Shakeable Batterys Hmmm.....

[mist1405241549 0]

I was thinking about this shakeable batter esque thing...I wonder if it will work. Many of you must have heard of "Faraday's flashlight." Essentially it works around the concept of electromagnetic induction. In other words, if you have a copper coil and get a magnet to pass through it, a magnetic current is induced. It then can be stored in a capacitator for later or immediate use. Now.....imagine you had a AA battery set-up so that it had a copper coil and magnet inside......then, a capacitator that stores the energy routing it through the Positive and Negative terminals of the battery........essentially you could have a battery that runs "virtually" forever and can always have electrical energy to be used. I realize that this is farfetched but is it remotely possible?

[wutske 0]

The idea is great, tough it would be rather useless because a capacitor can't store enough energy to be usefull. Besides, there are portable battery chargers, but instead of shaking them, you have to wind them to create energy.

[miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG 0]

I've seen small hand-held torchlights that work in a similar fashion - but instead of shaking there's a small flip-flop crank on one side of the handle which you press a couple of times to fire up a dynamo, which then charges the battery. Pretty neat thing and doesn't weigh any more than your average flashlight. Coolest part is that you never need to panic panic when your batteries give out on you in pitch dark.

[Sten 0]

I have a torch that you shake, instead of using batteries!Shake it for 30 seconds and you get 5 minutes of light, lol.It's actually pretty bright!

[Unregistered 0111405241546 0]

I have the flashlight that you shake it, I also have a crank flashlight. batteries that you shake.. that would be a really cool, except batteries are really small, it would be really hard to make... Hmm..

[iGuest 3]

What would be really good, would be solar-rechargable batteries. if they go flat, take them out, put them in the sun for a while and put them back in! It wouldn't be that hard, either. You could also make solar powered portable powerpoints. A little box with a powerpoint on each side, and a solar panel on the top! You could use things that need to be connected to a power source portably.Imagine the recharger for shakable batteries. You could put them in a hamster wheel attached to a handle, then turn the handle round!

[kelvinmaki 0]

I have a torch that you shake, instead of using batteries!Shake it for 30 seconds and you get 5 minutes of light, lol.
It's actually pretty bright!

That's not too bad actually. I've a torch that need to shake 60 seconds for 5 mins for light initially. But now even if I shake it for 5 mins, it can't even give me 60 seconds of light. Not good.. I think solar-rechargable batteries are more useful.

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

I really like the idea. Technically I imagine it could work fine with the same technological reasoning as the flashlights that have been mentioned by you/others. The main concern would be the size I imagine. Personally I don't know the mechanics behind such a thing but it would depend on if the miniature setup could produce enough power to be useable as the battery of the size its imitating. Since it'd be to replace AA or AAA batteries you'd need to keep to a very precise form factor when developing it so you could not simply make it a bit bigger if you needed a touch more room.Still though, I really like the idea. Just would need someone with more mechanical engineering know-how to give a yay or nay on it.

[Mordent 0]

I really like the idea. Technically I imagine it could work fine with the same technological reasoning as the flashlights that have been mentioned by you/others. The main concern would be the size I imagine. Personally I don't know the mechanics behind such a thing but it would depend on if the miniature setup could produce enough power to be useable as the battery of the size its imitating. Since it'd be to replace AA or AAA batteries you'd need to keep to a very precise form factor when developing it so you could not simply make it a bit bigger if you needed a touch more room.
Still though, I really like the idea. Just would need someone with more mechanical engineering know-how to give a yay or nay on it.

I'm not a genius on this sort of thing, but from my understanding the idea could work to some extent. The problem with the torches that use dynamos is that they charge up while you're actually putting energy in, and afterwards they don't store that energy. If you used the same principle, once you've shaken the batteries they'd lose their charge fairly rapidly.

That aside, I'd assume it was possible to use the dynamo idea in almost every low power device, such as television remotes or, to some extent mobile phones. The problem comes when you need the device to either hold its charge (such as the batteries themselves) or to work for a long duration of time. While the mobile might not be a bad idea if you planned on taking it away from civilisation (such as on a mountain walk or the like) for a long period of time and wanted to sit there spinning the dynamo around for a little while if you want to send a call, it certainly isn't useful in everyday life.

One possibility, perhaps, is the idea of a manual battery charger. As rechargeable batteries can be plugged in to a charger (which in turn is plugged in to the mains), it's clearly possible to charge a battery with electricity. If a dynamo can create this electricity (or via shaking or whatever), then clearly you can charge a battery manually.

Now, moving on from the idea of the handheld manual battery charger, I'd assume that it's possible to minituarise this to a degree that you can have both the charger and the energy stored within the size of today's standard AA batteries. Shaking the battery would, therefore, charge it. One minor issue I can see with this is having the battery both charging (from movement) and discharging (as you use the TV remote, for example), as I can't see that being a particularly stable supply.

Perhaps a small switch on the side of the shakeable battery, which effectively determined whether it was on "charge" or "use" mode, would solve this problem? Having it on "charge" allows you to shake it and charge it up, but at the same time breaks the circuit so it can't be used to power something, and having it on "use" does the opposite and disconnects the dynamo but connects the two battery terminals.

Thoughts, anyone?

[baby bear 0]

What would be really good, would be solar-rechargable batteries. if they go flat, take them out, put them in the sun for a while and put them back in! It wouldn't be that hard, either. You could also make solar powered portable powerpoints. A little box with a powerpoint on each side, and a solar panel on the top! You could use things that need to be connected to a power source portably.

well that wouldn't be good for the people in oregon and washington. we always get rain here. never any sun. so those batterys would be useless.

[Mordent 0]

well that wouldn't be good for the people in oregon and washington. we always get rain here. never any sun. so those batterys would be useless.

Solar power doesn't require bright sunlight. The more sun there is the better, of course, but any light at all should be able to charge them, although very slowly.

[baby bear 0]

it still wouldn't be very usefull for the northwest. it would be more better to just use the recharge able batteries right?? it might not be as energy efficient as the solar batteries but they last longer and take less time to charge.

[Mordent 0]

it still wouldn't be very usefull for the northwest. it would be more better to just use the recharge able batteries right?? it might not be as energy efficient as the solar batteries but they last longer and take less time to charge.

Not a damned clue. Using the idea of energy, plus a bit of physics, you can see that the amount of energy you'd generate by shaking is minimal:
work done = force * distance

distance = 0.2 (I'm guessing here, but 20cm sounds about right)
force = g * 0.05 (mass of battery: if anyone's got one to hand and can get the mass, that'd be useful. For the sake of argument, I'm assuming 50 grams)

work done = 0.05 * 9.81 * 0.2 = 0.0981 J (call it 0.1 J)

On the basis that all of the battery is the "charger", you'd get 0.1 J per move of your arm, so 0.2 J per "shake". Again, assuming 100% efficiency, you'll be able to generate 1 J every 5 shakes. Going for 240 shakes per minute (if you can last that long ), you'd manage 48 J.

In short, assuming 100% efficiency you'd be able to generate enough power to give a device that ran at 0.8W the equivalent of 1 second of charging for each second of running. Most battery powered devices (I believe - I'm assuming AA standard here) use more than 0.8W (don't quote me on that, I'm merely making an approximate guess. If anyone's got any decent number on that I'm happy to hear them), so you'd have to shake it for longer than you use it. So yeah, I'm not so sure it'd generate enough energy, really. Sure, in an emergency you could sit there and shake it for a few hours, but meh. For things like television remotes, or other low power devices, I guess it wouldn't be so bad.

Thoughts?

[uNiT 0]

I think its a great idea, but I'm agreeing with Mordent in the that the energy created wouldn't really be worth the amount of shaking. I weighed several AA batteries, of different brands, and found that they ranged from 22 - 25 grams of mass. That about halves the amount of energy mordent came up with, so lets say .045 J. Now he assumed the battery was its own charger, but then another problem comes up. How does it store its energy? Earlier things like on/off switches, storage units, ect. have been suggested. So lets say we have a small storage unit that takes up 1/8 of the battery for arguments sake, along with an "on/off" switch on the side of the battery which takes up 1/16 of it (unrealistic but work with me here). Thats 3/16 of a battery, leaving 13/16 of it. 13/16 = .8125.045 * .8125 = .0365625 (Be generous, call it .04)So now you'd only be generating .08J per "shake" of your arm, instead of .2Thats 12.5 "Shakes" for 1 J. Now considering most people would get tired after a minute of shakes, especially at the previously given 240 shakes per minute..the shakes would likely decrease VERY rapidly, I'm gonna say 400 Shakes by the third minute. 400 / 12.5Congratulations, you've generated 32J in 3 minutes. Reminds me of nuclear fusion. Except much more wasteful?

[Mordent 0]

I think its a great idea, but I'm agreeing with Mordent in the that the energy created wouldn't really be worth the amount of shaking.

 

I weighed several AA batteries, of different brands, and found that they ranged from 22 - 25 grams of mass. That about halves the amount of energy mordent came up with, so lets say .045 J. Now he assumed the battery was its own charger, but then another problem comes up. How does it store its energy? Earlier things like on/off switches, storage units, ect. have been suggested. So lets say we have a small storage unit that takes up 1/8 of the battery for arguments sake, along with an "on/off" switch on the side of the battery which takes up 1/16 of it (unrealistic but work with me here). Thats 3/16 of a battery, leaving 13/16 of it.

 

13/16 = .8125

.045 * .8125 = .0365625 (Be generous, call it .04)

 

So now you'd only be generating .08J per "shake" of your arm, instead of .2

Thats 12.5 "Shakes" for 1 J.

Now considering most people would get tired after a minute of shakes, especially at the previously given 240 shakes per minute..the shakes would likely decrease VERY rapidly, I'm gonna say 400 Shakes by the third minute.

 

400 / 12.5

 

Congratulations, you've generated 32J in 3 minutes.

Reminds me of nuclear fusion. Except much more wasteful?

Nice, 32J of energy...you'd have to really want to change the channel to shake it that much.

 

One thing I did think about, what if you had - for want of a better word - slots in your shoes or clothing in to which you could place batteries, so that when you walked or moved they charged up? Sure, the rate of transfer would be even slower, but over a longer period of time with little effort.

 

Thinking along the lines of "portable" charging, could you have clips on the wheels of your bicycle, on to which you could attack the batteries, which would charge them up a lot faster than normal. We know that you cna have dynamos on your bike to power a light on the front, so using the same principle you could quite happily charge up the batteries by shaking them.

 

I think the key here is to have batteries that can be manually recharged, rather than requiring specialist equipment or to buy a new battery. The shaking idea alone wouldn't provide enough energy, but there's probably a good deal of practical ways of using every "wasted" energy to do that for you. Attach it to your dog's collar and watch it charge as he runs about in a field, have a spring that clips to your washing line, letting it bounce (and charge up) in the wind, the ideas are there.

 

Assuming you need to charge it without any clips or whatever, it's still possible as you can just shake it manually. Don't expect to run anything for long, though.

 

Any other ideas?