For fun . . . what if?

[jblackwood]

You guys seem to know an awful lot about battery chemistries so I'll post this question here. What if, through folly or purpose, you were shrunken to ant-sized proportions with your EDC (or even your larger) torches? Would your flashlights still work? Would they work for as long? Would they produce the proportionally the same amount of lumens?

This came up when I asked my wife what light would she grab if she had to go S&R for me. I don't have any shelf queens, but I don't EDC my mag and I just dropped a malkoff into it (thanks Gene!). She told me there's no situation she could think of that would require it. I then said, "how about if I'm shrunk?" She said, "I'll just wait until it's dark and you can signal me with YOUR light."

So I wondered if it'd work? My major thought was that the battery chemistries would be changed by such a drastic shift in dimension. I now open the floor!

 

[DM51]

Unfortunately, battery capacity depends on the volume of the cell. If a human were an ant-size 6mm (~1/4") tall instead of 6ft, this would be a reduction in height of ~300 times, but the reduction in volume would be 300*300*300 = 27,000,000 times.

On that basis, a scaled down version of an 18650 cell would be 0.06 mm in diameter by 0.22 mm long, with a capacity reduced to 0.8uAh (0.00008 mAh). Sadly, this would not be able to power anything very brightly, or for very long.

Your ant-size may vary, lol.

 

[american lockpicker]

If there is a huge reduction in size won't the light use less power?

 

[DM51]

If there is a huge reduction in size won't the light use less power?

Yes, and it would need to, otherwise it would overheat. But power is proportional to output, so its output would be commensurately tiny (and/or brief).

 

[Hoggy]

So, do you think his wife would be able to see him if he was using his flashlight? Or would it be too dim to see?

 

[DM51]

Distances would be shorter, so she wouldn't be as far away, and the light would not be expected to throw as far.

Just a thought... small animals tend to have a higher metabolic rate (and shorter lives) than larger ones, so perhaps our ant-size counterparts might have a total life expectancy measured in weeks rather than years. A short run-time might not seem unreasonable in these circumstances.

 

[jblackwood]

Distances would be shorter, so she wouldn't be as far away, and the light would not be expected to throw as far.

Just a thought... small animals tend to have a higher metabolic rate (and shorter lives) than larger ones, so perhaps our ant-size counterparts might have a total life expectancy measured in weeks rather than years. A short run-time might not seem unreasonable in these circumstances.

Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "lifetime guarantee."

 

[baterija]

The physics of integrated circuit might mean any of them involved wouldn't work if just shrunk 300 times, so hopefully you are carrying an incan or direct drive LED.

Then we have to consider resistance is inversely proprotional to the cross sectional area (although it is proportional to length of the wire).
Resistance = (resistivity* length) / cross sectional area.

For round items like a resistor, connection wiring, or the bulb filament: With area being the square of the factor you are shrunk by, while length is just directly a multiple of the shrinking factor the total effect is that resistance goes up by the shrinkage factor. So your filament (for Incan), any resistors, and wiring have 300 times the resistance if your were ant size.

Assume the rest of your resitance would in the ballpark of the same factor increase. Thinking in terms of a direct driven P7 that pushes 2.7A on a fresh cell at full size, and using Ohm's law, that gives you 9 mA of current to the LED. That's 2.25ma average per die.

Maybe a mini strike bezel would help you fight off the real ants.

 

[jblackwood]

Granted, can't fight off ants with my flashlight but that wasn't really my question. I was just wondering if my miniscule batteries could give off enough current to power my equally lilliputian LED? If so, would the light reflect and be amplified enough to make a coherent beam?

Really, my wife just wanted credit. I told her about the post where some guy's wife came home with a hand crank flashlight. She thought it was awful how some of us jumped on her case. I kept reminding her how most of the people responding were against him for lambasting her!

Either way lovecpf.

 

[bob4apple]

You might not have to fight off ants, but
fireflies could be attracted to your light and
attempt to mate with you. :devil:

Is your wife the jealous type?

I'm guessing at that scale, the chemistry that
produces bioluminesence is more potent than
our puny human batteries. See the movie "Honey,
I Shrank my EDC" for the answer.