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Freevolt can power a low-energy device forever, and for free

2 pointsby albybisyover 9 years ago

2 comments

gus_massaover 9 years ago
I can&#x27;t find any details about how much power you can get with this. Let&#x27;s try a back of the envelope calculation.<p>My WiFi router has probably 2W. If you put this device at 1m (3&#x27;) and assume that the power is evenly distributed you get 2W&#x2F;(4 pi 1m^2) = 0.16 W&#x2F;m^2. Let&#x27;s assume that the surface of this device is 10cmx10cm (4&#x27;&#x27;x4&#x27;&#x27;) (quite big for a small device) and it&#x27;s perfectly perpendicular, you get 0.16 W&#x2F;m^2 x (.1m x .1m) = 0.0016W = 1.6 mW (and this calculation is quite optimistic, because it assumes no loss in the transmission and in the conversion or storage)<p>A typical LED has 30 mW (or more), so this is not enough to keep it light. Perhaps blink it once every 20 seconds.<p>And if the device is further away, it&#x27;s worst. The calculation assumes that the distance is 1m (3&#x27;), with 2m (7&#x27;) the power is reduced x4.<p>In the web page they show a fire detection device with a nice led that, so I&#x27;m not sure that they can collect enough power to blink the led. The surveillance camera is completely out of discussion, specially if it has a motor.
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ck2over 9 years ago
This is somewhat like the demo I&#x27;ve seen of florescent lights working under high-power transmission lines without connection.<p>Interesting our bodies absorb all that energy every day without lots of cancer. Actually, there is lots of cancer.
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