Gravia: Gravity Powered LED Lamp Design
Posted by admin
Clay Moulton, a Virginia Tech student, has come up with a design with some serious environmental gravity. An LED lamp powered by gravity to be specific. This innovative design won him the the runners-up honor at the Greener Gadgets Design Competition.
The lamp, he dubs "Gravia" is powered by a falling weight. The weight starts at the top of the cylindrical lamp and as it slowly descends it turns a highly efficient ball screw which spins the generator located at the base of the lamp, which in turn lights the LEDs. This process take about 4 hours at which point it needs a little human power to get the weight back to the top.
He originally calculated that the lamp would produce 600-800 lumens (about a 40 watt bulb), but since winning the award there has been a lot of criticism that his calculations were not correct. In a press release Moulton acknowledged that the currently state of the technology is not sufficient to make a working model. But this is all part of the design process, and we look forward to seeing where this project goes. [via]
Related posts
Got My WiiChuck Adaptors Today
Posted by dfowler
Related posts
Name the Thing Contest - 40
Posted by Alan Parekh
Congratulations to the last contest winner.
The prize this week is a tool to help you take apart your next mod project..
This contest will run till mid next week (February 23 - 27, 2008) . Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item pictured above and give an example of what can be done with it. Please do not give the answer in the comments.
Send an email to contest @ hackedgadgets.com with "Name the Thing Contest" as the subject, and the message body consisting of:
- The name of the item in the above picture
- An example of what the item pictured above can be used for
The winner will be chosen at random from all of the correct entries.
Below is a picture of the prize.
Related posts
Universal Remote Control Tester - Ubicom SX28 Microcontroller based
Posted by Alan Parekh
If you have ever wanted to make a remote control project, this Universal Remote Control Tester project that uses the Ubicom SX28 Microcontroller could be a good starting point. This chip is now being sold by Parallax.
"This project use the Ubicom SX28 micro controller to made a test of the frequency and the complete wave taken form a IR remote control, could be an TV, Audio, VCR, or any type infrared. It consist of two parts, one is the hardware or the physical tester and the another one is the software.
The output state of the IR sensor will change from one to zero in a TTL level, the circuit will detect only this in the rb.4 SX pin , ( after a power on or reset ) starting at this point the RTCC register in zero, and while the rb.4 pin no change RTCC will increment by one each 16 times clock ( see option register configuration ) therefore 3.2 uSeg for a 50 Mhz clock, ok, while this happened the "veces" variable will increment by one many times as the RTCC produce an interrupt."
Related posts
IR LEDs used to defeat Security Cameras
Posted by Alan Parekh
I have seen lasers used to "dazzle" security cameras before but they normally use visible light and need pinpoint accuracy to be effective. I had never thought about using an array of IR LEDs (infrared light emitting diodes) to create a permanent result that would not be noticeable to anyone else around.
Original Version, Translated version
"IR.ASC is an infrared light - to the device before Divining infrared surveillance cameras. There is no special technical knowledge of each reconstructed. The device emits infrared light from the infrared images from surveillance cameras disturbs. The face of the person is monitored by a light ball over. Since the whole interaction in a non-visible spectrum (at frequencies between 780nm and 1mm), the man noticed nothing of it and he sees neither the infrared emission of radiation surveillance camera nor by the IR.ASC "
Via: Boing Boing