Reader Craig brought this nifty hand powered charger hack to out attention. It is by one of our favorite blogger/hackers Phillip Torrone over at Make. Phillip writes:
Okay, this is what my friends call a "Torronesque" project. This is where I usually come up with something and build it, and it really has no purpose or usefulness- but on further inspection it's kinda neat. This is the iPod shuffle hand charger, actually recharger. There are many "crank powered" accessories floating around, so I thought I'd try a few and figure out if the iPod shuffle can be recharged with one. Well, it can, sorta. Here it is in action! I am still working out the best voltage regulator and wiring, as I figure it out, I'll post the details, I don't what to screw up everyone's shuffles. What I'd really like to do is add little power generating motors to more things. Imagine getting a little power charge everytime you press a key or open your or phone laptop, maybe it wouldn't matter that much, but multiply that by a billion people and perhaps it would...
[link via Make]
4 comments:
It might work even better if you put a capacitor inbetween the crank generator and your shuffle. You could crank it for a while and take a break and it would keep charging. It would also prevent spikes in voltage if you cranked to fast. I have no idea what size of capacitor you would need though.
Please post an announcement as soon as your underwater version is up and running and I will take it in the pool. Thanx
haha to what 1st anonymous said: putting in a capacitor wouldn't help because it'll discharge as soon as you stop cranking... unless you're good with 1 micro second breaks =P
cool idea, but newegg has a commercial crank generator on sale for $21, and supplies for this project will probably total to that amount.
But if you can get scrapped cdrom's ,etc then the tray mover motor will be enough for low powered apps. so less cost.It need a mini gear system to increase rotating speed & a bridge rectifier + a capacitor to remove spikes.
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