Useful for stealing power from public fountains only.

a creek or river will not power this thing as the water is moving too slowly. there are far better designs out there for getting real power instead of being a power parasite.

I guess if you found a waterfall this would work.

Can anyone explain why you would even want these little fountains?

2.5 minutes of video to show maybe 5 seconds of the actual “mini fountain”.

//and people call me a krazy kraut//

I have three bikes with shimano generator hubs on them (one of them has them front and rear). They produce enough power at a walking pace to light up the 2.4W headlight.

If you wanted to use them on a waterwheel in a creek or river, you could just adjust the length of the paddles(longer or shorter as necessary) to compensate for the speed (or lack thereof) of the current.

2.4. watts is hardly going to light up the world. Wonder what sort of practical use this item will be put to.

slow current?

a ridiculous gear ratio + wider paddles (apply more torque)

more power!!

Brilliant explanation of Energy conversion (in)efficiency

Ha-ha-haa. This is not stealing. This is performance.

When you do it right of course.

@Dave…. A continuous 2.4 watts is more than enough to light a home in a developing country. That’s 60 watt hours a day…. Coupled with the ubiquitous car battery (as is common in a place like E. Africa, parts of SE Asia and others) – you could power a 6W 12V CFL for 10 hours a night… way more than enough…

Using LEDs (less common unlike fluorescent bulbs)… a 3W bulb (which puts out about the same amount of lumens as a 6W CFL – according my testing using a 3m integrating sphere) will go for 20 hours :p

Extra juice could be used to power radios, charge cell phones, etc. etc. etc.

You think this is inefficient?

As a kid, I built an air-conditioner using a car radiator and a hose coupling. I put the radiator in my window, hooked the garden hose to one side and a garden hose to the sprinker on the other.

I then wired a box fan to the outside, turned it on and let the sprinkler rip. Running back to my room, I was in heaven. Cool air! I fell asleep, and woke up to discover that someone had turned the water off and it was hot again. I discovered that it worked better with the fan on the inside of the window.

I used it for about two weeks – putting it in the window when it got hot, then taking it out when my uncle was due home. Then the radiator started to leak because it fell out of the window one time to many – then, as now, my mechanical skills were no match for my imagination.

So I started going to the YMCA, mostly because they had A/C. A month later, my uncle got his water bill and went ballistic. I think he managed to explain that it must have been an error, but that was the first time I ever realized that what I did could have consequences.

Luckily, puberty didn’t hit me until the following year.

Hippies, well at least they got a bath out of the affair.

when i saw the video it seemed like they were joking about charging for the little fountains,but now reading the comments i realize they were serious. People need to think of ways to make money but this is not a good idea.

What are these hipsters doing on my Hack A Day?

Hmm I wonder how much energy the Big fountain actually uses? A fair amount to pump those jets.

Wow, that was stupid.
The little fountain was barely doing anything.
I doubt this is legal anyways…I don’t see how it’s different than tapping into an AC line. It’s stealing. Not to mention it makes the actual fountain ugly.

Personally, I think the guise of “performance” is too often used to mask ass-hattery.
Just an opinion.

(from website)
• Water spill drives a little water wheel
• Almost perpetual motion technology

Makes me laugh.

Why not use this concept for something more consumers would actually want to buy: recharge their laptop or mobile phone!