Brad Ideas - What's your travel power supply record? - Comments

Brad, great blog - After

Dr Smizzle von Bizzle — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:53:06 -0700

Brad, great blog - After carrying so much, I'm wondering if you managed to make space for two spare AA cell batteries for your mistress's vibrator on this little European 'sojourn'? Although if you like things a little 'Al-Fresco' a solar-powered pocket-rocket would be a great invention.

This topic is covered

brad — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:04:55 -0700

In an older blog post. It’s generally a good idea, but you can only ship a much more limited amount of wattage if you use a lower voltage (DC or AC) and would need to put in extra wiring. (Perhaps not, it’s possible to combine DC and AC on the same wire and pull them out in some cases.)

Some solar powered houses do keep both a DC and AC wiring set. A good voltage to do the DC at is 48 volts but very little equipment uses that. It is the voltage of Power over Ethernet.

Time for domestic DC power

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 23:14:28 -0700

This brings up something I've wondered for a while. Is it time to consider a standard
domestic (house- or building-wide) DC power system? Fifty years ago, most of the items
plugged into the wall in a typical home or office actually needed AC power and used it directly (electric typewriters, incandescent lamps, hair dryers...). But now, especially assuming LED lighting takes off, the vast majority of the things we plug into the wall only use AC to generate DC with a transformer. Why not have
a single transformer for the house that generates, say, +/-15V, and distributes it through the walls to
standard DC outlets? No more wall warts, chargers, or heavy power supplies.

wtf?

Kaleberg — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 18:03:51 -0700

What was the "special device"?

A confused news story

brad — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:43:49 -0700

This story got a lot of press. The research is real but the press interpretation is entirely bogus. This technology has almost nothing to do with solar. Zip, nada. It’s a better technique for electrolysis, which uses electricity (from any source, from coal burning to solar) to generate hydrogen and oxygen. Worse, the research is about improving the oxygen generation, though there are paths from this to improving the hydrogen generation.

Better hydrogen generation would be a good power storage technology, but it has very little to do with solar. The main connection it might have to solar would be for off-grid solar panels that need a way to store their electricity; this could help them store it in hydrogen. The oxygen is generally not kept though pure oxygen does have its uses since it does take energy to get that.

On-grid, you don’t need storage tech for solar. Solar gives its power during the peak power usage parts of the day. Storage is the last thing we need for that — we want to use it.

As noted, this is OK for off-grid, including those who want to put a solar panel on a car, if it is a more effective method of storage than batteries or other methods. Storing hydrogen presents its own problems, of course.

solar's future is brightening

Dean Loomis — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 12:15:52 -0700

Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and some coworkers have recently announced a new electrode that makes the classic high-school chemistry experiment about splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using electrolysis work a whole lot better. See the MIT press release at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html

If you remember what happened in that classroom experiment, the H2 and O2 bubbles accumulated very slowly, and used a lot of power along the way. Using Nocera's easy-to-make electrodes the process is much faster and more efficient; the videos show bubbles looking like they're coming from an aquarium aeration stone.

This means that using distributed rooftop home solar could be a realistic option, with H2 as the storage medium, as Nocera describes. H2 now has potential viability as a transportation fuel, since distribution networks for water and electricity are already in place and we don't have to worry about distribution from centralized H2 plants that use steam reformation from natural gas methane and its CO2 byproducts.

Solar not really workable

brad — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:47:04 -0700

First of all, you need a fair bit of power here for all this charging, and you mostly need it at night. It’s silly to take it to the hotel (where you usually only are at night) and you may not even have a sun facing window anyway. Only on-grid solar makes sense; off-grid solar is generally silly. Even on cars.

Gadgets

Gareth — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 03:28:35 -0700

That is an incredible array of technology that you have taken with you. I don't think I can top it. But you're right, with a laptop, phone, Ipod and sat-nav - it all adds up. I like your idea of making cars have USB. What would be cool is that the cars have USB and power outlets powered by a fold away Solar Panel (that sits plush on the roof) that you can take up to the hotel with you and charge everything that way.

Think I may go to Dragon's Den with that....

What's your travel power supply record?

brad — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:26:35 -0700

I often rant here about the need for better universal power supply technology. And there is some progress. On a recent trip to Europe, I was astounded how much we took in the way of power supply gear. I am curious at what the record is for readers here. I suggested we have a contest at a recent gathering. I had six supplies, and did not win.

Here’s what the two of us had on the German trip in terms of devices. There were slightly fewer supplies, due to the fact several devices charged from USB, which could be generated by laptops or dedicated wall-warts.

My laptop, with power supply. (Universal, able to run from plane, car or any voltage)
Her laptop, with power supply.
My unlocked GSM phone, which though mini-USB needs its dedicated charger, so that was brought
My CDMA phone, functioning has a PDA, charges from mini-USB
Her unlocked GSM phone, plus motorola charger
Her CDMA Treo, as a PDA, with dedicated charger
My Logger GPS, charges from mini-USB
My old bluetooth GPS, because I had just bought the logger, charges from mini-USB
My Canon EOS 40D, with plug in battery charger. 4 batteries.
Her Canon mini camera, with different plug in battery charger. 2 batteries.
Canon flash units, with NiMH AA batteries, with charger and power supply for charger.
Special device, with 12v power supply.
MP3 player and charger
Bluetooth headset, charges from same Motorola charger. Today we would have two!
External laptop battery for 12 hour flight, charges from laptop charger
Electric shaver — did not bring charger as battery will last trip.
4 adapters for Euro plugs, and one 3-way extension cord. One adapter has USB power out!
An additional USB wall-wart, for a total of 3 USB wall-warts, plus the computers.
Cigarette lighter to USB adapter to power devices in car.

That’s the gear that will plug into a wall. There was more electronic gear, including USB memory sticks, flash cards, external wi-fi antennal, headsets and I’ve probably forgotten a few things.