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wind powered ipod charger?


Strife25

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Hello,

i;m currently an engineering student and have been assigned a project to develop an item that utilizes a renewable energy source, ie. wind energy.

My group came up with the idea to create a wind powered iPod charger. I thought of the various altoid tin chargers people have made, so this seems like a viable idea. It doesnt necessarily have to charge the iPod WELL, but as long as i can get the charging symbol on the iPod to appear, it will be enough.

I do not have much experience with developing a circuit of this sort, so would anyone have any idea as to how one would go about developing this and is it feasible to create under $10?

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In theory I suppose it would be easy to generate a voltage using an electric motor (small, low voltage) with fan blades attatched... something like:

                           Motor      D1         C1

   ---[Device]-----(  )------>-------| |----

   |     -      +          -    +                                |

   |________________________________|

That's going to be incredibly inefficient but IIRC in theory it would work. I hope I have the components in the right places/right polarities but it's an area I'm a little hazy on....

C1 = Capacitor

D1 = Diode

The motor (or more accurately the generator) will output AC current where your device will need DC... The diode will allow current to only flow in 1 direction as DC does and the capacitor should store a little extra to smooth out the DC...

AC Waveform that would come from the motor:

+

/   /   /   /

---------------   0v

   /   /   /                

-

Now that AC coming from the motor, when 'fixed' by the diode, will look like:

+

/  /  /  /  / 

-----------------  0v



-

Notice how there's gaps between the peaks? the current that flows in the other direction has been cut out. This is why you need the capacitor (though I'm not entirely convinced I've put it in the right place, anyone correct me?)... You need to try to smooth out those gaps to get steady DC current to charge your device...

Waveform of slightly rectified AC:

+

/'-./'-./'-./'-./'-.

----------------------- 0v



-

DC (what you're looking for):

+_________________



-------------------------- 0v



-

Now in theory with all that done you could spin the electic motor using wind power and it *should* output current to your device (though I suspect that unless you choose the motor well it'd be hard to turn fast enough to generate enough power to charge an iPod... maybe?)

USB outputs a maximum of 5v @ 500mA just for reference so aim for that.

Hope that's helped and good luck...!

Feel free to flame me if I'm way off course here ;)

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Moonlit, i think the best part of you whole explanation was your cool diagrams written in ascii

I personally don't know. The amount of energy that it takes to simply light a globe that is connected directly to a hand cranked electricity generator is a whole heap. I don't know that a wind generator, unless it's many meters wide is going to do it. Perhaps if wind doesn't turn out try turning it into a mechanical device that you could turn by hand or pedal, it's still renewable.

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Moonlit, i think the best part of you whole explanation was your cool diagrams written in ascii

Hehe thanks ^_^

On topic though, Garda's right... if you took the dynamo bicycle iPod charger idea would work... if you add some sprockets and a handle you have a hand-powered iPod charger... it's renewable and it's environmentally friendly (might make your arm ache though...) ;)

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Moonlit, i think the best part of you whole explanation was your cool diagrams written in ascii

Hehe thanks ^_^

On topic though, Garda's right... if you took the dynamo bicycle iPod charger idea would work... if you add some sprockets and a handle you have a hand-powered iPod charger... it's renewable and it's environmentally friendly (might make your arm ache though...) ;)

No worse than his arm ache when he does other things...

I kid, I kid...but not really.

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