Steam powered USB Charger

This is a little project I made to charge up my iPod using a toy steam engine, though you could use it to charge any USB device.

I coupled a Lego Technic Motor to a Jensen #75 steam engine to make a crude generator. From there I built a 5V regulator circuit and soldered in a female USB connection to power any USB device. Since I wanted to use it to charge my iPod, I put in a diode and a .5 amp fuse to provide some circuit protection.

This is a good approximation of power is normally generated. Also, this is a good DIY power generation project, though its not very practical.

Step 1 Obtain a steam engine

The first step is to get a steam engine. you can buy kits or complete engines from ministeam.com. Some of them can get pretty expensive though. For this project I used a Jensen #75 engine though others would probably work too. I tried to get an estimate of how many watts a little engine like this puts out, but even the manufactuers didn't have a good idea. Based on the amount of output power and some efficiency estimates, I guess about 10 watts.

Comments

[bobby sissom]

to quote you"not very practical"; to quote me"oh my freaking god this guy has a steam powered charger for his phone!!!!"
my momma always said "awesome is as awesome does"

[lemonie]

I like it! What are you running the boiler on (I notice a lot of the paint burned-off)? L

[erikals]

i think it may be metho (methylated spirits)

[lemonie]

May be but what is it? (They usually run on solid fuel) We may never know...

L

[Daniel Deacon]

methylated spirits can be run in thease engines its a purple liquid and gets very hot so thats what burnt the paint

[ntrider1991]

very cool and almost free you can charge with candle and water
the only next step would be a pocket sized one

may not be a free as solar but still cool

[Hycro]

My father has an old steam engine that used to look similar to the one you have here, but some of the parts are missing, such as the piston, and most of the original base and firebox...I built a new firebox and base, and the steam line from the boiler to the piston cylinder was replaced with a piece of  *I think* 3/8" copper gas line from an old car, although I haven't figured up a reliable piston replacement, I still need to find a way to make a better seal between the cylinder and the block the steam line hooks into next to the flywheel. Now, back to what I was commenting for--on my father's old steam engine, there is also a pulley attached to the axle for the flywheel, and on a model as such, one could probably get away with using a bicycle dynamo as the "turbine" in such a set-up, and depending on the style of the dynamo, it may even look like an authentic, early steam powered generator. The bicycle dynamo I have is ~6V, and (I think) ~3W (Maybe it's 0.3W?? Either way, there's a 3 in there somewhere for the watts...)

[Hycro]

It could be practical for extended power outages, using it to charge up things like cell phones, USB re-chargeable batter powered devices, things like that...

[caalabo]

have you tried making the same thing but using the battery pack and gearing it up? Nice Instructable

[w1e2n]

How much did you get it for.

[DanRiches]

I like the Lego man at the control desk touch! Damn Cool Instructable!

[PSPerson]

THAT is AWESOME! you gotta post a video of it in action

[FeedTheGrid]

Cool. Well done.

[N1CK4ND0]

haha I was contemplating building this, until I saw the price on the steam engines.

[julesfl]

Great idea! Thanks for sharing....great pics...

[jakee117]

wow...thats... different. I like it!