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Gravity Light - Alternative form of lighting to replace Kerosene
- IanDrake 14y agoCool idea. It looks like light itself needs some work though. The light is bright, but it doesn't seem to shine in a very efficient or useful way. I think that'd be easy to fix though. This has me wondering how much energy a larger scale application could store and what its efficiency would be.
- aidenn0 14y agoAt larger scales, you are typically limited by the efficiency of whatever is lifting it. A large generator can convert kinetic energy to electric energy with very high efficiency (over 95%). Also this is very poor energy density each kg moved 1m results in 9.8 joules or ~2.7e-6 kWh. So one metric ton moving 1km would generate 2.7 kWh.
- cleverjake 14y agothis seems a lot like http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/gravity_lamp http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/gravity_l...
- nohat 14y agoWith perfect efficiency a 10 kg weight lifted 2 meters would only output about a tenth of a watt over half an hour. That is indeed enough for a led, but not a very powerful one. I doubt this is worth it.
- pdonis 14y agoSee the numbers upthread; it's comparable to a kerosene lamp.
- colanderman 14y agoYes, and the same math applies -- Their claim is a 20 pound weight raised 6 feet (or so) in the air will generate light for 30 minutes: 20 lbf * 6 ft / 30 min = ~90 mW For reference, the LED indicators on your keyboard use about 15 mW each. So that's about two keyboards worth of light. However maybe I'm being stingy -- because of persistence of vision (a characteristic of the human eye), you can run LEDs (or any light) on a low duty cycle and still produce the same apparent brightness. So if we say they run it at a 10% duty cycle (I'm not sure how accurate this estimate is), they might be able to get closer to 1 W of LED light, which is enough for reading.
- bcoates 14y agoThe apparent brightness of a rapidly flashing LED isn't anywhere near the peak brightness, you get roughly the same brightness per power emitted regardless of pattern. You'd probably get a lot more efficiency by just using a non-white LED and picking a color to maximize human sensitivity vs. power draw.
- pdonis 14y agoThere's an interesting comment about super-efficient LED bulbs in that museum of hoaxes article. However, the numbers look marginal for this GravityLight even with super-efficient LED bulbs. Quick back of the envelope calculation, using what few numbers are given in the article. Ballast: m = 10 kg (1) Height: h = 3 m (2) Energy stored: E = mgh = 300 J Time: 30 min = t = 1800 s (3) Wattage available: P = E / t = 0.17 W (4) Notes: (1) Article says you can hang anything weighing about 20 lbs. (2) No numbers given in the article, but the pictures make it look like ceiling height (8 to 10 ft., I took the larger) (3) Article says light for half an hour. (4) With current LEDs this is the equivalent of about a 2 W incandescent bulb, i.e., pretty dim. The light in the pictures in the article looks like the equivalent of about a 40 W incandescent bulb, so the numbers come up short by a factor of about 20. That would indeed be "super-efficient" for an LED; I'm not aware of any even on the drawing boards that are that efficient. [Edit: The numbers actually are not too low compared to kerosene lamps, which are what this light is supposed to replace. See exchange downthread with xd.]
- dexter313 14y agoThe light seen in the video is not the 30 minute-one. There the weight drops much quicker. Look carefuly at about 55 second in the video.
- pdonis 14y agoWell, shortening the time by a factor of 20 makes it a minute and a half of light equivalent to a 40 W incandescent bulb. So maybe this is really a combination light and exercise machine? :-)
- xd 14y agoAre you aware of how little light you need to see? Just because you assume the light in the video is similar to a 40w bulb is short sighted (no pun intended). A 2W "pretty dim" incandescent bulb will illuminate a room no problem. Human eyes can adjust very well to low light levels.
- pdonis 14y ago
- ChuckMcM 14y agoPerhaps, pretty simple to do the math though. Lets plug in some numbers and see what is what. First we'll assume that the weight changes altitude by 2 meters, next we'll assume the "weight" is 5 kG (about 10 lbs) it could be more than that if you used denser material but it looks like they are expecting you to fill a sandbag to weight it dry sand is about 1600 kg/m^3 [1] so a sandbag that was 15cm/side would be about .0033 m^3 or 5.3 kg. The force exerted by that sandbag, 2 meters up is 5 * 2 * 9.8 or 98 Newton-Meters. Now the campaign says it runs the light for 30 minutes so to find the power in watts we take 98 Newton-Meters divide by 1800 seconds (bag goes from 2m to 0m in 30 minutes) and get .0544 watts per second. Assuming the generator is 50% efficient (that is a really good generator) that is about .025 Watts to run your LED. So can you get decent light from an LED with 25 mWatts? At a forward voltage drop of 4V (White LED) that is 6.2 mA of current. (updated to be a decimal order of magnitude smaller) Given that current LEDs are seeing something like 50 lumens/watt you might see 2 - 5 lumens from such a light. Not nearly as bright as I originally estimated. EDIT: The time was wrong 1800 not 180 [1] http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_materials.htm http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_materials.htm
- shabble 14y agofrom the caption under the house door/garage images: Hang it in the shed or make it into a great porch light, you can clip on a hanging basket or anything weighing about 20lbs. So that's ~2x your estimate, which doesn't seem impossible. I do wonder what they're suggesting using for the ballast though, that avoids excessive bulk. Another consideration is going to be finding a suitable mounting point in a typical shack/slum type dwelling.
- trhtrsh 14y agoAnd note that the gravity lamp was announced on physorg.com, famous for how wrong it is about science topics.
- Groxx 14y agoI like the idea, but what kind of sick, twisted mind thinks it's a good idea to put the video in a player where they've disabled / hidden the controls?
- dexter313 14y agoLooks like the half an hour duration is only good for powering a LED at a small power. The light seen in the video at the 55 seconds mark, shows the LED at full power and the weight drop speed is about 0.7 cm per two seconds (again, aproximately from the video), thats about 4-5 minutes for a meter of height.
- pdonis 14y agoLooks like the half an hour duration is only good for powering a LED at a small power Yes, about a tenth of a watt (see the numbers upthread). However, that gives an LED light output that's comparable to a kerosene lamp. So it could be worth it for the target users.
- revelation 14y agoAt perfect efficiency, this seems to give you about 55mW for a hour, if I asked Wolfram correctly (for 20kg lifted one meter): http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=20+kilogram%E2%80%90force+meters+in+milliwatt+hours http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=20+kilogram%E2%80%90for... So probably a hoax. (Wolfram fun fact: thats roughly the energy of the weight of a typical snowflake in oil (~4mg))
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- mistercow 14y agoI don't think they ever said how bright the light is, so it might "work" in a very technical sense.
- pdonis 14y agoIt's comparable in brightness to a kerosene lamp, which is what it's supposed to replace.
- rlpb 14y agoKerosene lamps are not bright. It is hard (but possible) to read by one. I'd love to see a calculation that takes this into account. How long would this device set at the brightness of a typical kerosene lamp last?
- pdonis 14y agoSee the numbers elsewhere in the thread. LED light output comparable to a kerosene lamp for 30 min. is reasonable with the numbers they've given.
- jlgreco 14y agoDepends on the kerosene lamp. I have a flat-wick lamp that I picked up for about $10 (at the supermarket as an "emergency lamp") with about the same size and with a similar chimney as this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SwissKeroseneLamp.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SwissKeroseneLamp.jpg It is very easy to read by, easily lights up the whole room in a decent warm glow. The lamps that people use in these countries are very different from that, being made with makeshift wicks and founts and generally no chimneys. Even so, the light they put off is much better than your average candle.
- lutusp 14y ago> LED bulbs do not attract mosquitos like conventional bulbs. False, and the authors should be ashamed of themselves for posting this lie in a page meant to attract investors: http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/38761/PDF http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/38761/PDF Also, a wound-mainspring arrangement would be much more effective as a low-cost, practical third-world product. It would be lighter, less costly to produce, and would require much less space. This gravity angle looks like a gimmick, possibly to avoid infringing someone's patent.
- nostromo 14y agoIt's great to correct their error, but I wouldn't immediately presume malicious intent.
- lutusp 14y agoI didn't. I simply said they were lying. Lying is now so common that malice doesn't need to be assumed.
- daeken 14y agoThey weren't necessarily lying -- they could simply be wrong. There's a huge difference; lying requires knowledge that what you're saying is wrong.
- stcredzero 14y agoLacking the diligence to fact-check yourself is the next worst thing.
- sukuriant 14y agoDo you fact check every single thing you say that you heard from someone that you believe to be a reliable source?
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- jimrandomh 14y agoKerosene has already been replaced; batteries are cheaper than fuel, and LED lamps are cheaper than kerosene lamps. The rest of this page looks pretty scummy; it says "780 million women and children inhale smoke which is equivalent to smoking 2 packets of cigarettes every day", which blatantly fails basic sanity-checking, and as others have pointed out the duration and brightness numbers for this don't add up either. So this is at best a well-intentioned but stupid waste of money, and at worst a scam.
- dzlobin 14y agoThis is why it's on IndieGoGo, rather than KickStarter.
- lysol 14y agoThat's ridiculous, KickStarter's level of quality is about equal. (See the Ron Paul game)
- DanBC 14y agoDo you have any cites? Here's what the World Health Organisation say (Sept 2011): (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs292/en/ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs292/en/) > Around 3 billion people still cook and heat their homes using solid fuels in open fires and leaky stoves. About 2.7 billion burn biomass (wood, animal dung, crop waste) and a further 0.4 billion use coal. Most are poor, and live in developing countries. > Nearly half of deaths among children under five years old from acute lower respiratory infections (ALRI) are due to particulate matter inhaled from indoor air pollution from household solid fuels (WHO, 2009). etc etc This isn't to say that the device is any good.
- jimrandomh 14y agoHeating and cooking != lighting. LEDs obviously can't replace stoves, but then, neither can this.
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- danso 14y agoSo what's the motor made out of that it can be guaranteed to last a decent amount of time before breaking?
- guard-of-terra 14y agoPlastic? The motor in my CD drive is made from plastic and it doesn't seem to break at all.
- lostlogin 14y agoAhh, that's because CDs are broken technology and should never be allowed into ones house or possession.
- rorrr 14y agoThis is a hoax. Mathematically and physically impossible.
- pdonis 14y agoNo, it isn't. See the numbers upthread.
- rorrr 14y agoI did see the numbers. They don't support your point.
- guard-of-terra 14y agoDid you see the video? They tell you how there are various modes of operation.
- rorrr 14y agoDid you see Spiderman? This guy can shoot spider web from his hands!
- pdonis 14y agoThey do if you're trying to replace kerosene lamps, which is what these lights are intended to do. Do you have any specific numbers you're not happy with?
- mistercow 14y ago>It takes only 3 seconds to lift the weight which powers GravityLight, creating 30 minutes of light on its descent. Why does every crackpot "revolutionary" energy gizmo make this same kind of nonsense claim? "Minute" is not a unit of energy, luminous intensity, or any other measure that is actually useful in evaluating the practicality of this.
- sophacles 14y agoWhether or not the device works - this usage of minute is also apparently unit of radio power or backlight luminosity, if cell phone makers and reviewers are to be believed. Declaring crack-pot status based on that usage is kind of over-the-top, unless you're here to argue that cellphones don't exist and are mere crack-pot theories as well.
- mistercow 14y agoIf you take careful note of my wording, I said that every crackpot makes this sort of claim, not that only crackpots make this sort of claim. The reason I know this is crackpottery is that, as others have pointed out, the physics just doesn't add up. Assuming perfect efficiency, you'd be looking at somewhere on the order of 1% of the light output from a standard 40 watt light bulb.
- pdonis 14y agoSee the numbers below. It's about the equivalent of a 2 W incandescent bulb, or 5% of a 40 W bulb; but more importantly, it's comparable to a kerosene lamp, which is what it's supposed to replace. So I don't think a "crackpot" charge is warranted.
- mritun 14y agoIt is warranted because the physics doesn't work out
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- jrockway 14y agoMeta comment: I read the article and then did a back-of-the envelope calculation on how much energy you'd get out of one of these. Then I clicked through to the comments and saw that three other comments addressed this. Good idea, but the physics doesn't work yet. A heavier weight might fix the problem, though. (I use a 5W LED lamp in my apartment that I keep on all the time. It's almost enough for reading and it's certainly enough for walking around at night.)
- pdonis 14y agoA heavier weight might fix the problem, though. And/or more height. The numbers are comparable to the low end of kerosene lamps as given.
- Someone 14y agoNeither would fix it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(power) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(power) gives 909W for "peak output power of a healthy human (nonathlete) during a 30-second cycle sprint at 30.1 degree Celsius." This thing talks about a 1:600 duty cycle (3 seconds of charging for 1800 seconds of lighting), so, at the very best, it could use a 1.5W LED. Looking a a more realistic 100W human power output (Tour de France riders do 6W/kg or so sustained), it's gets down to .1W or so. A heavier weight, more height, or more frequent charging all will increase the amount of light produced, but it also means less time to enjoy it. In the end it all boils down to the fact that a kWh is a lot of energy for a human to produce.
- pdonis 14y agoIf you're trying to produce light equivalent to what we're used to in first world countries, yes, you're right. If you're only trying to replace kerosene lamps, you don't need much power. A tenth of a watt with an LED gives a light output comparable to a kerosene lamp. See the numbers elsewhere in the thread.
- stcredzero 14y agoAbbey Road studios was partly powered by descending weights when the Beatles were recording there. At the time, it was the best way to implement a constant speed motor for the price.
- guard-of-terra 14y agoSo basically it will work exactly like mechanical clock with weights (and cuckoo) do. Hell, they should combine this thing with clock: a clock with weights that is also a lamp when needed.
- Xylakant 14y agoI like the idea, but I dislike the "we'll distribute this for free" attitude. Distributing any kind of stuff for free has major economic impact, especially in poor countries where you replace or obsolete parts of the economy[1]. It's very common in the poorer parts of africa (Mozambique, Zimbabwe, ...) that people make their living of buying fuel at the gas station and reselling it by the liter for use in cookers and lamps or by collecting and selling wood. A better way to go would be to validate the concept and find a way to produce the lamp and as much parts of it in the target communities, helping them to become self sustainable. The current idea just replaces local economy with earnings for a {american, european, chinese} manufacturer, effectively funneling funds away from the people that you want to help. So the goal is laudable, but I can't support the approach they're taking. [1] other examples include food help which drives the local farmers out of business or donating clothes. Clothes often get sold for cheaper prices than the locally produced ones. Both may be useful in very specific circumstances, but are harmful in large scale.
- boksiora 14y agoYou are right that the money will go out of the local economy, but this is not excuse for making better tools and technology. For example I live in Europe, and when I get an iPhone... the money goes to the US, but this is not a problem as its technology and its an extra in my life. But see when you have to buy basic things for living, like food, fuel etc... from non local companies its a problem. Especially the poorness of Africa is deeper subject and i don't think that tools like that are the cause of it. This thing can be applied my many more places that lacks electricity and its rather good than bad to have it.
- boksiora 14y agoI hope those guys make it successful
- todsul 14y agoWhen I was living in India last year, an Australian tech founder who rented a room in my apartment said we was tackling the kerosene problem too with solar. His company (Barefoot Power) wasn't highly technical, but rather put together components for an efficient solar powered light. The solar panel doubled as a mobile phone charger (phones are ubiquitous in India, even in the slums, so this was a huge selling point) and was enough to power the light for a full night. I don't remember all the economics, but the cost of kerosene for x months would pay for the entire setup. Also, the light was an order of magnitude brighter than a kerosene lamp. But the interesting part (again, there's nothing highly technical here) was the business model. It had a social/micro-finance bent in that he would source investors, who'd invest in shipping containers of these systems, which they'd sell on consignment to local entrepreneurs in poor areas. Those entrepreneurs would pay a fixed interest rate, so the investment was for-profit, and the local entrepreneur would profit from the rest. I remember him talking about building a Kiva-like interface where you could track your investment, right down to the shipping container, village and entrepreneur. The best thing about this guy moving in was that my co-founder (of Flightfox) was just preparing for an expedition across the Gobi desert and needed solar power for her Macbook so she could blog about the expedition from the desert. All went well and she (Lauren) spent 52 days, trekking 1,000 miles, with full power and ability to blog over satellite the entire time. All using solar panels small enough to fit in a backpack. That said, love the concept of the gravity light. For anyone who's spent a lot of time off grid, even dim light makes all the difference. Edit: this system cost about $20.