Gravity Powered Lamp, Designed By Student, Provides As Much Light As 40 Watt Bulb

Science Daily ^ | 2-22-2008 | Virginia Tech

[the_devils_advocate_666]

WIND-UP BED SIDE LAMP

This is for people who can’t sleep without the light. Also, people who read in the bed sometimes forget to turn off the light. The key functions as a switch and a timer. Wind-up to turn the light on before you go to bed. The light will stay on until the key winds back. You will come to know how many times you need to wind-up. Its main source of power comes from its powerful spring-driven generator. As the high carbon tensile steel spring unwinds, power is transferred to a small dynamo electric generator which produces enough electricity to power of the light.

[stevio]

LEDs are the future my FRiends.

[KarlInOhio]

Would that be a grandfather or cuckoo clock?

Don't talk to me about prior art. The patent office doesn't pay much attention to it, so why should I? :-).

After looking at the first place "EnerJar" which is just a power meter similar to the already commercially available Kill-a-watt meter, I have to say that the lamp designers were robbed. The lamp is more innovative than the power meter.

[freedomlover]

I spent what I though was too much money (20 bucks) on one of those wind up lights at Brookstone or the like.

However I use the crap out of it as it is the only one in the house that works cause I always leave them on.

And if there is ever an intruder in the house I can use it as a weapon as it is pretty chunky too!

[fella]

When mass produced they will get the price down to about ....................................................

[Richard Kimball]

Just a thought. What if you put it in an hourglass type holder where you just turned it over?

[Wurlitzer]

"A patent is pending on the Gravia."

The patent process seems to have evolved into granting a patent for just about anything. While the design is attractive, I cannot see anything unique about the mechanism. Falling mass to turn a rotor to generate electricity to light a light seems like I recall that being done before.

[DUMBGRUNT]

Very nice!
Surprised that it is not mounted on trunnions, then just invert it to cycle?

[Max in Utah]

When he gets it so I can just turn the device over, like a hour glass...

He should mount it on a swivel, so the user can just flip it 180 degrees when needed. Would take about 3 seconds.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

If it had trunnions, it’d be from British Leyland.

[reg45]

It’s not really powered by gravity, it’s powered by the “lifting” of the weight to a higher position. Some of that work is recovered by the falling weight.

[NYFriend]

It’s clever, it’s not innovative or brilliant, but it’s a great use of existing technology.

I’d buy one of them. I’m using three lamps with 25 watt bulbs in my living room right now (technically, I’m not using any right now, but I’ll turn on up to three, depending on what I’m doing), so this would fit my needs pretty well.

Plus, if you only use a 40 watt bulb, and only entertain in the evening, you don’t need to paint the room as often.

Anyone good with linear induction motors? You can build a linear induction generator, can you reverse a linear induction motor to make an AC generator? How efficient are they? I’m not great with magnetism. Moving a 550 lbs weight 1 foot per second costs about 0.75 KWs. If I slow a 550 lbs magnets’s decent with a conductor (inducing a current), to 1 foot per minute (1/60th), how do I calculate the power produced? And, am I right that the speed of the magnet relative to the conductor determines voltage? If so, I’m not really producing any voltage at 1 foot per minute, right?.

[aquila48]

Should be called the “human powered light”.

[kbennkc]

Such devices must be banned until the utility companies figure a way to meter their use and charge accordingly ./sarc

[scan59]

Very cool. It’d be a nice and interesting addition to my home.

[TXnMA]

I agree. It is not "gravity powered". It is powered by the human who lifts the weight every four hours. If the drop is four feet, and the weight is one pound, that is four foot-pounds of work done by the human...

It is no more "gravity powered" than those old clocks where you had to wind the weight back to the top every week...

[r9etb]

Forty wats isn’t much light though.

Yeah ... but it's 40 watts per column. You can make lamps with more than one column.

A perfect tent or trailer camping device....

[KarlInOhio]

It looks like the inventor was a little bit off. It has a 50 pound weight dropping over 58 inches (well, a little less since the whole thing is 58 inches). That is only 328 joules (or watt seconds) of energy. Spread out over 4 hours that is only 23 milliwatts of power on average. You aren't matching a 40 watt incandescent bulb with that.

[NYFriend]

OK, I’m stupid. I don’t need the generator to be linear, I can use a wheel or spool to convert linear movement to rotory.

[NoLibZone]

This is awful!

This will result in more fossil fuels being used.

If we measure the additional calories expended to move the weights we can quickly see that this will require more food, and increase water use...