New Gizmo for Recharging Gadgets

I think we discussed this product last year, but the "Nectar" device was displayed at the Consumer Electronics Show tech show in Vegas today.

They say it will fully charge a phone once a day for two weeks with one "Fuel Cell", and you can carry extra fuel cells. I could not find info on how much it weighs, but they are sure people roaming around the wildernesses will want them.

Of course, it won't be cheap. The charging unit costs $299, and the disposable fuel cells cost $10 each. That's more by a lot than I'd pay for a phone charger, and for charging my phone, but the technology is promising, so I'll just have to wait until it makes it to my price point. It'd sure be nice if it got as cheap as fast as LED watches did in the `70s.*





*LED watches:

On April 4, 1972, the Pulsar (wrist watch) was finally ready, made in 18-carat gold and sold for $2,100. It had a red light-emitting diode (LED) display.

Digital LED watches were very expensive and out of reach to the common consumer until 1975, when Texas Instruments started to mass produce LED watches inside a plastic case. These watches, which first retailed for only $20, reduced to $10 in 1976... source: wiki

Looks good, even at that price, if it'll really do what it says it would. $299 retail, plus 10 for one cell that can charge your phone, for 2 weeks? Maybe carry one extra cell?

It could be a great personal safety device with multiple uses, not just backpacking. Around here, storm/tornado survival comes to mind. I think I'm going to try to "track" this, and see what kind of reviews it get's, street price changes, etc.

Thanks for posting that, B.

J.

I agree with jbylake even at an entry price not totally bad, in 2 years it'll be $199 or less depending if there is a market.

I'm cheap. I can wait.

Interesting! I dug up this.
Necktar article
55k mWh is a lot of juice. I read elsewhere the fuel is butane, not hydrogen like another portable fuel cell that came out a couple years back.

My question on economies of scale is whether it uses precious metals like some fuel cells. If not, then it seems reasonable the price could drop.

About half a pound.

Cheers,

[edits: Corrected my article URL; spec doesn't say whether the weight includes fuel; fuel costs a whopping $10/cartridge)

7.14 oz

Butane would indicate a heat source. Kind of misleading when most folks think of "fuel cells" as "polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC)"
It's still a great idea. Any "fuel" will produce more energy than human or solar.
I'm working on a "yo yo dynamo" from a scrap stepper motor which can produce as much as 15-20 watts, but still requires yanking a sting for a few minutes. They used to be for sale but never caught on. Check this out:
http://www.potenco.com/products

That's cool!

It reminds of this gadget I saw a few weeks ago:

Gravity Light

This is a pretty cool idea too, and might offer a way to create a charger. It works like a Grandfather Clock, but think of how you might toss a line over a tree limb and hoist up your charger, phone, and a weight to start charging.

The weight could be anything, a rock, a bag of gravel, a deadfall limb, your backpack...

Thanks!

That's not bad. If I we're depending on gadgets for my trip I'd be pretty happy with that.

All things considered, the price and cost to use it isn't awful. Right now this appears to be the best solution for backpackers so I hope it works great and sells really well. That's the fastest path to a gizmo that hits my price point.

Honestly, a dorky Cox .049 model airplane engine (burns methanol), coupled with a motor(generator), would out perform everything we've all talked about with regard to efficiency. Probably weight about 5-6ozs too.
RRRRRRReeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! (nothing like a generator in the next campsite.)
Just for meanness, I might have to cobble together something like that to see what it would do. A stove powered steam turbine, from a salvaged muffin fan would be next best with regard to speed/power.
Getting the little generators up to a high speed is the trick in all these things. I gave up on the kinetic linear generator idea...too slow...good for LEDs but thats about it.

Check this out, Bill...
http://www.dieselrc.com/projects/coxgen/

and a guy doing it wrong but with the right idea: (loud!!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBWfMQF4Jn8

I really don't know a lot about this stuff, but I do ponder it every now and then.

I have wondered if using rare earth magnets in the generator and a capacitor that pulsed charged a battery might not need so many rpms. Those little shaker flashlights intrigue me, and that's what got me thinking about this. It might be slow to charge, but it might still be efficient if it requires less power to run.

Geez, I got a fleece shirt for Christmas and I was taking it off the other day and couldn't help but wonder if there is a way to harness all the static electricity that thing generates.

Think of it, a big fleece suit designed to generate static electricity. Walk a mile and your iPhone is charged.

I've got a machine shop in the garage and tinker with inventions all the time, like this.
Static...yes, easy, from whats collected on a kite string. Not practical, very slow, depends on humidity and weather.
Shaker lights (kinetic linear generator)...my idea was to strap one on my ankle, and charge phone while hiking. You'd have to hike an entire day and it still wouldn't be topped off.

Hanging a capacitor in line and using rare earth magnets is how it's done....not for pulsing but to flatten the pulses. Also needs to be a voltage regulator in there somewhere.

Pure genius!

Thanks rockchucker, but if it were 'genius', I'd have this stuff figured out. I do get it right once in a while though.

It is really hard to get around using rare metals for fuel cells. Platinum is the best, but costs a fortune. Ruthenium and Beryllium are next up. The cheapest way is to coat titanium with one of these metals, so you only use a tiny bit. But, that is still expensive.

As I've said, I don't know much about this, but what I had in mind is charging the capacitor to a certain point and then pulsing a charge to a battery. I understand that batteries charge faster and deeper with high volt pulse (relatively speaking, say a 14v pulse into a 12v battery) as opposed to a 12v constant charge.

It's all I don't know that trips me up on this kind of stuff

Your idea is valid but the methods are a bit more complicated than placing a capacitor in the chain. Different batteries like different charging schemes. Lithium, lead/gel, ni-cad, AGM's, liquid acid/lead, Ni Metal Hydride, all charge a little differently.
There are very tiny IC's and simple circuits you could use to come up with some fancy discharge/pulse charging-cycling schemes but I'm not sure it's worth the trouble with lithium cell phone batteries. Those are fairly linear and don't have near the memory issues as other types.
But, you can be an expert! Read through this...good stuff:
http://www.mpoweruk.com/chargers.htm