Wireless electricity, uses laser to power LED

http://venturebeat.com/2008/12/22/powerbeam-steps-closer-to-launch-of-wireless-electricity/

Interesting!?


jeffb

I'd call it more amusing than interesting, actually -

Grier Graham, vice president of product development, said the company can use a laser to generate about 1.5 watts of power to a solar cell as far away as 10 meters.

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And how much laser power is required to develop that 1.5 watts? Considering the relatively low efficiency of solar cells, I'm guessing it's a lot more than 1.5 watts at the laser.

Graham, the brother of co-founder David Graham, says that the company needs to raise money to create a low-cost, fully customized version of the product. PowerBeam needs about $5 million to $6 million to do that.

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Hmm... two guys... 5 to 6 million... not a bad paycheck for "developing" something that pretty much exists already.

Wireless energy transmission has been around for a long time. It has mainly two problems: 1) it's shamefully inefficient, and 2) on a large enough scale to deliver useful power, it has the unpleasant side effect of effectively cooking everything that crosses the beam...

Viewing it as a over-unity device is missing the purpose and apparent goals. Any laser induced power wil absolutely and always be less than the input power of the laser.

The purpose is to find a wireless way of powering a device from a distance power source without a direct connection. The significance is the same as wireless communications.

With that said, I still consider laser transmission of power as being as insignificant as the power generated in a crystal radio. While the focusing of the laser might help recover a good portion of the beamed power, focusing the power of an RF signal to induce a RF current in a distant antenna could also recover a good portion of the beamed power.

They're kids, playing with a toy, but hoping to find riches in doing so.

any set up that generates enough useful power will be confiscated by the military and considered top secret as a weapon. I think unless there is total darkness a solar cell would suffice over this gizmo picking up power for a huge *laser* called the sun.

So I see two possible options for powering a portable device -

1) Employ a high powered laser or microwave emitter with a means of focusing the energy on a small and possibly moving photovoltaic target, insuring that the device is able to track the target in real time, as well as insuring that no opaque objects come between the source and the target. Also insure that such emitter is properly licensed, that all household members are properly trained in it's use, and that it won't emit harmful interference to other devices.

2) Use batteries. :laughing:

Lynx_Arc said:

I think unless there is total darkness a solar cell would suffice over this gizmo picking up power for a huge *laser* called the sun.

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QFT!!

They're looking to do this around the house or office. Hope they've got good failsafes. You can do the same thing with radio waves, magnetic fields, microwaves.

Under my plan they will have a big ol' blimp tethered above the city. It has a line than runs down to a nice clean power source. For a modest fee it shines that laser on the rooftop collector on my car, and now you have a clean running car. For slight extra charges it will also defrost your car on cold mornings, melt clean the sidewalk, and is handy for starting campfires. :devil:

Ken_McE said:

Under my plan they will have a big ol' blimp tethered above the city. It has a line than runs down to a nice clean power source. For a modest fee it shines that laser on the rooftop collector on my car, and now you have a clean running car

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It would also roast any pigeon that happened to fly above the car. Do you really want to get dead birds splattering on your windscreen from the microwave/laser-powered car in front of you?

one would have to figure out just how much power is actually needed to do the job and weather would be a huge issue along with other problems. Imagine a hailstorm or rain scattering the beam and blinding people for life or severly burning school kids when a bird collecting something shiny flies through it.

But the Powerbeam people say it's perfectly safe! Or I suppose we could go back to Nicholai Teslas plan and have power plants that directly oscillated the Earths magnetic field. Your receiver can be anywhere that is exposed to the Earths magnetism. No need for wires, although I expect migrating birds might jitter a little... :sick2:

Too bad we don't have some giant light source in the sky that puts out an intensity of about 1360 W/m^2... that would make things so much easier!

Lynx_Arc said:

one would have to figure out just how much power is actually needed to do the job and weather would be a huge issue along with other problems. Imagine a hailstorm or rain scattering the beam and blinding people for life or severly burning school kids when a bird collecting something shiny flies through it.

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I find it interesting that you specifically mentioned school children. Cos if it burned anyone else, it wouldn't be as bad...

tay said:

Too bad we don't have some giant light source in the sky that puts out an intensity of about 1360 W/m^2... that would make things so much easier!

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The source is there, but it's hard to harvest said energy.

I'm guessing that this is not a good time to bring up my idea.
It's a car with a propeller on the roof.
The car's forward motion turns the prop which generates electricity and naturally the electricity runs the car...

I was making a run back from a long ambulance call one day and was asked about this.
When I ran down about 20 minutes later the guy turned to me with an odd look on his faces and said "That is exactly what Mike Madden said." Sigh. He still was sure it would work.

Well, it does have the very minor annoyance of violating the laws of physics, but aside from that it's a great idea

That looks really impractical.

Mike Painter said:

I'm guessing that this is not a good time to bring up my idea.
It's a car with a propeller on the roof.
The car's forward motion turns the prop which generates electricity and naturally the electricity runs the car...

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Sorry but you'll be infringing on US Patent 5,920,127

http://preview.tinyurl.com/9cmw7e

It's amazing what the patent office has granted patents for. Makes you wonder how broken the system really is.

Mike Painter said:

I'm guessing that this is not a good time to bring up my idea.
It's a car with a propeller on the roof.
The car's forward motion turns the prop which generates electricity and naturally the electricity runs the car...

I was making a run back from a long ambulance call one day and was asked about this.
When I ran down about 20 minutes later the guy turned to me with an odd look on his faces and said "That is exactly what Mike Madden said." Sigh. He still was sure it would work.

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many people have thought of similar ideas.... the problem is anything that generates electricity takes power to do so and by putting the fan on to generate power you will slow the car down and to keep the speed up you would have to burn more fuel and since the fan isn't 100% effiecient you cannot even break even on this and lose energy to friction (air turbulence etc).

CM said:

It's amazing what the patent office has granted patents for. Makes you wonder how broken the system really is.

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It seems to be extremely broken. I traced back a patented eBay LED growlight to its US patent. The patent claimed rights to things like placing a light at different distances and angles relative to the plant (among other things) and using different color lights. I wrote to the fellow who approved that patent, explaining that every person who has ever grown a plant under lights has fooled around with angles and distances, and that this guy had not invented growing under different color lights, and should this really be patented at all? They sent back an unresponsive response and I decided not to worry about it.

If you have any doubt that the patent system has jumped the tracks, this might change your mind -
Method of swinging on a swing