While the average person would use a standard charger to top off their phone, [Tom Stanton] is no average man. Instead, he put mind to matter with an entire pendulum battery system.
Using the inductive effects of magnets on copper coils, [Tom] found the ability to power small components. With that in mind, the only path was forward with a much larger pendulum. A simple diode rectifier and capacitors allow for a smoother voltage output. The scale of the device is still too small to power anything insane, even the phone charging test is difficult. One thing the device can do is juice up the electromagnetic launcher he put together a couple years back to hurl an RC plane into the air.
The useful applications of pendulum power storage might not be found in nationwide infrastructure, but the application on this scale is certainly a fun demonstration. [Tom] has a particular fascination with similar projects where practical application comes second to novelty. For a perfect example of this, check out his work with air powered planes!
Dėjà vu.
While sure, i respect the setup and everythung. Tbh, i always have to cringe a bit when i see the classic amateurish “oh look, i got a voltage output so im getting usable power”. Just ruins it ….
I made the point that these sort of videos are channel filler and their method is to rehash old ideas and tropes – e.g. wiggle a magnet in front of a coil, make a LED flash, in a new and vaguely interesting way. It’s amateurish because you need to pretend you didn’t already know what’s going to happen, like you can’t trivially calculate the potential energy of a pendulum and show that it’s basically nothing.
That’s part of the show. It’s like comedians coming up with new knock knock jokes once they’ve run out of material, but the show must go on. Saying that apparently angered a bunch of youtube content creators and they report bombed the comment away.
If you’re going to make a new knock knock joke, the best way to make it relevant is to admit that it is what it is and work around the limits.
For instance, if you’re going to make a “gravity battery” of this sort, a far more interesting approach would be to quantify how much energy it actually holds, how it compares to say, a capacitor, and then try your best to use it as economically as possible as a challenge. That would be informative, non-trivial, and it would have a sense of accomplishment for the story. Not just “Oh look, the voltage goes up and the motor spins, yay.”
Besides, the reason why this video is actually mildly insulting is, we know Tom Stanton isn’t stupid.
So how does he measure the power of the pendulum? “One LED, two LED…. how about a motor! Wow look how powerful!”
Now that is stupid. He’s insulting the intelligence of anyone who knows he’s not giving any real quantifiable metrics here, and he’s callously abusing the viewers who aren’t yet savvy to understand that he’s taking them for a spin like children. He’s dropping irrelevant details that have no point of reference simply to appear technical, like the size of a capacitor he’s using, yet elsewhere he’s completely vague and just playing for time, like “oh no my mill didn’t have enough torque, so I reduced the depth of cut and then it worked”. What was the relevance of that? Nothing – but it made the video the right length for the recommend algorithm.
This roundabout vagueness and not actually making any claims – just rambling on – is a hallmark of AI slop. What’s happening in this video could almost be described as human slop. The only reason we don’t is because Tom Stanton is a nice guy and he’s done alright before.
Relevant XKCD would be The Lucky 10,000.
I do find it interesting that one might spend an hour and a half of their time commenting on an article they don’t like, rather than one they did. It might even have the opposite of the intended effect due to the higher engagement.
Well said
It’s another nice experiment which shows how little energy “is present” in gravity (see the large weights at the pendulum) compared to electricity (only a few LEDs or even a little fan slows down the pendulum after a few oscillations).
My Google-Fu fails me for now, but… wasn’t there a flywheel generator, a few years back?
The idea was to provide enough juice for an LED light.
People said “Never mind a light bulb, I want to recharge my phone” and I never saw that project again.
Yep: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhu3s1ut3wM
The flywheel version was more fun imho.
Actually, it was: the GravityLight. From company DeciWatt.
Apparently, they made a replacement, called the NowLight.
Instead of letting a weight drop, you have to yank a chain – but it can now charge your mobile phone (for 15 minutes).
Been around for years. Tom’s done better. https://www.arborsci.com/products/electromagnetic-flashlight/
There will be those born after us who have yet to learn what we have lived through and already forgotten.
Tom is teaching. Let him. This is a creative and approachable idea that might grow some wrinkles in a young, future engineers mind. They will go on to discover great things, only to end up on a tech blog complaining about how stupid pendulum energy is.
i hear way too little about the generating potential of swaying trees
I’d keep the idea of a pendulum/generator in mind, in case I have to extract energy from something vibrating. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gekoppelte_Pendel?useskin=vector currently is “write now, trans later” … the pendulum may help getting useful movements from small pushes.
So a really inefficient gravity battery? The energy potential is the height the weight is lifted to multiplied by the weight itself. At a pendulum maximum height of a foot or two you would need a thousand pounds to get some useful energy, far better a 50lb weight lifted 6 or 8 feet high using a chain or rope wound on a shaft, then a classic generator would work. (Technically the pendulum represents a single generator winding).
Sadly a basic understanding of energy transfer is not on display here. Not that I decry experimentation or creativity, but a useful thing it is not.
A more refined use of pendulum/rotor electric power generation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_quartz
I’m reading weight swinging and I’m thinking weight suspended driving a classic clock escapement which is still mechanical when we need electricity. My thought leads to weight, cable, drum, gears, generator, all for power at a campsite or field day from a tree height installation. This may have been featured in the past.
How much weight and height to generate a charge on a phone with such a scheme? A bicycle generator could be a starting place with it’s 3W output.
So, its like a flywheel, but not a good?
It isn’t gravity storing energy it’s inertia. The principle is sound. There was an article in Scientific American magazine around the early seventies about using a flywheel to store enough energy to power an electric car. It sounded good but apparently not good enough to come to fruition.
Pendulum weights and flywheels abe to BE batteries?