Off the grid, on the Net
Joy Beeson
I just woke up from a weird dream about a mobile computer that ran on
alcohol, and now that I'm awake it still makes sense. (Well, not the
part about worrying that using this computer here in the house would
run down the battery in my pickup truck, or us having a camper, or .
. . )
Which leads me to wonder how many real-life ways there are to power a
computer. I know that there are hand-cranked computers, generators
mounted on a treadle base like a sewing machine, and frequent
speculation about charging a battery with an exercise bike.
Many years ago, the Journal of High Treknology was written on a
bike-mounted solar-powered computer. There really ought to be
production models by now.
Joy Beeson
--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.
Andy Leighton
Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>
> I just woke up from a weird dream about a mobile computer that ran on
> alcohol, and now that I'm awake it still makes sense. (Well, not the
> part about worrying that using this computer here in the house would
> run down the battery in my pickup truck, or us having a camper, or .
> . . )
I've read articles about how methanol fuel cells could be used to
power laptops. So that part of your dream wasn't that weird.
--
Andy Leighton => an...@azaal.plus.com
"The Lord is my shepherd, but we still lost the sheep dog trials"
- Robert Rankin, _They Came And Ate Us_
Jay E. Morris
On 31-Dec-2009, Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
> I just woke up from a weird dream about a mobile computer that ran on
> alcohol, and...
Hmm. Sounds like me in my college years.
cryptoguy
> On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 03:18:32 -0500,
> Joy Beeson <jbee...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>
>
>
> > I just woke up from a weird dream about a mobile computer that ran on
> > alcohol, and now that I'm awake it still makes sense. (Well, not the
> > part about worrying that using this computer here in the house would
> > run down the battery in my pickup truck, or us having a camper, or .
> > . . )
>
> I've read articles about how methanol fuel cells could be used to
> power laptops. So that part of your dream wasn't that weird.
We had a vendor (www.siriusintegrator.com) come in and demo methanol
cells at my office a few weeks ago. The cells I saw were designed to
supply a modest level of power over a long period (weeks), and were
the size of small suitcases (a good deal of which was the fuel
reservoir).
I'm waiting for much, much smaller ones, that can be integrated into a
laptop, phone, or PDA.
pt
David Loewe, Jr.
>I just woke up from a weird dream about a mobile computer that ran on
>alcohol, and now that I'm awake it still makes sense. (Well, not the
>part about worrying that using this computer here in the house would
>run down the battery in my pickup truck, or us having a camper, or .
>. . )
>
>Which leads me to wonder how many real-life ways there are to power a
>computer. I know that there are hand-cranked computers, generators
>mounted on a treadle base like a sewing machine, and frequent
>speculation about charging a battery with an exercise bike.
>
>Many years ago, the Journal of High Treknology was written on a
>bike-mounted solar-powered computer. There really ought to be
>production models by now.
Along those lines...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/garden/31yurt.html?8dpc
--
"Just think of it as evolution in action."
Tony Rand in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's
'Oath of Fealty'
T Guy
> > I just woke up from a weird dream about a mobile computer that ran on
> > alcohol, and...
("Jay E. Morris" <morr...@epsilon3.com>):
> Hmm. Sounds like me in my college years.
(Tim):
Yeah, I was going to say that there's this thing that the human brain
is the world's best computer.
T Guy
Keith F. Lynch
> I've read articles about how methanol fuel cells could be used to
> power laptops. So that part of your dream wasn't that weird.
One problem with fuel cells is they're quickly ruined by any
contaminants in the fuel. So the methanol would have to be extremely
pure, unless you don't mind frequently buying a new fuel cell. And
those things are expensive.
Internal combustion engines are much more tolerant of impurities.
Too bad they're not practical for powering laptops.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
Alan Woodford
<k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>Andy Leighton <an...@azaal.plus.com> wrote:
>> I've read articles about how methanol fuel cells could be used to
>> power laptops. So that part of your dream wasn't that weird.
>
>One problem with fuel cells is they're quickly ruined by any
>contaminants in the fuel. So the methanol would have to be extremely
>pure, unless you don't mind frequently buying a new fuel cell. And
>those things are expensive.
>
>Internal combustion engines are much more tolerant of impurities.
>Too bad they're not practical for powering laptops.
<ObSF>
In Terry Bisson's novelisation of The Fifth Element, he refers to "the
screaming search engines" of one of the characters laptops :-)
At that point I gave up on the book - I enjoyed the film though.
Alan Woodford
The Greying Lensman!
Cryptoengineer
There's serious work being on MEMS gas turbine engines and
generators.
They should be able to provider far superior power density. I don't
know how they will manage in terms of noise and heat though.
pt
Thomas Womack
Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>There's serious work being on MEMS gas turbine engines and
>generators.
Still? I remember hearing about it as a Great Idea when I was at
university in around 2000, there's a 2003 paper entitled
'millimeter-scale MEMS gas turbine engines' and a 2004 MIT PhD thesis
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/17815 with a rather sad paragraph
" Primarily due to the exacting requirements of the micron scale
bearings, these devices have proven very difficult to manufacture to
design, with only six near specification units produced over the
course of three years. Six proved to be a small number for this
development program since these silicon devices are brittle and
do not survive bearing crashes at speeds much above a few tens of
thousands of rpm "
in its abstract.
Were it not for the increasing paranoia as to what you could take on
airplanes, I suspect methanol-fuelled laptops would by now be
reasonably common; I get the impression that technology works but is
too expensive to sell enough to make the money to make it cheaper.
Tom
Nate Edel
> Internal combustion engines are much more tolerant of impurities.
> Too bad they're not practical for powering laptops.
Well, not practical in their present readily-available incarnations for ONLY
powering laptops. I run mine off of internal combustion power occasionally
(every couple of months) when on long road trips, or long plane flights
(assuming jets count as internal combusion?) and it's very convenient (some
airlines even have 120v available at the seat board such that you don't need
a separate DC-DC converter.)
While the readiest source of very small engines I know of (2-stroke RC
car/plane engines *) are very noisy and pretty noxious emissions-wise, I
wonder if you could one could build a clean enough and quiet enough
internal-combustion DC generator if money were no object. While on paper
most laptops seem to want about 65W of input power, even around 40W would be
enough with some battery for peak use. That's not much.
(* http://www.osengines.com/engines/car.html for one example.)
--
Nate Edel http://www.cubiclehermit.com/
preferred email |
is "nate" at the | "I do have a cause, though. It's obscenity. I'm
posting domain | for it."
Keith F. Lynch
> Which leads me to wonder how many real-life ways there are to
> power a computer. I know that there are hand-cranked computers,
> generators mounted on a treadle base like a sewing machine, and
> frequent speculation about charging a battery with an exercise bike.
The lower they can get the power consumption, the more ways will
be practical.
Many ways that are possible, people won't both with, since it's easier
to plug it into the wall and pay an extra dollar a year in electricity
than to spend an hour every day vigorously turning a crank.
And be glad that steampunk computers haven't caught on. You wouldn't
want your neighbors shoveling coal into their computers, as coal smoke
isn't healthful.
Martha Adams
wrote:
> On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 03:18:32 -0500,
> Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> I just woke up from a weird dream about a mobile computer that ran on
>> alcohol, and now that I'm awake it still makes sense. (Well, not the
>> part about worrying that using this computer here in the house would
>> run down the battery in my pickup truck, or us having a camper, or .
>> . . )
>
> I've read articles about how methanol fuel cells could be used to
> power laptops. So that part of your dream wasn't that weird.
======================================================
Back when I was young, some houses still had battery rooms
and a windmill to charge the batteries. I don't think you
want to use commercial batteries for a power reserve, they
only last a few years (3-5 yrs) and then you get to buy
new ones. The alternative is to recycle the chemicals and
make the batteries yourself. See old books about this
that I saw -- 60+ years ago. The technology existed then
so something about it has to be around now.
Titeotwawki -- mha [2010 Jan 28]