Hasta La Gadget!

When you pull the chain on your cistern, you are literally flushing energy down the toilet. Tom Broadbent’s HighDro Power takes that energy and turns it into electricity.

Broadbent is a graduate of the De Montfort University in Leicester (that’s pronounced “lester”) in England. His device uses the energy of the waste water as it falls through the pipes, just like a hydroelectric dam, only smaller and not flooding valleys and forcing people to move out.

The HighDro Power isn’t meant for the home. Rather, it would be inserted into the plumbing of commercial buildings, taking the fast moving water from long soil pipes and converting them to energy via four blades which turn a turbine. By Broadbent’s reckoning, the device would save $1,400 in electricity costs per year in a seven-story building.

The neat part is that the box is made from off-the-shelf parts along with sections that Broadbent put together in a fab-lab using lasers, CNC-milling and vacuum forming machines. In larger production, then, it should be cheap enough to pay for itself very quickly, and in places like hotels, with their endlessly-emptying baths and showers, it could even turn into a money-maker as the energy is sold back to the grid.

Waste Not Want Not with DMU Student’s Electric Idea [Creative Boom via Core77]

See Also:

• Toilet
• Kinetic Energy Generator Powers Gadgets with Magic
• HumanCar Powered by Human Energy, Not Ethanol

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

What’s the first application you think of when I say the phrase “vibration-powered self-generating battery”? Me too, but let’s keep this clean.

The faux-batteries are from Brother Industries, and inside the AA and AAA-sized shells you’ll find a capacitor and an electromagnetic induction generator. Shaking them will charge the capacitor enough to juice low-power gadgets. The example given is remote control, which needs around 40 to 100mW of power. The battery can put out up to 180mW, so while you won’t be using these to power a camera-flash, a quick shake to get the TV remote going again would work just great. In fact, you could just build this in to a remote and forget the batteries altogether.

Ok, so I couldn’t stay clean for the entire post. As one commenter on the Gizmodo post about these batteries points out, pop a few of these inside a vibrator and boom! You have perpetual motion.

Vibration-powered Generators Replace AA, AAA Batteries [Tech-On via Giz]

See Also:

• Wired 14.11: Building a Better Battery
• Battery Breakthrough Promises Lighter Weight, More Power
• Solar-Powered iPhone Battery Case: Apple Approves

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Can’t say we’re any keener on the idea of blasting our outlets with Super Soakers, but Wet Circuit’s water resistant power strips boast its ability to withstand just such a defiant action — occasional rain and snow, wet hands, temporary flooding, and accidental water spills (assuredly intentional, too). $35 is the asking price, and while the company claims you can put metallic objects in the socket without fear of electrocution, you probably shouldn’t press your luck. Check out a plethora of demonstrations after the break — no really, we beseech you. Crank the speakers for this one.

Continue reading Wet Circuits waterproof power strip presented by all-time best dubbed videos

Wet Circuits waterproof power strip presented by all-time best dubbed videos originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Jul 2010 09:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Gear Diary  |  Wet Circuits  | Email this | Comments

If you or I are out and about and our cellphone battery dies, it is an inconvenience at most. If you are a soldier in the field, a lack of power can be a little more of a problem. But what if you could hook your gear up to overhead power-lines?

RAPS (Remote Auxiliary Power System) does just that. Developed for the Air Force, supposedly after soldiers asked for something like Batman might use, RAPS is an incredibly simple way to steal juice. You throw the small hammer-head over a power-line like you would a grappling hook, and a cut-out slips over the cable, contacting the bare metal. At the same time, a small blade pierces insulation of the other cable to complete the circuit, and power pours down the connected line to the soldier on the ground. Once there, the AC supply is converted via transformer to DC, whereupon it can be used to recharge equipment. Watch the patronizing video to learn more:

In it you will learn some handy facts you may not have known: “Power-lines are a handy source of electricity. But they are also dangerous.” Really?

Needless to say, making your own RAPS would likely be your ticket straight to the Darwin Awards, but this official device is safe enough to be used in pouring rain. I still have one question. How do you get it back down again?

The Bat Hook: Harvesting Energy from Power Lines [Armed with Science via PopSci]