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Hardware Hacking Businesses Apple

Hand Recharged iPod Shuffle 129

Posted by Zonk from the ye-olde-ipod-shuffle dept.
randomErr writes "In one for the first article on the new O'Reilly MAKE magizine we see how to recharge your iPod with a crank. The "Torronesque" project was based on the idea of coming up with a project and buiding it even if it has no immediate purpose. Imagine getting a little power charge every time you press a key or open your phone or laptop."
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Hand Recharged iPod Shuffle More

Hand Recharged iPod Shuffle

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  • Old idea (Score:5, Informative)

    by Spy Hunter ( 317220 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @05:27AM (#11851369) Journal
    It was patented in 1999 (the keyboard idea). here [164.195.100.11].
    • So where is it?
      Perhaps this is another patent that just sitting there keeping (this time) battery manufacturers in business.

      Maybe I could patent doing the same thing with a mouse..

      • Re:Old idea (Score:5, Informative)

        by Spy Hunter ( 317220 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @06:02AM (#11851435) Journal
        Just because it was patented doesn't mean it's a good idea of course; I believe the amount of power that can be generated by this method is too small to be of much use, even at theoretical 100% efficient conversion. Instead of allocating extra space, weight, and manufacturing cost for this complex charger system, simply including a bigger battery will improve battery life more. There is some interesting discussion along these lines in the original Slashdot story about the patent (also from '99) [slashdot.org].
        • They're trying to achieve too much with simple idea. It's obvious that you cannot power entire laptop with that magnet-coil setup, and it just adds extra weight which isn't nice.
          But how about using the idea on wireless keyboards? The extended weight wouldn't really be problem since the keyboard just sits on your table. I don't have one nearby so I could check how much it consumes, but this ps/2 keyboard seems to draw 200mA.
          The old article discussed that you could generate 0.1W at typing 10 keypresses at 1
        • well.. if it the device was REALLY power efficient.

          though, even then.. solar cell on it's surface might do a better job.

          anyways.. there's been crank-chargers for mobile phones for several years on the market already. using one to power an ipod would be pretty straightforward mod.
          • though, even then.. solar cell on it's surface might do a better job.
            Interesting...

            I wonder if one could make a totally passive wireless keyboard with RFID-like technology? It could change its signature with each key pressed, then the computer would poll it at 1KHz or so.

            • Stick a standard RFID underneath each key cap. Have shielding underneath the key cap so the rfid is unscannable when the key is pressed!

              How many rfid's can you have in a small area at once?

              --jeff++

    • Re:Old idea (Score:5, Funny)

      by Amiga Trombone ( 592952 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @07:39AM (#11851567)
      It was patented in 1999 (the keyboard idea).

      Actually, a crank-powered audio player was patented a long time before that. See here [phonophan.com].

    • Re:Old idea (Score:3, Interesting)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )
      Is there a patent on a piezoelectric version, too? It's pretty obvious, but so is generating power by pressing keys on a keyboard. It's also fairly useless, or someone would be doing it. Piezoelectric generation, on the other hand, could actually be useful and not have the serious downsides involved with packing a keyboard with magnets.

  • Heard of it already (Score:5, Informative)

    by deutschemonte ( 764566 ) <lane.montgomery@nOspAM.gmail.com> on Saturday March 05, 2005 @05:29AM (#11851372) Homepage
    I heard of this like 2 years ago (or more) for cell phones. They had a charger that you could crank by hand, a mini solar charger you could put on your dashboard or roof of your car, and a fan that sat on the outside of your car. Admittedly I don't remember the company, but this is really old news.
    • What would be the point of a mini solar charger in a car? Just plug it into the car's system.
    • The hand chargers are really popular at outdoor festivals - there's little access to power so you see people recharhing their phones using them.
    • in japan, you can buy little AA battery powered chargers at any conveinience shop. i'm surprised the rest of the world hasn't followed their lead.
      • So you're saying they have battery powered battery chargers? Am I the only one who sees a slight limitation with that?
        • i see no limitation in the conveinience of being able to charge your phone on the go, eliminates having to having to pack a plug in charger or miss calls because your battery has gone flat.
          • A plug-in charger is smaller and more economical than a battery pack with enough voltage to charge Li-Ion. Really! The one that came with my motorola phone is smaller than the phone, and the phone itself is a flip phone. It also works in multiple countries although you would need an adapter or some jumper wires and a disregard for fire codes to use it almost anywhere but the U.S.
            • and what happens when you're nowhere near an outlet to plug your charger into?
              • Yes, THAT is when you need the battery to battery charger. I was debunking all the other stated reasons, which are nonsense. The only reason to have such a thing is if you are not going to be near an outlet, and/or for emergencies. Of course, it might be wiser just to carry another battery. I bought an official motorola charger for my phone that will charge a second battery at the same time (it's also a data cradle.) They sell knockoffs like this too, but they weren't all that much cheaper. You can just car

  • not really a post (Score:2, Informative)

    by whatsup_will ( 779381 )
    come on, this is a bit nifty, but not slashdot material, this should be on hackaday not on slashdot.

  • another use! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 05, 2005 @05:33AM (#11851379)
    so, there could be new ways to power porn-visual devices, eh?

  • What? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by rhennigan ( 833589 )
    press a key or open your or phone laptop

    What the heck are you even talking about?

    • Re:What? (Score:1, Redundant)

      by rokzy ( 687636 )
      it's like a game of limbo to the 'editors'

    • Re:What? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You're talking about the exact wording of the article (which doesn't make sense) and you get moderated "Offtopic". Brilliant.
    • press a key or open your or phone laptop

      Hee hee. I don't think I've ever seen anyone trying to use Polish notation in English.

      ... open your v(phone, laptop)

  • Done before, but still cool (Score:5, Interesting)

    by StratoChief66 ( 841584 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @05:36AM (#11851386) Homepage
    I know its been done before, but I've never seen a laptop with click powering, I would find this useful as the mashing of the keyboard I do when the battery runs out would actually be productive. :) Plus, this is especially cool in the case of an iPod. Think about it, fill it and its good, forever. No pluggin in for power, just a little crank once in a while and shes good! I would be more impressed with movement power, like those expensive watches. Don't even need to remember to crank, just to stay alive! I didn't RTFA, but these are my thoughts.

    • Re:Done before, but still cool (Score:5, Insightful)

      by eobanb ( 823187 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @05:42AM (#11851397) Homepage
      But think about how much more power an iPod or laptop, or even a phone uses compared to a watch. A watch uses hardly any power at all. It has to move a little dial around very slowly over the course of the day, whereas the iPod has electrostatic controls, a backlight, a hard drive, volatile memory, a powered line out jack...all of these things, especially combined, use up a lot of power. It's a nice idea, but there's simply no way that an iPod could power itself by movement alone, nor with a hand crank (unless you wanted to crank a good part of the time). Consumers just wouldn't respond well to it.
      • It is about the iPod shuffle, which has no
        - backlight because it has no display.
        - hard drive but a static memory chip (pay attention: this is what introduced the rumor that music from an iPod shuffle contained static).

        The size of the battery could be smaller to accommodate for the power-generating mechanism. Weight and size of the mechanism are less of a problem than in a watch.

        Motion powered flashlights exist.

        I still can't exclude that the idea is feasible.

        Bert
        • A static memory chip?

          I thought Apple had given up using expensive parts when cheap ones are good enough (SCSI vs IDE for example). Last time I bought SRAM chips they were $4 for 32KB, but they were DIP, the SOP version was only $1 - and that's Australian dollars too. You must get such good prices when you buy in bulk...

          It must suck when the battery runs out of charge and you lose all your songs.

          Why wouldn't they use flash memory like everyone else?
        • But the shake/use ratio for those flashlights is quite low, and might be worse for an iPod. However, a Shuffle for jogging might be a good idea. How about a pedometer combined with a iPod shuffle?
    • I can see this being a whole new way to speed your typing skills (this reply was typed at 200wpm to keep the laptop from turning off)

  • Even Better Idea... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jpiggot ( 800494 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @05:40AM (#11851393)
    I'll be much more impressed when my old fashioned butter churn can store up to 12 hours of music AND play them in random order.

    THEN BREAKFAST WILL BE COMPLETE !!! MWAHAHAHAHA !!

  • Gives a whole new meaning to "crank it up"

    • That phrase probably came from the old hand-cramed gramaphone (why the music awards are called "grammys"), and is actually probably the old meaning which was lost after electric powered turn tables and hi-fi stereos became the order of the day.
  • ... it would be nice to get some info on what exactly is being used in the circuit, but it seems pretty simple to me. You can see a vreg chip behind the alligator clips. My guess is the venerable 7805. The generator therefore has to supply upwards of 6V for dropout headroom. You'd probably want to add a couple of filter caps before and after the vreg too.
    • 7805's work reliably with at least 7V input, and are quite old now. There are more modern regulators rated "low-dropout" that require less than 1V above their nominal output voltage. I'd pick one of the latter for such a project, rather than a 7805.

  • Puns (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Amazing Fish Boy ( 863897 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @05:49AM (#11851409) Homepage Journal
    That really turns my crank.

    I don't mean to be an old crank, but I really don't think my pockets will fit this.

    When you have to make your own power, you're less inclined to crank up the volume on that iPod shuffle.

    The only problem is you can only listen to alternative music on it.

    I'll need someone to give me a hand with this.

    Looks like a fine prodcut, but how much will they charge?

    Hopefully no more than an arm and a leg! I'll need at least one arm.

    No fair, it's my turn!

    Does this mean the iPod shuffle uses the ARM processor?

    Tip your waitresses folks, they're good people! Try the buffet! I'll be here all week!
  • Don't forget!! For this to work, you first need to place a special sticker on the Ipod Shuffle!

  • Now all he needs to do is... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Yaztromo ( 655250 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @06:00AM (#11851423) Homepage Journal

    Now all the inventor needs to do is to invent some sort of electric machine that will turn the crank for you. You could take a motor, and put it in some sort of project box, with some wires coming out of it to plug into the wall, and some sort of arm to turn the crank on the cranking machine...then when you want to recharge your iPod Shuffle, plug it into the crank, and mate the crank with the crank motor, and then plug the mottor into the wall. Then you have the benefits of hand-cranking, without all the manual labour.

    Genius! I'm going to go an apply for a patent on this one for sure!

    Yaz.

  • Polish Notation (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    or phone laptop

    I know Slashdot's a geeky site but when we're speaking in English, could we please make an effort to avoid Polish Notation? A correct rendering of the above would be "phone or laptop" :-)

    Cheers,
    AC

  • "Charging the iPod" (Score:5, Funny)

    by mhotchin ( 791085 ) <<slashdot> <at> <hotchin.net>> on Saturday March 05, 2005 @06:02AM (#11851433)
    "What are you *doing*?"

    "I'm, uh, charging my iPod. Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket..."

  • Do the editors read slashdot? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I swear, if "Zonk" actually read that submission, he must have been on crack to miss the errors. I mean, come on:

    "In one for the first article ..."

    and

    "...press a key or open your or phone laptop."

    So, in conclusion, either Zonk doesn't read the submissions or he is an idiot ... or maybe both.
    • I swear, if "Zonk" actually read that submission, he must have been on crack to miss the errors. I mean, come on:
      "In one for the first article ..."
      and
      "...press a key or open your or phone laptop."
      So, in conclusion, either Zonk doesn't read the submissions or he is an idiot ... or maybe both.

      He didn't just fuck up the grammar, he can't spell either:
      O'reilly [O'Reilly]
      buiding [building]
      Really, how hard is it to spellcheck a paragraph?

      The last few weeks seem to have set new lows. Interminable dupes, stupid
  • Now all the guy needs is a spring loaded crank, with self regulating unwinding. I seem to recall a mechanical crank for an emergency radio/light that takes a few turns, but unwinds with regulation depending on the power requirements of the device.

    This would be particularly neat if the guy could make a USB dock with one of these mechanically regulated spring loaded cranks.

    AFAIK humans are really bad at regulating their power output, electrochemical (super-capacitors/batteries) storage is very inefficient

  • Sorry but this won't work so well (Score:3, Insightful)

    by yudan ( 750605 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @06:24AM (#11851470)
    We all know that LiON batteries have limited recharge cycles (~1000). Imagine that you will open doors four times per day, then your iPod Shuffle will die in one year. Keep in mind the operating cost....

  • Makezine is fast becoming (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BillsPetMonkey ( 654200 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @06:38AM (#11851488)
    a subscription-based slashdot without the herd mentality and GNAA trolls.

    Seriously, between the BBC news site [bbc.co.uk] and Makezine [makezine.com] there's nearly everything slashdot story contributors deep link to.

  • Can we say Trevor Baylis here? (Score:4, Informative)

    by DrogMan ( 708650 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @06:48AM (#11851501) Homepage
    Nothing new. Move along. Clockwork Radio [design-technology.info] The man himself [windupradio.com]
  • Imagine getting a little power charge every time you press a key or open your or phone laptop.

    I know cell phones are getting ridiculously multipurpose lately but thats just silly.

    Nobody has a head big enough to put their ear at the top of the screen and their mouth on the touchpad.

  • Bag of liquid? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by chendo ( 678767 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @06:58AM (#11851514)
    Instead of a crank, why doesn't someone get two balloon-like objects, fill one up with liquid, then stick them together with a turbine thing in the part that connects the two? Then, to generate power, simply squeeze the balloon containing the liquid, then repeat for the other one. Combined with a capacitator of some sort, it should be a faster way to generate power...

    Or so I think.
  • I have one. I sometimes wonder if this could power the tv I'm watching when I'm using it.
    • The Minnesota Science Museum has a hands-on section that, when I was a kid, included an exercise-bike that was connected to an electric generator that generated more electricity the faster that you pedaled. In front of the bike was a series of electrical loads: a light bulb, a radio, a black-and-white TV and a color TV; that each turned on in turn as the person pedaling reached the necessary output to drive the device in question. The black-and-white TV was a workout, but the color TV could only be turned o

  • More Interesting Invention (Score:4, Funny)

    by eraser.cpp ( 711313 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @07:19AM (#11851535) Homepage
    To hell with the IPod hand recharger, I want to know more about this 'phone laptop'.
    • They have GSM/GPRS cards for laptops and they have phones which can run arbitrary programs and have pointing devices and qwerty keyboards. I'd say that about sums it up. The problem with charging batteries from this kind of stuff is that modern batteries are picky about how they are charged and you would have to charge something else until you had enough power to charge the battery. This will be useful someday, perhaps with regenerating fuel cell power or something, but I don't think it's going to bear much

  • Motorola Freecharge (Score:2, Interesting)

    by maidhc ( 795249 )
    Is it anything like this: http://www.forbes.com/2002/01/03/0103tentech.html [forbes.com].

  • Ahh.. (Score:2, Funny)

    by kristopher ( 723047 )
    So that's what the other hand is for..
  • http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/portable-media/ipod /handcranked-ipod-shuffle-034884.php Whats happening to Slashdot? If I wanted to read day old gizmodo entries I'd go to gizmodo!

  • Is the battery life that bad? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @08:00AM (#11851601)
    Is the battery life that bad that you actually need to recharge it by hand. My MiniDisc goes 50 hours on a single AA, and it has moving parts. It's amazing how long the battery lasts.

  • DS (Score:1)

    by bitkari ( 195639 )
    Please never add this technology to my Nintendo DS.

    I only ever stop playing it when the battery runs low, and if it's powered by my frantic button mashing, then it's entirely likely that *I* will be the first device to run out of power.

  • not a full charge cycle (Score:3, Informative)

    by chasingporsches ( 659844 ) on Saturday March 05, 2005 @08:42AM (#11851662)
    ideally in ideal circumstances on an ideal day when everything is perfect in the world, new batteries such as those in the ipod and laptops can be partially charged all the time and work fine. however, that's the ideal theoretical situation, and doesn't really happen. most ipod users will have their battery crap out after a year to a year and a half mainly because of partial charges, because you have to recalibrate it which few do. charging a cell phone when you open it or whatever might be an immediate payoff... but not long term when you have to buy a new battery.
    • Lithium Ion batteries, such as those found in the iPod and most laptops, DO NOT HAVE MEMORY.

      Someone above posted a relevant page [apple.com] at Apple.
      • the whitepapers also say apple ipods and laptops have x amount of usage hours on a full charge too. regardless of what your technical specs say, the reason why my ipod won't run for more than 45 minutes is because i left it on the dock the whole time and it kept doing partial charges. it has nothing to do with memory. it wears the battery out, as batteries have a limited number of charge cycles.
  • I picked up a little hand crank charger for a mobile phone and it works yes
    but it takes at least 10 minutes cranking for 2 minutes phone on time.

    nice toy but to all intents a waste of time and a little money

    on the otherhand a small wind generator supplying a lead acid battery that you could later hook up to your battery powered device. not such a bad idea, mount it in your garden, balcony doubles as a bird scarer. might even be able to power your garden lights too.
    or use it to charge a spare battery pac
    • the hand crank charger is really only useful for emergency backup, as such it's pretty good.

      or if one was on a long hike, i think that i could crank the crank for 20 minutes to read the news(from web).
  • Imagine if everytime you hit a speed bump in a mall parking lot or at a toll booth gate, etc., the "bump" depressed just enough to turn a generator and then reset for the next car. Imagine how much electricity could be generated if one of these were placed in the right spot on a California road, with a *sea* of cars moving...much more regularly than the wind and easier to harness than the tides.

    I realize there are limitations to these "speed bumps," because they could only be placed where a vehicle was goi
  • Imagine getting a little power charge every time you press a key or open your phone or laptop.

    That'll teach you to press a key or open your phone or laptop.
  • But when can I get one of those little bicycle light generators with the proper interface to recharge the shuffle ? Heck, with a different interface, I could recharge the cell phone at the same time.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • let me get this straight

      Well if you give youself said shuffle you may indeed get something else straight.

      Seriously, though, I love the idea; I have a deep hatred for "single-use" non-rechargeable batteries. I just wonder if the iPod explodes if it's mastu^H^H^H^H^Hcharged too much with this.

  • Is slashdot becoming the Stuff That Was Posted On BoingBoing [boingboing.net] Days Ago site?
  • Imagine getting a little power charge every time you press a key or open your or phone laptop.

    Do we talk in reverse polish notation nowadays?

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