Power Play

how many people have a tangle of powerbricks, and adaptors, messing up thier desks?
how many people realize these "Walwarts" power packs draw energy even when they aren't being used?
why not take these energy wasters and fix it so you can recharge all your rechargable gadgets for FREE!!! (ok nothings free, but I had all the stuff lying around, bought seperately you'd be looking at about $100.00 cdn)

Borrowing an idea from my robotics project (not convenient to bring the robot everywhere).... I'd came up with this idea!
It's pretty easy, so many will be able to build it themselves.

Here's how it works:

get a toolbox.
get one of those power paks that have a 12 volt battery and ac inverter (auto supply store).
get a 3 into one cigarette lighter adapter.
get one surge protector.

dissassemble the power supply (optional, you can leave it intact, mine was old and had a broken airpump built in, so I gutted it to get it into a smaller toolbox.).

plug the surge protector into the ac inverter.

drill a hole through the toolbox and run a double ended ciarette adapter through it and into the 3 in one cig adapter. plug that into the 12 volt power pack. (you can now plug the other end into your auto cig lighter to recharge the pack, when ever you are driving(unplug when not driving)).
some hotglue/velcro strips/zip ties to tidy it all up.

you now have free recharges for life.....from your car.

next take your battery chargers (I got a Pentax, Sony, Energizer, Nokia, and 12 volt flashlight) and plug them into the surgeprotector.

I drilled one more hole for the ac recharger that charges the power supply (incase I want to recharge it from a hotel ac outlet).

now I can recharge a bunch of stuff, keep my desk tidy and save energy.

my toolbox even has dividers/organizers for storing all my batteries! for my still/video cams and flash units!(and more wall warts, all labled and I can recharge whatever I need!)


I can still get ac or dc power in the feild when needed.

I'm not so sure about "free".

Every time you draw power from the battery, it has to be replaced.

I should imagine the cost of electricity produced by a petrol-driven alternator is much more expensive than electricity from the grid. But of course in Canada I expect your fuel taxes are sub-astronomical, unlike here, so the differential is probably rather lower.

But I do take the point that all chargers consume a (very small) amount of power when not charging.

A cheaper and simpler (and much duller!) alternative might be to use the on-off switch at the mains socket.

Keep 'em coming, Don. May the creative spark never be extinguished.

G

Nifty setup Don
I have something very similar which i brought at my local automotive supplier for 100bucks
It has an invertor and a couple of cig adapters, also an air compressor and can be charged from the car when you are travelling. I take it everywhere and is very handy for charging batteries for your camera gear and phone.






But its not the same as building it yourself is it

George I think you missed the point.

most people drive thier cars every day. Those alternators are generating enough spare electricity to charge one of these, whether they use that electricity or not. topping up this unit, then bringing it into your home takes a bunch of electricity wasters off the "Grid" AND scavenges a free source.

like Clarky said, it;s handy, portable go anywhere power, now if Clarky put his unit in a box, and stuck a power strip and a bunch of chargers in there, he wouldn't have a mess of cords dangling around when he uses his power supply.

now if I only had a solar panel kicking around.....

I'm not convinced Don, I think you'll find if you draw more juice off an alternator it becomes harder to turn.

The car will burn more fuel while charging your doofer and going via a battery and an invertor isn't really very efficient either.

It's a neat portable power source and it does cut down on applances plugged into the grid not doing anything, but Georges suggestion is greener because power stations are about 8 times more efficient at generating electricity than a car engine + alternator.

ok here's how it works:
an alternator is a simple mechanicle device. wire coils (and magnets or feild wound).
wires wrapped around a core, which is spun off the engine by a belt.
yes the alternator will generate more power at higher rpm than it would at lower rpm. so they are designed to give optimum performance at driving speed.

the alternator reaches the voltage levels needed to recharge the battery, and run ALL the vehicles electrics, right at idle. the car has a circuit that stops the batery from over charging as the engine rpms rise. It dumps the surplus.

how much electricity is made is governed by number of coils in the core, (the strength of the magnets) and the size of the pullys on the engine. Those factors are constant. The resistance does not increase as you draw more power to any significant amount. your gas mileage would not drop 10% for tha,t anymore than it would drop 10% from turning on your left signal, or your headlights....

overloading an alternator won't increase your fuel consumption, it'll metlt the wiring in the core. that's why people with huge stereos need to upgrade thier alternators (or change the gear ratios with different pullys) and yes a larger altenator will be harder to turn,
but even that wouldn't rob you of mileage, the amount having one tire underinflated by 5 psi would.

and Georges sugestion also doesn't use lead baterries!
true.
but my idea does have it's merits, especially for guys like me that need the power on the go!

sit an underpowered car at idling revs and turn on all the electronics, then tell me doing so doesn't make the alternator harder to turn. It's probably harder to find a car with a sub 2L engine in your part of the world but putting the headlights on knocks about 50RPM off the idle speed in my 1.4L Skoda.


Simple conservation of energy, if you want more power out one end, you have to put it in the other end.

Anyway, I'm not really looking for an argument here. It's a pretty cool invention and no doubt about it handy as a mobile power source, and any environmental impact from inefficiency of power generation is probably canceled out by the items not being randomly plugged into the grid for no reason.

Wow. I think my motorcycle cranks out more juice than that skoda....
I wasn't saying you're wrong, just that the alternator will speed up and crank out it's max juice EVERYTIME the engine rpms rise whether you draw that power or not, it just gets dumped.

Thats quite likely she's not exactly a sports car

wanna buy my yamaha engine? it's got about 130 horsepower!

lol you actually do have nearly twice my horsepower.

Actually, Don, I think you will find that alternators cut in and out depending on whether the battery requires power, and when the alternator cuts in it is much harder to turn. As Mongoose says, you can see (and hear) the difference.

There really is no such thing as a free lunch.

G

again, George you are right. You can hear an altenator cut in and out.
making power does raise the resistance needed to turn the altenator.
there is a voltage regulator that regulated the output on the altenator by grounding the feild coils. (effectively dumping the electricity that is being generated to prevent the battery and electrical system from overcharging).
I have a camper trailer, and when hooked up to my van, you can hear the altenator work harder...when you turn the lights, tv and other appliences. but an ipod, or laptop, or cell phone, or my battery pack won't do that, they don't draw enough power to exceed what the system has got under normal conditions.

there is a bit of a hump in the efficiency graph where at ilde speeds, your high beams and powerful stereo amps WILL stress the altenator. But there is also enough energy being generated (esp at driving speeds where the altenator is working at peak effiency, where there is ample power running through the system to charge a second battery without penalty, and that energy can either get stored or dumped to ground and wasted.

I think the only thing people are misunderstanding is this:
recharging this little battery pak won't draw so much power that your engine has to work harder, at ANY rpm.

I am sorry, but I disagree. Probably your little device will charge away happily for a while without causing the alternator to cut in. But when the alternator does cut in, it will do so slightly sooner than it would have done otherwise, and that is where the higher fuel consumption will come in.

But the cost will be pretty small, just as it will be charging your batteries at home.

There's a good article in the Economist this week about generating electricity from waves. After hydro, that is almost certainly going to be the most effective form of "free" electricity generation.

G

yep...I think there is only one way to settle this debate. Solar panel.
lol.
then the "scavenging waste" vs "costing fuel" debate no longer a debate.

I think a $20.00 solar panel will be cheaper than trying to scientifically resolve the other issue, and makes sense.