powerball charger

[user]

who would be interested in a poweball with the capability to charge external devices.. (phone/ipod) whatever.. the thing could be similar to the powerball neon but with a power takeoff on the casing side.. the thing wouldnot be able to achieve the same high rpm as the original models due the resitance of the inductor. but high speeds would not be the primary function of this anyway. with the exercise as an added bonus. i guess what im saying is I would buy one. I fugured i would put the idea forward..

i posted this previously in possible (good) modifications.. but as that threads has alredy been responded to by the moderators i figure it might be missed..

eloo

[user]

If powrball deveopped such a powerball, I surely would buy one too. I think it's a doog idea.
I guess it's not so easy to develope something like that.. collecting electric stream in a rotating piece is not so easy.. (It's a well-known problem in aerospace!)

Skydakring

[user]

Surely this could be achieved by simply having a coil of wire in the outer plastic case and having a metal magnetic rotor in the centre creating an induction effect?

[user]

yeah if the inductor needs to retain aligment with the axis of rotation (then this becomes a little more difficult.. i was thinking if needs be a headphone shaped assembly could cover the axis (imagine the two pins as the ears) with a post at the top (at the axis of procession / right where the counter is now) which could use a similar setup to brushes on a motor to retain a connection to the case.. this kind of thing could enable the inductors position to remain where it is in the techno model..

eloo

[user]

I'd buy one to charge my SonyEricsson :-)

Mats

[user]

Hi!
It's a good idea, cause it would be usefull for person and the phone. Specialy in nature, where there aren't any power plugs (and usually no phone signal).
Although the realisation would be wery difficult.
At TECHNO model LED's light up at around 3000 RPM. Current to light up the LED must be at least 10 miliamps and minimum voltage 1,2V DC. So it would be great to know how much power does TECHNO generator produce. If it can pull 400 miliamps at 5V lets say at 10.000 RPM, then you would have to spin the ball for 1/2 hour, just to make your mobile work for about an hour. Your hand would fell off after 2 days, 4 days for both of them :-)
I suggest to build a generator, more powerfull than TECHNO and a device similar to UPS that you can charge it with the ball, and then connect the phone to it. You can charge the device any time you want and how much you want, and the phone would stil charge with constant voltage.
So, after holidays I'll do some measurments of magnetic field and see how much potencial it has.
And to all Powerballers, a happy New Year and many pleasures with your (power)balls! :p

Jan

[user]

So, as said above, I took the powerball to tha national laboratory for magnetic field measurments. And the conclusion is that this good idea isn't working. The power of magnet is 0,15T or 1500 gauss, and this is a quality magnet, and can generate a lot more than it is producing now. The weak link is the rotor winding, it's small, and doesn't generate much. But if it was bigger, then the resistance would be too great and that would be a problem even with starting a ball (broken strings) and the ball would't spin fast.
And the measurment with a 200 round coil with diameter of 10 cm, showed only 100 mV of inducted voltage. Too low to power a phone.
And the powerball will just be an instrument to power up your arms, but not your phone.

Regards, Jan