Using Air to Recharge Your Cell Phone 346
sanspeak writes "Now you do not have to look for a power outlet to charge your cell phones. Department of Industrial Design at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi have come up with a mobile turbine which generates around 3 to 4 watts of energy - sufficient to charge a mobile phone. It costs around $4, fits in your pocket and runs on air ;-). What else do you want ?"
Blow or run really fast (Score:5, Interesting)
The device will help mobile phone users charge their phones while travelling in a bus, a car or a train. All they need to do is -- place the turbine against the wind flow.
In other words, hold it out the window. Can they get sued when people drop their phones, or lose an arm while holding it out the window?
compressed air (Score:5, Interesting)
In essence, the compressed air tank would be a battery (it would 'hold' the energy that was used to pump the compressed air in).
I don't know a lot of about high pressure tanks. Does anyone know if this would work at all? Would all the air come out too quick to make it worthwhile?
Re:You're going to WHAT?!?! (Score:2, Interesting)
That said, I have some friends who could probably run their phone just with the volume and amount of time they spend talking into the darn thing
air vs wind (Score:5, Interesting)
Essentially, the idea is to incorporate a windmill to power the phone.
Saying the phone is "Air" powered implys (to me, at least) that some chemical reaction is taking place using oxygen or nitrogen.
It is a cool idea, and the article implies that normal winds are sufficient to power the cell phone.
If the generator is small enough to actually be part of a cell phone, I'd think that scaling the design up might make economic sense for generating normal electric power. Unfortunately, there weren't any specifics, so it is tough to make any extrapolations.
Ok then... (Score:4, Interesting)
The wind blows the large blades which causes air to flow through the smaller fans.
Of course you could probably put up walls of these things in windy areas and get the same results.
Any thoughts on this?
Re:compressed air (Score:3, Interesting)
-Jesse
Rocket in My Pocket (Score:2, Interesting)
How about just whirling in circles the dinky turbine by the cord by which it attaches to the recharging phone? Why bother waiting for the wind when you can wind your phone instead?
Crank Alternative (Score:5, Interesting)
Compressed air is an interesting idea for storing energy.
But I have to wonder how it compares to the alternatives.
How about a capacitor [electricitystorage.org] bank and a hand-crank generator [pasco.com]?
If you're out of compressed gas or batteries in the middle of nowhere it's hard to replenish your cell phone. Turning a hand crank would make use of cheap, available human power.
Re:compressed air (Score:3, Interesting)
If it would work and provide enough energy, it would also be an environmentally friendly way to store energy for later use.
Kind of the same idea as pumping water into a tower and then later opening the tower at the bottom and using the flowing water to run a generator. In essence, the water tower is your battery, because it is storing energy in the form of gravitational potential.
I just wonder if the air tanks themselves would have to be the size of a house, or if they could be small enough to be manageable.
Re:air vs wind (Score:3, Interesting)
To me, Turbine means a multi stage fan, that uses compression of the 'Air'.. If I have to hold it out the window at 60mph to get it to work, its a damn pinwheel.
Re:Alternatives (Score:3, Interesting)
http://windupradio.com/ [windupradio.com]
Re:Alternatives (Score:3, Interesting)
Because I've used one of those, and they royally suck. The light is nearly worthless. I blame this on their reliance on an ultracapacitor rather than rechargeable batteries. Batteries would enable the use of more LEDs, making the light a lot more useful. Nothing wrong with Faraday induction, just that's a HORRID example of it.
Also, doing this in a fone would require substantial empty space and weight, neither of which seems to be all that popular at the moment.
or a windup charger?
See comment above about added volume/weight.
I don't see anything in TFA about the volume or weight of this thing, but I get the impression it's a lot smaller and lighter than either a windup or Faraday charger would be.
p
Whistle? (Score:3, Interesting)
Adolfo
AUUUUUGH!!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
NO IT IS NOT!!!!!! AUUGH!!!!
Okay, I'm sorry.. I just can't take it anymore. This is not an innovation by any stretch of the imagination (you say "portable turbine", I say "little windmill"). Second, the application and practicality are extremely limited. Let's look at the scenarios.
Scenario 1: You live someplace windy Supposing you take this turbine, stick out your window that receives good airflow in an area that has *continuous* wind (let's say you live in a lighthouse). Given the average cost of electricity, It'll take 25 hours of contuous charging to save yourself one penny. If this thing costs $4, it'll take 10,000 hours to pay for itself.
Scenario 2: You stick this on the top of your car Yeah, this will charge your cell phone, but conservation of energy says that the increased drag on your car will result in decreased fuel efficiency in equal proportion. Seeing as how your car already has a device that converts engine cycles into electricity (the alternator) you're better off just plugging in your car charging kit.
I'm all for clean power but a semester of physics tells you that there's little (or nothing) to be gained here. I hope I didn't offend the parent post, but I felt I had to bring about a reality check before somebody suggested charging their phone by clipping their turbine to an electric fan -- and then I would have to kill.