If you need assistance, please send an email to forum at 4hv dot org. To ensure your email is not marked as spam, please include the phrase "4hv help" in the subject line. You can also find assistance via IRC, at irc.shadowworld.net, room #hvcomm.
Support 4hv.org!
Donate:
4hv.org is hosted on a dedicated server. Unfortunately, this server costs and we rely on the help of site members to keep 4hv.org running. Please consider donating. We will place your name on the thanks list and you'll be helping to keep 4hv.org alive and free for everyone. Members whose names appear in red bold have donated recently. Green bold denotes those who have recently donated to keep the server carbon neutral.
Special Thanks To:
Aaron Holmes
Aaron Wheeler
Adam Horden
Alan Scrimgeour
Andre
Andrew Haynes
Anonymous000
asabase
Austin Weil
barney
Barry
Bert Hickman
Bill Kukowski
Blitzorn
Brandon Paradelas
Bruce Bowling
BubeeMike
Byong Park
Cesiumsponge
Chris F.
Chris Hooper
Corey Worthington
Derek Woodroffe
Dalus
Dan Strother
Daniel Davis
Daniel Uhrenholt
datasheetarchive
Dave Billington
Dave Marshall
David F.
Dennis Rogers
drelectrix
Dr. John Gudenas
Dr. Spark
E.TexasTesla
eastvoltresearch
Eirik Taylor
Erik Dyakov
Erlend^SE
Finn Hammer
Firebug24k
GalliumMan
Gary Peterson
George Slade
GhostNull
Gordon Mcknight
Graham Armitage
Grant
GreySoul
Henry H
IamSmooth
In memory of Leo Powning
Jacob Cash
James Howells
James Pawson
Jeff Greenfield
Jeff Thomas
Jesse Frost
Jim Mitchell
jlr134
Joe Mastroianni
John Forcina
John Oberg
John Willcutt
Jon Newcomb
klugesmith
Leslie Wright
Lutz Hoffman
Mads Barnkob
Martin King
Mats Karlsson
Matt Gibson
Matthew Guidry
mbd
Michael D'Angelo
Mikkel
mileswaldron
mister_rf
Neil Foster
Nick de Smith
Nick Soroka
nicklenorp
Nik
Norman Stanley
Patrick Coleman
Paul Brodie
Paul Jordan
Paul Montgomery
Ped
Peter Krogen
Peter Terren
PhilGood
Richard Feldman
Robert Bush
Royce Bailey
Scott Fusare
Scott Newman
smiffy
Stella
Steven Busic
Steve Conner
Steve Jones
Steve Ward
Sulaiman
Thomas Coyle
Thomas A. Wallace
Thomas W
Timo
Torch
Ulf Jonsson
vasil
Vaxian
vladi mazzilli
wastehl
Weston
William Kim
William N.
William Stehl
Wesley Venis
The aforementioned have contributed financially to the continuing triumph of 4hv.org. They are deserving of my most heartfelt thanks.
Registered Member #89
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 02:40PM
Location: Zadar, Croatia
Posts: 3145
On the otherhand, I managed to light the LED again. Below is a 6" diameter coilform in my hand near my monitor.
That's cool.. Can you clarify a bit more how you did that?
To contribute to thread somewhat..
I built a small blocking-oscillator LED driver, wich uses a germanium tansistor and was able to start from just 150 milivolts input.
I left some soaked paper to cool outside, and after I put it under one side of peltier it produced up to about 200 milivolts, enough to nicely light the led.
Then I tried heating it just with my hand, and it gave 160mV, barely enough but LED did lit. I guess my body heat is also considered 'waste' energy here.
Maybe If I covered myself in a suit of peltiers and stayed in cold enviroment, I could produce few watts and power a pocket PC or charge a cell phone..
Some cheap calculator cell thrills. Next sunny day I'l try torching the peltier with that mirror and see how much power can I get...
Steve?
Finally, a use for those things! Not surprisingly, I still have a whole bag of them. I just connected one up to a red LED and tapped the can with a spanner. It caused a very feint flicker of the LED. All I need to do is find a way to mount them all on a solid surface such as a block of steel, in a way whereby they will all be in phase when tapped, then I can parallel them and fullwave rectify the output with some ultrafast diodes. I suppose I could then go ahead and stick the whole array onto the washing machine or something.
Bag of these is pretty nice.. although I see a problem with paralelling/seriesing because you need to have them all in phase for that, but if they are mounted firmly they may just work.
Piezo's also act pyroelectrically, and you can turn them into heat engines by cooling and heating them rapidly. Not great efficiency, but I managed to blink a LED from a single piezo speaker that way.
Registered Member #477
Joined: Tue Jun 20 2006, 11:51PM
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 546
Firkragg wrote ...
Maybe If I covered myself in a suit of peltiers and stayed in cold enviroment, I could produce few watts and power a pocket PC or charge a cell phone..
...this is starting to sound a bit like some Frank Herbert novel. I suppose you could also build some sort of minature wind farm into something that fits over your mouth, then charge your cell phone whilst sounding like Darth Vader.
Registered Member #89
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 02:40PM
Location: Zadar, Croatia
Posts: 3145
...this is starting to sound a bit like some Frank Herbert novel. I suppose you could also build some sort of minature wind farm into something that fits over your mouth, then charge your cell phone whilst sounding like Darth Vader.
You beat me to it.. I'm not sure if it could be that powerful without seriously impeding breathing, but may work for a LED...
There are fortunately better ways to extract human power than peltier plate mail or mouth-wind turbine
Registered Member #286
Joined: Mon Mar 06 2006, 04:52AM
Location:
Posts: 399
"There are fortunately better ways to extract human power than peltier plate mail or mouth-wind turbine" This would easly light an LED.
Update:
"That's cool.. Can you clarify a bit more how you did that?" The monitor's deflection coils leak a lot of magnetic flux. So my coil suck up some of the stay flux.
The Piezo powered LED works with regular piezo speakers also.
I blew air across the opening causing the cavity to resonate it and it generated enoff volts for the LED. Tapping it also works. I could pin a bunch of these piezo powered LEDs on me and go a night club and have the music power the LEDs.
Registered Member #477
Joined: Tue Jun 20 2006, 11:51PM
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 546
ShawnLG wrote ...
I could pin a bunch of these piezo powered LEDs on me and go a night club and have the music power the LEDs.
That's a pretty cool idea, actually. It makes me wonder: Similar to the thing about living near 440kV power lines, what if people living in cities or near major highways could use this technique to farm the white noise generated by all the traffic? Have a bunch of satellite dish-sized parabolic microphones aimed down at the street from your highrise apartment
Registered Member #175
Joined: Tue Feb 14 2006, 09:32PM
Location: Sudbury, ON
Posts: 111
Americanium betabattery? ... something tells me men in black suits wouldn't like it if I tried to gather enough smoke detectors for that. Of course, if I had the Am-241, I'd probably put it in aqueous solution with some phosphor and get the light directly, but the betabattery has geek-points appeal. Anyone with hot rocks want to see if they can make a big enough pile of 'em? :P
The piezo idea would be even better for anyone living near train tracks... get a big freight train going, and you can feel though your boots how much power is there--literally, the ground shakes. Actually, there's probably enough power in that to run the warning lights at crossings. Didn't someone have a plan once of putting peizos in bridges and such?
Hey, how about I open a gym? Plenty of free power there. And it's not slaver labour... they're paying ME to get in.
Registered Member #89
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 02:40PM
Location: Zadar, Croatia
Posts: 3145
Single piezo also worked for me, but only by tapping it; it didn't care about any sound around. Maybe it would if I attached some bigger external membrane or mass to it.
Of course, if I had the Am-241, I'd probably put it in aqueous solution with some phosphor and get the light directly, but the betabattery has geek-points appeal. Anyone with hot rocks want to see if they can make a big enough pile of 'em? :P
It's hard enough to get significant amount of visible light from exempt amount of americium, yet alone something that would produce electricity via thermocouples or photovoltaics.
Beta batteries, obivously, work on beta radiation, and tritium is commonly used.
They are something like wierd diodes encapsuled with tritium wich produce voltage by bombardment of PN junction with beta radiation. Not something to be built in a hobby shop.
Registered Member #87
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 01:36PM
Location: San Jose
Posts: 191
Coyote Wilde wrote ...
Hey, how about I open a gym? Plenty of free power there. And it's not slaver labour... they're paying ME to get in.
I had that idea a while ago too. It was followed by the idea of strapping magnets to deer and having them run through coils for food to generate current, but i fear PETA would come after me. My contribution to this contest isn't great, but i did manage to light an led with a roll of scotch tape, grounded one leg and held the other leg near the roll of tape as it was dispensed and the led lit rather dimly from the static created, but it was a quicky idea with parts i had on my desk. It wasn't free however, it cost something along the lines a buck or two, and some hair off my arm from removing the tape.
Registered Member #27
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 02:20AM
Location: Hyperborea
Posts: 2058
It's hard enough to get significant amount of visible light from exempt amount of americium, yet alone something that would produce electricity via thermocouples or photovoltaics.
I have managed to get detectable light (under perfect conditions) and a detectable current by collecting ions from the air around it. So far I have not been close to light a LED.
Registered Member #103
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 08:16PM
Location: Derby, UK
Posts: 845
This thread got me looking into peltiers a bit more, and I noticed you can pick up fairly cheap peltier coolers like this off eBay. That one is rated 34 watts input, I wonder how well they would perform in reverse as generators? Waste heat is easy for me to get hold of, because I use a hurricane lamp quite regularly. One of those installed in the top of the hurricane lamp might not only light an LED, but I'd actually have a use for it (charging my phone and batteries) whilst camping. I wonder how many watts I could draw? The only problem I'd have to overcome would be overheating the module, but that shouldn't be too difficult to get around.
This site is powered by e107, which is released under the GNU GPL License. All work on this site, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License. By submitting any information to this site, you agree that anything submitted will be so licensed. Please read our Disclaimer and Policies page for information on your rights and responsibilities regarding this site.
Ambient Energy LED lighting contest!
