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Are you breathing? Do you have a gadget that can be charged via a USB port? Well if you answered yes to both, then you are in luck. This instructable shows how to make a device that will charge your USB-capable devices while you do what you do best. Breathe. Using some parts scavenged from an old CD-ROM drive, a simple electronic circuit, and a few rubber bands you will soon be huffing and puffing your way to fully-charged pseudo-useful electronic gadget nirvana.
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Signing UpStep 1Introduction and Step 1
This project requires a wide range of "maker" skills, such as PCB board manufacture, dismantling of electronics, cutting and drilling plastics, mixing epoxy, designing a gear train, kludging together a bunch of parts, bending paper clips, and risking the well being of your ever so expensive phone, camera, or PDA. All in all, good fun.
Since everyone will have a different collection of junk parts to build this from, I will just give you a detailed overview of how I went about it and you can apply these ramblings to your own project. Which will consist loosely of four steps.
1. Scrounge up some suitable parts for the generator
2. Build the charger circuit
3. Assemble the generator, thorax coupler, and mechanical return
4. Connect the charger circuit, and test
Step 1:
I had about four old CDROM drives hanging around and took apart a few of them to see what cool parts were inside. Turns out there are lots of cool motors, gears, and other parts inside that fully validate my insistence of keeping such crap laying around. Seeing the gear trains inside these units used for opening the tray gave me the idea for this project. The small low-torque, high-RPM motor is linked to the tray via a gear train that has a final ratio of about 20:1 Previously I had been using a parallel array of tiny pager motors to generate electricity from breathing (see below) but the linear travel from your chest expansion is not that great (around an inch) so in order to generate useful voltages you had to really huff and puff.
Anyway, tear into those CDROM drives, which you can find at pretty much any garage sale, thrift store, or landfill. The pic below shows the results. Lots of potential projects in there. For now, we are only interested in the plastic gears and the motors for opening the tray and/or moving the laser carriage.
Look over the various gears and drives and try to visualize a way to add additional gears to increase the gear ratio, or how to add another motor in series. You want to minimize the changes to the gear train. Alternatively you can just scavenge all the gears and build your gearbox up from scratch.
You are also going to need at least one motor with a small gear or pulley on it so that you can connect it to the gear train. The motors in the CDROM drive are typically simple permanent magnet DC motors designed to run on 5V, except for the spindle motor, which you don't want to use anyway.
At this point you also want to think about what you are going to use for a strap to go around your chest. An old belt, some webbing, an old shoelace, a name badge strap, or anything that will fit around you comfortably without any stretch to it. You want all the expansion to take place in your linear generator. Any stretch that occurs in your thorax coupler will be wasted energy.
Since everyone will have a different collection of junk parts to build this from, I will just give you a detailed overview of how I went about it and you can apply these ramblings to your own project. Which will consist loosely of four steps.
1. Scrounge up some suitable parts for the generator
2. Build the charger circuit
3. Assemble the generator, thorax coupler, and mechanical return
4. Connect the charger circuit, and test
Step 1:
I had about four old CDROM drives hanging around and took apart a few of them to see what cool parts were inside. Turns out there are lots of cool motors, gears, and other parts inside that fully validate my insistence of keeping such crap laying around. Seeing the gear trains inside these units used for opening the tray gave me the idea for this project. The small low-torque, high-RPM motor is linked to the tray via a gear train that has a final ratio of about 20:1 Previously I had been using a parallel array of tiny pager motors to generate electricity from breathing (see below) but the linear travel from your chest expansion is not that great (around an inch) so in order to generate useful voltages you had to really huff and puff.
Anyway, tear into those CDROM drives, which you can find at pretty much any garage sale, thrift store, or landfill. The pic below shows the results. Lots of potential projects in there. For now, we are only interested in the plastic gears and the motors for opening the tray and/or moving the laser carriage.
Look over the various gears and drives and try to visualize a way to add additional gears to increase the gear ratio, or how to add another motor in series. You want to minimize the changes to the gear train. Alternatively you can just scavenge all the gears and build your gearbox up from scratch.
You are also going to need at least one motor with a small gear or pulley on it so that you can connect it to the gear train. The motors in the CDROM drive are typically simple permanent magnet DC motors designed to run on 5V, except for the spindle motor, which you don't want to use anyway.
At this point you also want to think about what you are going to use for a strap to go around your chest. An old belt, some webbing, an old shoelace, a name badge strap, or anything that will fit around you comfortably without any stretch to it. You want all the expansion to take place in your linear generator. Any stretch that occurs in your thorax coupler will be wasted energy.
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i like the idea alot :D
this principle (pull+rubber band) can also be applied to your legs i'd imagine, whenever ur walking ur stretching and bending ur legs
something between ur shoes and ur lower back/butt should work
imagine this: couple of breath powered chargers, solar panels on ur head, shoe charge thingie, those leg things i talked about
and a couple of gel batteries in a backpack, or distributed per charger
then you'd be able to charge a laptop or something else :D
anyway, those panels are really small, and low-power prolly
but its a good place to start :D
i was thinking along the lines of a massive sombrero :D:D:D
that would look totally awesome (try looking @ someone wearing that and nót laugh!)
But really, massive sombrero? I think those would exist if EMP were to hit Mexico (any Mexican viewing this, no offense :D). But LOL at a hi-tech sombrero covered in panels.
It might as well be an... umbrella... Solar Beach Umbrella anyone?
something against the heavy sun/wind that charges a battery and powers a radio or something!
but the panels would have to be able to come off and be used for something else, too
i mean, theyr not thát cheap, and that way theyd be stored in the closet most of the year
add some velcro patches on the bottom, make it tear-resistant and ur good to go :)
slap it on ur hat, umbrella, backpack, or roof and charge ur laptop :D
wonder if the cost would outweigh the benefit/savings in the long run though, tear-resistant foldable solar panels that can handle daily wear and tear can't be cheap...
it'll be cheap, then someone will input a patent, and this little comment chain would be credited ;D
-Jon
About that PowerPoint-presentation you linked to:
The idea of using electroactive polymer is interesting, have you looked more into it?
Are such materials exotic and hard to make use of for a DIY'er?
I imagined piezoelectric materials was a good choice for non-conventional generators, however the info. in the PowerPoint-presentation says electroactive polymer is a better choice.
Do you know approximately how many amps. a spark from a piezoelectric crystal produce? (Voltage can be in thousands.)
Thanks,
Keep it up!
I've got a concept for an improved device that I have been working on. I don't know if it will make an appearance on Instructables though. THanks for reading.
-Jon
Also you can put a electrlytic capacitor to make a constant voltage, 470uf will work fine, conected in parallel with vcc and negative. Just breath a couple of times before you conect a charge. Saludos (:
Another thing to note is that the minty boost may not even work without two batteries for baseline since the LT1302 IC is designed for 2V operation while the ST L6920 in my circuit operates down to 0.6V Also, based on the datasheets, the minty boost IC is 82% efficient at 2.4V input and my circuit's IC is 90% at 2.4V (84% at 1.2V input). Not a big deal.
http://www.ladyada.net/images/mintyboost/mintyboostv2sch.png
http://www.ladyada.net/make/mintyboost/
Otherwise, the cost of the components for my circuit is negligible, like less than $10. I can dig around and see if I can scrounge a complete board. Honestly I got sidetracked from this project and haven't looked at it in years so I can't be sure I even have any of it still. If I do, it would be better that someone use it than it sit in a drawer in my basement so I would be willing to donate to a good cause. What is your plan for the circuit?