Looks like betas whacking solar cells.
Makes no sense to me. A primary lithium battery will deliver power for over 20 years at a cost per joule probably a million times better than this. Not to mention getting a more sensible terminal voltage. How do they expect to charge a battery with 0.7 volts?
That all goes for most of the "energy harvesting" things you read a lot about.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology Inc www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com Precision electronic instrumentation Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators Custom timing and laser controllers Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links VME analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators
A lithium cell won't last long when hot - Arrhenius and all that. These produce electrons from radioactive decay, so shouldn't really be affected by temperature.
Must be pretty niche, though.
Cheers
-- Syd
It could make sense in hostile environments where battery chemistry might not behave itself. ISTR Their second generation is 3v.
I rather like Zamboni piles which at least have a proven track record:
probably powering the Oxford electric bell since 1840
This one sounds more like shareholder IPO harvesting to me.
-- Regards, Martin Brown
It isn't such a big deal. We had a bet going in a European NG some years ago. One guy said that you can't get any decent conversion performance either way with a single 600mV fuel cell. Me and some other dudes said that you can even get above 90% efficiency. So, one guy rolled up his sleeves and actually built it, with the help of all the other Aye-sayers. It worked. Of course, for the bet it had to be self-starting, and it was.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
The original Batmobile used atomic batteries...
Batman: "To the Batmobile! Let's go!" Robin: "Atomic batteries to power. Turbines to speed." Batman: "Ready to move out."
Cheers
-- Syd
So why did flames come out of the back end then? Looked more like a fuel rich blowlamp as afterburner.
I reckon it required divine intervention - Holy smoke Batman!
-- Regards, Martin Brown
I don't know if you're familiar with the Gerry Anderson genre, but I remember Fireball XL5 and the various Thunderbirds moving at incredible speeds while the exhaust smoke drifted up in a gentle arc.
There are some things which are as yet beyond our feeble understanding. F A B
Cheers
-- Syd
Because they are based on comic books created for grade school level boys. And loser like Dimbulb who shoot up theaters.
It can make cheap memory non-volatile and power sensors and/or query-able (?) systems intermittently, sounds like it could be useful. Cost is no object to the intended clientele, in fact, the more exorbitant the better.
You fail to understand, the people that started that company have connections and got government grants; they get rich while the company founders on "insufficient sales" or some such excuse. Then they can go back for more money, fill their pockets and let it fail more. FirstSolar.
John Larkin schrieb:
Hello,
they have a battery with 3 V also.
Cheers
There are a few applications where such a power source might make sense, =
especially if it had a truly limitless lifetime and reasonable output. = Their=20 newer versions seem to have moved from nanowatts to microwatts, and the = web=20 page is rather old so things may have improved, or fallen apart.
I wondered about using radioluminescence, like the old radium clock = dials,=20 coupled to solar cells. It's been done, but now the radium has been = replaced=20 with tritium:
Thermopiles using hot radioactive materials, perhaps waste, might be = better,=20 but of course for other applications where located far from people.=20
However, these are also not "eternal". TANSTAAFL.
Paul=20
Tritium's half-life is about 12 years, and the conversion chips could be subject to radiation damage.
Interesting stuff. These are tritium lights, for tent zippers or key rings
but they are very dim.
And the cost per joule is astronomical.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology Inc www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com Precision electronic instrumentation Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators Custom timing and laser controllers Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links VME analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators
John Larkin schrieb:
Hello,
Tritium is a low energy beta emitter, I think there is very few radiation damage.
Bye
Strontium 90 as a near pure beta emitter would have a lot more welly behind it and a longer half life of ~30y. Relatively cheap radioisotope from the fuel cycle reprocessing. Not good in the environment though...
They look pretty weak and feeble.
UK still has tritium lights in some isolated motorway phones(*) about
10cm long and 1cm diameter. They produce enough light to see to use the phone in total darkness - eerie green yellow phosphor they use. Also available for fishing floats again with a reasonable level of brightness (glass vials containing phosphor and tritium gas).(*) a bit of a throwback to the days before mobile phones but there are still a few parts of trunk roads with zero mobile network coverage.
Less so if you don't care about operator safety.
-- Regards, Martin Brown
Robert Baer wrote in news:MpidnZL- StP0BZLNnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@posted.localnet:
"MONEY harvesters".
there's a lot more than just First Solar.
-- Jim Yanik jyanik at localnet dot com
They are nicely visible in a dark room. We have a really ugly bed in our cabin, with big dangerous-in-the-dark bedposts, and I put tritium lights in the tops of the posts. They are perfect for apps like that.
I have one bigger one on my key ring. If you are totally dark adapted, it's just enough light to help you get around in the dark. Pity that really powerful ones are not available.
I also have a Tadiran lithium battery wired to a 1M resistor and a good green LED. It's a lot brighter and I expect it to stay at constant brightness for 20 years or more. You can bridge the resistor leads with fingers (or tongue!) and increase the brightness as desired. I was, incidentally, able to visually resolve light at 700 pA into these Avago green LEDs.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology Inc www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com Precision electronic instrumentation Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators Custom timing and laser controllers Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links VME analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators
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