idea in the first place.
Yes, I also instantly saw the correct answer before reading the article. In fact, I even missed the sentence about not using diodes.
I knew about voltage drops.It was the single fact that the problem had been solved (patented) that made me think about it again in a different light.
It's interesting that when the first solution that comes to mind (diodes) doesn't work (voltage drop) then it blocks our problem solving process from finding other solutions.
I deal with this daily in my work; I try to come up with Holistic solutions to problems that have been traditionally (and in vain) attacked using the much more common Reductionist (model based) methods.
I think you're putting a little too much faith in the explosive power of AA cells. We're talking 'pffft' here, not 'KABOOM'.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Of course this morning I filed a provisional patent to fix this battery removal issue. And it's a purely digital solution
A fingernail?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I think the solution I came up with when I read the summary is mechanically simpler, so I wonder if I can get a patent too...
Actually, the first thing I thought of was Jef Raskin's cable connector. It's a real shame that horrible designs like the USB connector(s) were adopted instead.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
But MS knows their user-base. I think, this solves a real-live problem for them. Now, if they could only make the cup holder on my PC a little bit more sturdier...
Someone invented it before: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5431575.html (1995)
I think it's the most brilliant thing Microsoft has ever come up with.
I'm sure the implementation is fairly clever... But to what end? Microsoft gets enough bashing as it is, but I find this bit of technology almost insulting. People are supposed to be too dumb to figure out what direction a battery ought to go in? Is this really going to be less expensive than the little + and - symbols we have now?
Mind the frickin' laser...
If you have one bucket that contains 2 gallons and another bucket that contains 7 gallons, how many buckets do you have?
And here is a problem with the patent system. I read the headline, spent ten seconds thinking of a solution, clicked on the article, and discovered that my solution was different to the Microsoft one (and, I think, mechanically slightly simpler, but I'm not completely sure). People could make my version without paying Microsoft anything, even though they've done the difficult bit (noticing that it's a problem).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I assume this technology will require a parallel battery holder, and not a serial one like you describe.
This was the only thing hampering my mentally handicapped paraplegic monkey from using these devices!
*DrugCheese rants*
With this system it is impossible to connect multiple batteries in series. They all have to be in parallel. This has negative implications if there is a difference in voltage between two cells unless they are all isolated through a diode (efficiency loss). With common cells this limits applications to the 1.2V-1.5V range and necessitates the use of a DC-DC converter to step up the voltage for any semiconductor based electronics (more efficiency loss).
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
The "button" on the end of the battery contacts the positive contact and physically lifts or disconnects the negative one. If they got a patent for simple tricks like that, I'm going to lose all faith I have in the patent office.
Consider a terminal consisting of three strips, the center one being springy and not hardwired to the outer two. The outer two are insulated from contact with the battery. When the strips are near their relaxed position, the center one contacts some protrusions on the outer two. Put a battery in and the button on the positive side pushes the center strip out of contact with the outer strips and into the positive connection. The negative connection is hardwired to the outer strips on both sides; the flat terminal on the negative side is insufficient to push the center strip away from the outer strips.
I don't see how this would work for inserting the batteries in any direction. It looks like it is limited to two directions only. It won't handle batteries that are put in perpendicular for example.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Won't work if the battery compartment, for a long device, is designed to have two batteries in direct series contact. However you could put two of these "devices" in between, but it would add to the length, at least 0.5" or so...
Also this won't work for many cells, even "AA" or "AAA" where the positive nib is flatter than the conventional Duracell (common with rechargeables), since this "invention" completely depends on the shape and extent of rise of the positive nib.
This is either a bunch of diodes or a horrible case of over engineering. Seriously it's not hard to do this, it's just stupid to waste money on more complicated contacts when you can simply stamp a small picture into the device to show how batteries are supposed to be aligned.
Not Prior Art if it uses electronics, diodes etc. This is purely mechanical.
I think it's the most brilliant thing Microsoft has ever come up with.
Patent worthy? Quite possibly in my mind.
I am not so sure. Isn't the requirement that the solution not be obvious to a practitioner of average skills in the relevant field? As soon as I heard the problem stated, I decided to put a center plus contact and two side minus contacts at each end of each battery holder. If the fit is tight enough, they will not short and the cell may be inserted either way.
I am now going to go see whether or not that is Microsoft's solution. If it is, it is not patentable. The need to solve the problem is non-obvious, but my solution is blindingly obvious.
One of my laser pointers, as many do, wants 2 AAA cells in physical series, but it also can take 3 N cells in series to get a higher voltage (brighter). MS's "invention" fails for this device...
Yeah, first Apple would have to design something with replaceable batteries.
Anybody who understands what a diode is could design a circuit to do this in a few minutes. Only drawback is it requires 4 diodes per battery. Designing a contact with a small contact in the middle for + and a contact on the outside for - seems pretty obvious too -- I'm really surprised this wasn't patented 50 years ago.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I agree with those who say this is pointless, if all it does is allow the batteries to go in either way. It's a solution chasing a problem.
Now, what would be useful is if the battery orientation could be considered part of the user-interface. A good example would be a red, LED, rear bike light. These have flashing and constant modes, but only one switch so you must annoyingly cycle through the modes each time you turn on or off.
Suppose you have a bike light that is constant if the batteries go in one way, and flashes if they go in the other. It wold be quote useful as people generally use one or the other.
'LATFPITFA' is certainly unique: Google returns one search result for it! Congratulations!
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
No, it requires exactly the same number of wires between batteries as before, plus, if you want, 2 wires per battery to connect the + on one end to the other.
My personal feeling is that although the idea is obvious, I figure (hope?) that Microsoft invested a good deal of time fiddling with the exact dimensions and springiness, etc, to make this foolproof. I could see big problems if you short those two connectors together. If they got it to work reliably then this effort certainly is worth a design patent.
Originally batteries had the entire can be a conductor so the whole bottom, all the sides, and a ring around the top were a conductor, which might have made this 2-ended design obvious long ago (though if the central pin did not extend enough it also might have made this design impossible).
Battery-to-battery will still work but then the user has to get those two batteries to point in the same direction, thus negating some of the advantage of this by making it not work with all possible battery directions.
However it may be easier to get a row of batteries to all point in the same direction, if they are all by the same manufacturer.
It would help a lot if the battery manufacturers all agreed to make their labels have a clear "light" end and "dark" end (just like the majority of alkaline ones are printed now), then the devices could have a really obvious sticker so that half the compartment is black and half white.
This is typical Microsoft: creating a costly, overengineered, patented solution in search of a problem.
What this will do, however, is increase the cost and probability of failure of devices, which is, after all, also pretty typical.
People are supposed to be too dumb to figure out what direction a battery ought to go in?
If you'd sold millions of copies of Vista, wouldn't you think that too?
Karma fed to this user will be promptly burnt. Be warned; be wary.
Mod parent up.
Karma fed to this user will be promptly burnt. Be warned; be wary.
Looking at the ANSI spec, it seems like all that's specified is the diameter and end-to-tip length of the cell. So, any device that relies on the depth or diameter of the "+" protrusion is likely not compliant with the spec. (Incidentally, the protrusion is there because it used to cover a graphite rod.)
Also, putting plus and minus contacts next to one another with only a few millimeters of separation and no electronic protection seems like a recipe for disaster; any small piece of metal (staple, metal filing, bits of aluminum foil, etc.) will cause a short, and sweat and condensation will result in relatively large currents.
I'm trying to recall the last time I've seen a physical series configuration; but I just realized my old-ass flashlight counts as one. ( it's been replaced years ago by a proper wind-up for emergency cases and a decent Maglite-like one with a rechargable set for more frequent/high intensity beam use )
I recently went on a 4-night camping/concert trip, and took along my trusty wind-up light so I could find my way to/from the porta-johns at night. And guess what - it doesn't work anymore. It produces a tiny bit of light while I frantically crank it, and immediately ceases to do so as soon as I stop cranking. So my awesome emergency tool is useless. Good thing I took along a cheap generic Maglite, too. I guess I'll continue to suffer with AA batteries, and wonder how to put them in right, until MS comes to my rescue again.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
I bought a box of AA batteries some time ago (I forget the brand, but I seem to recall buying them at Ikea) that had a 'positive projection' at either end! Good luck with those.
Have gnu, will travel.
Oh Thank you Ballmer, I know where I want to insert my batteries...just a little bit more... there we go...no, no, no, leave the chair alone - STEPHEN, STOP IT, DO YOU HEAR ME?
Todd: I hope it proves as delicious as the farmers that grew them
Stupid design? I don't know. My logitech keyboard has 2 rows of two in series (phsyical and logical, athough not touching, but seperated by a small amount so microsoft's invention would work here).
The idea is to get a nominal 3V, which is is closer to 2.4 volts under load. However it draws wnough current that two AA cells in series do not last long enough, so they added a second set of two AA cells in parallel to the first set. The result is that the device works fine with only two cells, but with 4 it lasts a much more reasonable time. (This ability to run on only 2 batteries was not a documented feature)
One of Apple's mice also used this type of design, however here it was a documented feature.
I'm reasonably confident that diodes were used in both designs to prevent shorting if batteries were placed backwards.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
It's been said, but duh. The contacts are hardly the problem. All that's needed is one of these per battery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diode_bridge The worst part is that people will start putting batteries into other products the wrong way around and they'll think they're broken.
The best semiconductors I'm aware of still have a pretty constant voltage drop of roughly 0.5V, while the more common ones have 0.7V per diode or 1.2V per diode (no, I'm not an electrical engineer, there might be better diode materials out there now). Take your average alkaline bettery: 1.5V. Running it through a diode guarantees that you'll lose 1/3 of your voltage right off the bat, and you're more likely to lose 1/2. Then there's rechargable batteries, typically 1.2V. They get away with it because their lower internal resistance means that even with a lower V, V = I*R gives a similar I. However, a diode will knock out a huge portion of that voltage - damn near all of it, if you use Ge for some reason - and that's going to make it awfully tough to power your device. Finally, there's the issue of heat: you're wasting half your battery voltage, but your electronics need the same current at the same voltage as before. However, that same current is also flowing through the diode, and being dissipated at P = I*V. If V_diode = V_device, you've doubled the drain on your batteries, and doubled your heat dissipation. This is a problem...
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
So does my Logitech wireless keyboard. I wonder if they came out of the same factory?
Free Martian Whores!
Don't forget that you're throwing away not just a third of your voltage, but a third of your power. The current for your electronics still flows through the diodes, and assuming that the current doesn't change despite the diode voltage drop, you're dissipating heat from the diodes equal to the current multiplied by those 0.2V/diode. Not only does that produce heat that can damage things, it also means that your batteries will waste 1/3 of their charge.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Hey, maybe the wear is intentional. Perhaps they fear a slow-down in advancement of gadgets, so they need something else to make them obsolete after a few years. ;-P
That's soluble. Puns don't work well that way!
Puns DO work that way. It just has to sound close enough that your brain expects the one, but hears the other.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
if one assumes the whole point of this is making it so that you don't have to worry about which end of a battery is which then each battery must have wiring for EACH end and if they are wired in series - then there are 4 wires - 2 that are the + - to the series pair and a 2 that connect the other end of each battery - if you add one more battery you need to add two more wires etc.. if you have 8 batteries then there are 16 wires or a circuit board (dual sided with vias) - mechanically there is extra space needed for the MS magic connector so the battery pack will take up more room. All in all its not an idea that is really worth the effort of paying a licensing fee to microsoft so that stupid people can use your products. As a general observation more and more consumer products are going to Li battery packs (cameras, Mp3 players, phones etc...) seems like the only things I have with batteries are remote controls, flashlights, and garage door openers, I guess vibrators do too but I don't own any - I won't argue that it is not a "clever" idea- its just no very compelling if I am manufacturing flashlights, vibrators or TV remotes....
For D, C, AA, AAA and N batteries, there really isn't a need for more wires, just a slightly more complicated connector for each cell, which would not necessarily require more space and must be aligned plus to minus, so one end's plus and the other end's minus are connected to the power for the circuit itself. Lithium batteries, however, would have to use a different circuit design for this type of scheme, which wouldn't necessarily require more wiring, but would need to require each battery to have its own seat. I'll agree with you about not being compelling for anything that permits multiple batteries in the same seat.
Yeah, "just don't insert it that way"... ~
Actually, unless you're somehow using a bridge rectifier with a much smaller voltage drop across the individual diodes, you're using 1.4V(two diodes on a bridge are always in use, so that's double the voltage drop), or pretty much all the energy supplied of the battery if it's alkaline, and more than the total if it's anything else. Other than that, you are absolutely correct.
I was wondering about that too. I got a remote control car when I was a kid and about $50 of rechargeable AA batteries to go with it, and they almost didn't fit. The rechargeable batteries were very slightly larger in all directions and when you need to stick them in a 4 x 2 configuration the extra space adds up. I think I had to peel the plastic layer off them to make them fit, but then they were more likely to short during storage etc.
Good point. I posted in haste without thinking it through.
I have a Microsoft wireless mouse. There is room in the mouse for 2 AA cells but it is completely functional with just one, and the time to run down a battery doesn't seem to be affected by putting 2 or 1 batteries in. So why would I ever want to put in 2 when it is lighter with 1?
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
Reminds me of a cartoon in an adult magazine:
Proctologist, patient, and nurse in examining room. Nurse is handing the proctologist a beer. Proctologist is saying: "Nurse, I said a butt light."
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Apple's greatest innovation is... bumper!! To fix their less than great other innovation, the iPhone 4 antenna
Maybe Apple could license Microsoft's idea? All you have to worry about is getting the batteries lined up all the same, but which way they are lined up wouldn't matter.
In all fairness I looked at the pictures......
I was just to quick to jump to the conclusion Microsoft was being a bunch of assholes again and I immediately started gathering links for the diode bridge.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
...but I'd prefer they actual work on producing a battery that has a longer life, like has been 'promised' for some time now (Mr Anderson), but has somehow failed to make it into products.
Max.
The space for the contacts is not bigger - two of these contacts will take up less space than the 'pimple' on the negative contact now and the coil on the positive contact (even when compressed).
Four diodes in a bridge circuit, allow AC (polarity reversing voltage, to always have one way dc output Put the same in place for each battery (say, even at the cell level contact, as in a device with 4 AA or AAA or other size batteries, and polarity will no longer make a difference. It just adds a few pennies to the cost of a device, and perhaps, even saves on warrantee if the individual installed the cells in reverse, causing electrolytic capacitor damage, Should be standard in all devices.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Cool, new to me. But that's not a diode bridge like the OP said. :)
Still cool tech
Schottky diodes only drop 0.2 volts, but thats still quite a lot. You can make "active" diode circuits with op-amps that simulate the perfect diode, but it's a chicken and egg problem since the op-amp itself needs power.
That's soluble. Puns don't work well that way!
Puns DO work that way. It just has to sound close enough that your brain expects the one, but hears the other.
This is entirely correct. Puns are extremely flexible, and this is a pretty solid example of a well crafted one because it actually makes sense beyond the pun itself, I would personally love to throw any XP disks I may have around in a vat of hexanes as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexanes