http://www.picturebusinessmag.com/ar...digital-clique

bob

This general idea is hardly new. There have been patents for gadgets you
attach to your leg, and body movements generate electricity to charge a
battery.

The problem with this patent is that it uses a piezo device. Unfortunately,
they don't generate very much energy. You'd certainly be able to "top off"
the battery, but I don't think you'd be able to bring it back from a heavy
discharge very quickly. Maybe the former is all they care about.

On Apr 14, 2:09*pm, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:
This general idea is hardly new. There have been patents for gadgets you
attach to your leg, and body movements generate electricity to charge a
battery.

The problem with this patent is that it uses a piezo device. Unfortunately,
they don't generate very much energy. You'd certainly be able to "top off"
the battery, but I don't think you'd be able to bring it back from a heavy
discharge very quickly. Maybe the former is all they care about.



Quite similar to the self winding mechanical wrist watches.


Certainly nothing new !

On Wed, 14 Apr 2010 17:15:34 -0700 (PDT), sparky
wrote:

Quite similar to the self winding mechanical wrist watches.
Certainly nothing new !

It's called "energy scavenging". It's a big thing in portable product
design. If it reduces battery size, or eliminates the battery, it's a
winner. I'm finding such ideas in watches, shoes, automobile shock
absorbers, PDA's, etc. It will take a while for them to come to
market but I expect them to be commonplace fairly soon.

I'm surprised nobody has made a wind-up cell phone. Besides not
requiring a battery or charger (uses a super-capacitor), it will keep
the chronic talkers in line. Not exactly energy scavenging, but (in
my opinion) just as good.

Incidentally, I designed, prototyped, but never produced a paper tape
printing pager in the early 1970's. The pager ran on batteries, but
the 1/4" paper tape transport and printing was all wind-up mechanical.
I also proposed a wind-up portable floppy disk drive in the 1980's,
which was summarily rejected by literally everyone as a lousy idea. Oh
well.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

I'm surprised nobody has made a wind-up cell phone. Besides not
requiring a battery or charger (uses a super-capacitor), it will keep
the chronic talkers in line. Not exactly energy scavenging, but (in
my opinion) just as good.

I have a hand-crank radio/flashlight/charger that can charge cell phones.
The problem with building it into the phone iteself is that it's "too big"
for such a small device.


Incidentally, I designed, prototyped, but never produced a paper tape
printing pager in the early 1970's. The pager ran on batteries, but
the 1/4" paper tape transport and printing was all wind-up mechanical.
I also proposed a wind-up portable floppy disk drive in the 1980's,
which was summarily rejected by literally everyone as a lousy idea.
Oh, well.

As the drive would have to be connected to computer that could power it, and
the wind-up mechanism + interface would be more complex than a motor -- what
would be the point?

On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 12:44:56 -0700, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:

I'm surprised nobody has made a wind-up cell phone. Besides not
requiring a battery or charger (uses a super-capacitor), it will keep
the chronic talkers in line. Not exactly energy scavenging, but (in
my opinion) just as good.

I have a hand-crank radio/flashlight/charger that can charge cell phones.
The problem with building it into the phone iteself is that it's "too big"
for such a small device.

I've seen small pancake PM motors that are made to be wound up with a
pull string. They're flat, small, and fairly powerful. Most of the
space in the flashlight contraption is in the gears to gear up the
speed. It can be done.

Think of it as a form of hand exercise while yacking on the cell
phone.

Incidentally, I designed, prototyped, but never produced a paper tape
printing pager in the early 1970's. The pager ran on batteries, but
the 1/4" paper tape transport and printing was all wind-up mechanical.
I also proposed a wind-up portable floppy disk drive in the 1980's,
which was summarily rejected by literally everyone as a lousy idea.
Oh, well.

As the drive would have to be connected to computer that could power it, and
the wind-up mechanism + interface would be more complex than a motor -- what
would be the point?

This was the early 1970's. What's a computah? The original pager was
Motorola H04ANC (all germanium). I later hot wired it to a Pageboy I
and a much nicer Pageboy II. This was all before the introduction of
LCD displays on pagers. You either got a blast of tone (tone only
pager), or you a blast of tone followed by a blast of unintelligible
noise (tone and voice). LED displays were around, but between the
logic and the LEDs, sucked far too much power. My wind up mechanism
printed a permanent record of the message on a 1/4" wide strip of
paper. The mechanism was similar to a stock ticker, but much smaller.
The drive was mechanical, but the printing pins were solenoid driven.
The solenoid drivers, idler/capstan ratchet, tone decoder, and timing,
were the major electronics, which ran off 2ea AA batteries. If I had
to include a battery to power the tape motion mechanics, my guess
would be about 6ea AA batteries. While not a totally mechanical
replacement, it wasn't all that horrible for the 1970's technology.


--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558
# http://802.11junk.com
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS

Incidentally, I designed, prototyped, but never produced a
paper tape printing pager in the early 1970's. The pager ran
on batteries, but the 1/4" paper tape transport and printing
was all wind-up mechanical. I also proposed a wind-up portable
floppy disk drive in the 1980's, which was summarily rejected
by literally everyone as a lousy idea. Oh, well.

As the drive would have to be connected to computer that could
power it, and the wind-up mechanism + interface would be more
complex than a motor -- what would be the point?

This was the early 1970's. What's a computah?

You said '80s for the floppy-disk drive, which is what I was referring to..


The original pager was Motorola H04ANC (all germanium).

Really? Perhaps for the RF transistors, but not the rest of the device.

On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:54:31 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 12:44:56 -0700, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:

I'm surprised nobody has made a wind-up cell phone. Besides not
requiring a battery or charger (uses a super-capacitor), it will keep
the chronic talkers in line. Not exactly energy scavenging, but (in
my opinion) just as good.

I have a hand-crank radio/flashlight/charger that can charge cell phones.
The problem with building it into the phone iteself is that it's "too big"
for such a small device.

I've seen small pancake PM motors that are made to be wound up with a
pull string. They're flat, small, and fairly powerful. Most of the
space in the flashlight contraption is in the gears to gear up the
speed. It can be done.

Think of it as a form of hand exercise while yacking on the cell
phone.

I don't like hand exercises. Maybe you could connect it straight to
my jaw, so it would charge when I talked.

--
Posters should say what U,S. state if any they live in. Why
do so many keep their state as secret as their own name?

mm wrote:

On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:54:31 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 12:44:56 -0700, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:

I'm surprised nobody has made a wind-up cell phone. Besides not
requiring a battery or charger (uses a super-capacitor), it will keep
the chronic talkers in line. Not exactly energy scavenging, but (in
my opinion) just as good.

I have a hand-crank radio/flashlight/charger that can charge cell phones.
The problem with building it into the phone iteself is that it's "too big"
for such a small device.

I've seen small pancake PM motors that are made to be wound up with a
pull string. They're flat, small, and fairly powerful. Most of the
space in the flashlight contraption is in the gears to gear up the
speed. It can be done.

Think of it as a form of hand exercise while yacking on the cell
phone.

I don't like hand exercises. Maybe you could connect it straight to
my jaw, so it would charge when I talked.


Watch out for exploding cells, though. ;-)


--
Lead free solder is Belgium's version of 'Hold my beer and watch this!'

On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:39:22 -0700, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:

Incidentally, I designed, prototyped, but never produced a
paper tape printing pager in the early 1970's. The pager ran
on batteries, but the 1/4" paper tape transport and printing
was all wind-up mechanical. I also proposed a wind-up portable
floppy disk drive in the 1980's, which was summarily rejected
by literally everyone as a lousy idea. Oh, well.

As the drive would have to be connected to computer that could
power it, and the wind-up mechanism + interface would be more
complex than a motor -- what would be the point?

This was the early 1970's. What's a computah?

You said '80s for the floppy-disk drive, which is what I was referring to..

Sorry. I thought you meant the paper tape pager printer. I never
built the wind up floppy disk drive. You're correct that the drive
would require power to run the electronics. The plan was to power it
from a small generator connected to the clockwork spring mechanism. I
built a non-functional prototype to impress the investors. It didn't
work because I couldn't keep the 300 rpm rotation speed sufficiently
constant for reliable operation. The head actuator was run by a
stepper motor, but I had some ideas to make it mechanically driven.
When I saw the first 3.5" floppy disk drive in about 1984, I gave up.

I suppose you don't want to hear about my gasoline engine powered hard
disk drive?

The original pager was Motorola H04ANC (all germanium).

Really? Perhaps for the RF transistors, but not the rest of the device.

I'm fairly sure the H03ANC pager was all germanium xsistors. I don't
have a manual for it to check. I think (not sure) that the next
model, the Pageboy I, was all germanium, but I'll have to check the
manual.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Pageboy
I know the associated walkie talkie, the HT200, was all germanium,
because I worked on enough of them. I should also have a manual for
the HT200.

I still have one or two tube type walkie talkies from that era. Pencil
tubes are fun.
http://home.netcom.com/~wa2ise/radios/penciltubes.html
--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558
# http://802.11junk.com
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS

I suppose you don't want to hear about my gasoline engine-
powered hard disk drive?

Does it meet EPA specs?


The original pager was Motorola H04ANC (all germanium).

Really? Perhaps for the RF transistors, but not the rest of the device.

I'm fairly sure the H03ANC pager was all germanium xsistors. I don't
have a manual for it to check. I think (not sure) that the next
model, the Pageboy I, was all germanium, but I'll have to check the
manual.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Pageboy
I know the associated walkie talkie, the HT200, was all germanium,
because I worked on enough of them. I should also have a manual for
the HT200.

I could be wrong, but my memory is that germanium transistors were "dead and
gone" by the early 70s. Certainly they'd disappeared in audio equipment.
Germanium devices had higher carrier mobility, so at that time (I believe)
they offered better performance at VHF and higher frequencies. (This pager
was UHF.)

Is there really such a thing as a rechargeable mercury battery?


I still have one or two tube type walkie talkies from that era.
Pencil tubes are fun.
http://home.netcom.com/~wa2ise/radios/penciltubes.html

One of my uncles had an earphone-only "very-large-pocket" radio that used
two of these.

On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 03:33:52 -0700, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:

I suppose you don't want to hear about my gasoline engine-
powered hard disk drive?

Does it meet EPA specs?

Nope. It was a Seagate ST225 20MB disk drive. (That's megabyte, not
gigabyte). It had a large flywheel spinning at the bottom. I
attached a rubber pully and model airplane engine to the drive. The
problem was that the laptops of the day had trouble making it through
a typical airplane flight. This would extend the operating time of
the laptop. Smoke and noise was not considered a problem on
commercial airplane flights at the time as this was before smoking was
banned on commercial flights.

The original pager was Motorola H04ANC (all germanium).

Really? Perhaps for the RF transistors, but not the rest of the device.

I'm fairly sure the H03ANC pager was all germanium xsistors.

I need to dig through a few file cabinet drawers to find the manuals.
Give me a day or so. I'm fairly sure these were all germanium.

I could be wrong, but my memory is that germanium transistors were "dead and
gone" by the early 70s. Certainly they'd disappeared in audio equipment.

I'm not sure. There were plenty of logic devices using 2N404 xsistors
well into the late 1970's. Also germanium audio output and power
supply switchers used in 2way radios. While everything I designed in
the 1970's used silicon, many of the radios I worked on during the
late 1960's and early 1970's were a conglomeration of tubes,
germanium, and silicon. For example, the Motorola Motrac series had
one model with a silicon receiver, germanium audio and HV PS switcher,
and tubes in the driver and RF power output stage.

Germanium devices had higher carrier mobility, so at that time (I believe)
they offered better performance at VHF and higher frequencies. (This pager
was UHF.)

The big advantage of germanium for portable equipment was that it
would operate at a lower voltage than silicon. For switching power
supplies (i.e. free running multivibrator with no regulation or
protection), the lower saturation voltage of germanium meant less loss
and less heating.

Is there really such a thing as a rechargeable mercury battery?

Nope. I think the author got confused as the Pageboy I would take
either battery, but only the NiCad version was rechargeable.

More later.
--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

The big advantage of germanium for portable equipment
was that it would operate at a lower voltage than silicon.
For switching power supplies (i.e. free running multivibrator
with no regulation or protection), the lower saturation voltage
of germanium meant less loss and less heating.

Didn't some of those pagers run on a single AA cell? You're right -- even
with a switching supply, that would have been difficult with silicon
devices. At least, if you wanted to get reasonable battery life.

sparky wrote:
On Apr 14, 2:09 pm, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:

This general idea is hardly new. There have been patents for gadgets you
attach to your leg, and body movements generate electricity to charge a
battery.

The problem with this patent is that it uses a piezo device. Unfortunately,
they don't generate very much energy. You'd certainly be able to "top off"
the battery, but I don't think you'd be able to bring it back from a heavy
discharge very quickly. Maybe the former is all they care about.




Quite similar to the self winding mechanical wrist watches.


Certainly nothing new !


Seiko makes "Kinetic" quartz watches now:

http://www.japanese-watches.com/seiko_kinetic.htm

I wonder if the "tiny technological marvel" mentioned as the energy
storage device is a supercap or a rechargable battery?

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10e12 furlongs per fortnight.

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

I suppose you don't want to hear about my gasoline engine powered hard
disk drive?


Only if it was fully blown, and could back up a floppy in under two
nanoseconds.


--
Lead free solder is Belgium's version of 'Hold my beer and watch this!'