Category: Science

Fuel Cell Tops Lithium Batteries

UltraCell

Agent Greg has this to say:

25 watts is pretty impressive. Three of them could run a 75 watt light bulb.
I’m looking forward to an LED light powered by methanol. Just the thing for camping.
I believe this will be the future of electric cars, by the way. Methanol fuel cells with regenerative braking and eventually battery banks and some solar assist.

Some info from the article:

Fuel cell developer UltraCell has come up with a new fuel cell power source for portable electronic devices that it says has twice the energy density of lithium batteries. That’s potentially very good news for power-hungry mobile gadgeteers…
UltraCell’s reformed methanol fuel cell, or RMFC, technology uses a micro reformer to generate fuel-cell-ready hydrogen from a highly concentrated methanol solution. The new portable power system has the density of a hydrogen fuel cell but uses readily available, low-cost methanol fuel in a compact package.

Power source surges past lithium batteries

Color ePaper From Fujitsu

ePaper

I want a magazine sized sheet of this that will display PDF files, simple text files, and the Zino file format so I can read the electronic versions of magazines. Plus a compact flash slot and USB interface for easy loading of files. Could this be the beginning of on demand newspapers? Just get the ePaper and load it from newspaper sellers or off the Internet.

world’s first film substrate-based bendable color electronic paper with an image memory function. The new electronic paper features vivid color images that are unaffected even when the screen is bent, and features an image memory function that enables continuous display of the same image without the need for electricity. The thin and flexible electronic paper uses very low power to change screen images, thereby making it ideal for displaying information or advertisements in public areas as a type of new electronic media that can be handled as easily as paper.

Fujitsu Color ePaper Press Release

media, paper, Fujitsu, ePaper

The Geobat

Geobat

Looks like a workable design, there are R/C flying models of it and they act pretty stable. The 1/4 scale (5.5 feet) craft is downright impressive, I would very much like to see the full scale version come to market. At the very least as a kit that an experimenter could build on their own. General aviation has taken a big hit in the last few decades due to the rising cost of aircrafts, maintenance, and insurance. Plus I think that many people just don’t get exposure to aviation like they once did. In my fathers day, due to pilots being trained for World War II, the general aviation field entered it’s golden era. My dad dusted crops in North Dakota from his Piper Cub and people were talking about every family owning their own flying car. Now days that is still a dream. I hope the Geobat makes it.
I could even see in the future a group of Geobats preforming acrobatics at air shows. Talk about a show stopper!

Good overall performance envelope combining outstanding Short Take Off and Landing (STOL) performance, (expecting less than 500 ft. ground run) reasonably high cruise speeds (180 – 220 mph depending on power installed and cruise altitude), with eyewatering aerobatic performance. Expect power-off stall speed to be at or below 55 mph with flaps down at nominal gross weight. Excellent forward visibility combined with transparent floor panels creating a helicopter-like cockpit environment. Unique leading edge design feature, transparent leading edges about the forward and rear wings are illuminated with lights (pick your color).

BTW, they have a store if you want to build your own! (Sorry, radio control only)

Flying Saucers – The Geobat

future, cool, aircraft, experimental, aviation

NASA TV Feeds

NASA TV

If your looking to keep up with what is going on with the current Space Shuttle mission and can’t get NASA TV in your area, you should take a look at this list. Dozens of links to feeds with a quality rating next to each one. I like the 350 kb/s feed myself, it’s almost like watching the video feed on cable. I’m watching the crew move the Canada arm around so they can install Raffaello, the Multi Purpose Logistics Module that was hauled up on orbit by the shuttle, to the ISS. It’s simplay amazing to see something like this and know that its happening right now.
Go celebrate NASA’s return to space by geeking out in front of your computer and absorb some hard core space news.

NASA TV Feeds

NASA, space, video, news

Seebeck Effect Powered Fan

heat fan

Why not get more work out of your wood stove? this device uses the Seebeck Effect to run a fan that will move air from your stove to other parts of your room. Its a clever idea alright, it’s pretty much the same thing that powers space craft except your not using burning wood as your heat source – your using the natural decay of nuclear materials.
As I encourage everyone to play with science whenever possable, I’ll tell you how you can make your own Seebeck Effect electrical generator.
You’ll need the following:

      A steel nail – 4″ long will do
      Some copper wire – stranded about the diameter of a coathanger
      A candle – nice sized on a sturdy base
      A volt meter of some sort – you could use a small motor if you wanted but you might not see any movement on your first try
      Something to hold the nail with, it’s going to get hot.

Strip the insulator from the copper wire and wrap some around the nail.
Around a four inch nail I’d wrap about six inches of wire in a space of apx. one inch.
Connect the leads of the meter to the nail and the wire and hold the wrapped part of the nail in the flame of the candle.
You should see a small voltage show up on your meter. Pretty cool, eh?

Yes, you can build bigger ones out of better materials but at some point you end up melting your experiment. I suppose if you had some good thermocouples (thats what the bimetal junctions are called) and some very low voltage LEDs you could build a sundial that you could read from inside your house. Leave a comment if I lost you anywhere.
Anyway, the bimetal strips in the little fan are doing the same thing as the wire and nail, just that they are built of metals that have a better energy coefficient. A pretty good use of science if you ask me.

Ecofan Woodstove Fan

science, thermal, clever, neat