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Spring + Gear + Motor = Energy
It’s completely brilliant! Can you take this idea apart? This is a portable spring driven power generator design concept by designer Satoshi Yanagisawa, one that says you’ll be able to recharge your daily portable gadgets anytime anywhere without further negative impact to the environment. Sounds alright! The name of this project is “Cyclus,” and it’s a spring driven personal electricity generator. A hand held device that, when its bottom is twisted, provides 30 minutes of energy via the inner located spring via “rotation energy.”
The energy generated, Yanagisawa says, is enough to drive the DC motor (in the upper part of the device) to produce energy approximately equal to 6.6V 3W. Yanagisawa envisions this device as a catalyst for the next generation of ideas that generate social togetherness as well as electric energy.
Designer: Satoshi Yanagisawa
25 Comments »
Mochasarah says
This is such an inspired design!
Mochasarah says
This is such an inspired design!
Aldrich says
This will come handy
mimb says
Interesting – is there an Australian distributor?
Aldrich says
This will come handy
engineeringthoughts says
This makes it seem trivial to generate power. Lets take the claims at face value.
A phone charging off a USB port will pull 500mA max at 5V – that is 2.5 watts, completely reasonable for a battery that needs to be charged. 2.5 watts for the claimed 30 minutes is 1.25 watt hours. 1.25 watt hours is 4500 Joules.
This is an ENORMOUS amount of energy to store in a small spring. Energy stored in a coil spring is .5*k*x*x – a very stiff spring would have a K value of 90lbs/in (takes 90 pounds force to compress/extend by 1 inch)***.
You would have to compress or extend said spring about 29 inches to get this amount of potential energy…. 29in*90lb/in = 2610lb
It’s fairly unreasonable to expect a human to apply over 2 short tons of push/pull – even 90 pounds is unreasonable.
Now, I know it’s a twisting action – power springs are more abstract to the layman than the ubiquitous coil spring.
Even if we used a power spring (the style used in clocks, seat belts, wind up toys, etc.) – it would need to be gigantic and would be equally difficult to “compress” VIA twisting.
Designers – please stop trivializing power generation! It makes my job (and the jobs of others working in the space of small scale energy conversion) more difficult and fails to manage customer expectation. The internet has a huge amount of resources to do quick feasibility gut checks.
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*** I did the calculation using more traditional units using newtons, meters, etc. pounds (force) and inches are just for reader ease.
m.u.t. says
as an electronic technician, i can just only agree! totally unreasonable !
mimb says
Interesting – is there an Australian distributor?
engineeringthoughts says
This makes it seem trivial to generate power. Lets take the claims at face value.
A phone charging off a USB port will pull 500mA max at 5V – that is 2.5 watts, completely reasonable for a battery that needs to be charged. 2.5 watts for the claimed 30 minutes is 1.25 watt hours. 1.25 watt hours is 4500 Joules.
This is an ENORMOUS amount of energy to store in a small spring. Energy stored in a coil spring is .5*k*x*x – a very stiff spring would have a K value of 90lbs/in (takes 90 pounds force to compress/extend by 1 inch)***.
You would have to compress or extend said spring about 29 inches to get this amount of potential energy…. 29in*90lb/in = 2610lb
It’s fairly unreasonable to expect a human to apply over 2 short tons of push/pull – even 90 pounds is unreasonable.
Now, I know it’s a twisting action – power springs are more abstract to the layman than the ubiquitous coil spring.
Even if we used a power spring (the style used in clocks, seat belts, wind up toys, etc.) – it would need to be gigantic and would be equally difficult to “compress” VIA twisting.
Designers – please stop trivializing power generation! It makes my job (and the jobs of others working in the space of small scale energy conversion) more difficult and fails to manage customer expectation. The internet has a huge amount of resources to do quick feasibility gut checks.
—
*** I did the calculation using more traditional units using newtons, meters, etc. pounds (force) and inches are just for reader ease.
m.u.t. says
as an electronic technician, i can just only agree! totally unreasonable !
Honorio Monreal says
El generador se vende donde lo podré conseguir.
vogelcube says
This is bad design. Anyone can make a spring-loaded device connected to a generator. You can even make it hand-sized, but no one wants to hand-crank their phone. There's a reason there haven't been much use of crank-powered tech outside the emergency weather radio.____Make it capture natural movement via impact or free motion, similar to a pedometer, so you can generate power from walking or even vibration of a vehicle, such as the stop-start of a bus. If you're dead-set on using springs, then give us one we can power by using a ____-cycle or skateboard. Even a generator attached to a Skip-it (most likely tm) or the infinitly amusing Shake-weight ™ would more useful than this.
vogelcube says
This is bad design. Anyone can make a spring-loaded device connected to a generator. You can even make it hand-sized, but no one wants to hand-crank their phone. There's a reason there haven't been much use of crank-powered tech outside the emergency weather radio.____Make it capture natural movement via impact or free motion, similar to a pedometer, so you can generate power from walking or even vibration of a vehicle, such as the stop-start of a bus. If you're dead-set on using springs, then give us one we can power by using a ____-cycle or skateboard. Even a generator attached to a Skip-it (most likely tm) or the infinitly amusing Shake-weight ™ would more useful than this.
Teresa says
Where do i buy this thing ???? …………i have too have it !!!!!
Teresa says
Where do i buy this thing ???? …………i have too have it !!!!!
Judah Mahay says
I would buy this in a hearbeat. If you can figure out how to make it please send me an email.
chibueze Nwakpuda says
I love this Yanko. You are agreat mind Yanko. I have an 800VA Luminous inverter and it is good. How much does it go for? I need samples and I will pay for delivery. Please, respond immediately. I live in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
Chibueze Nwakpuda
Stephen says
Brilliant design, I want one now! Really, are these commercially available in Canada(or North America?).
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