Self-powered computer

[alinosa]

i'd like to chime in on the power from the satellite: while klingens is correct that the satty is only putting out ~100 Watts for a continent (i don't know what the area for a TV satellite is, but for a military satellite at 225,000 miles above the earth, it is 1/3 of the earth. And the signal is of course stronger at the center of the "footprint" than the edges.) The power level measured at the earth-terminal (the little dish in this case) is measured in dBm's (decibels referenced to 1 milliwatt) and is not a lot... it is important to point out that the equipment is only using freq's that it is "tuned" for. the center freq in this bandwidth is the carrier freq. and the power generated by it is miniscule.

BUT

the dish is capable of collecting and amplifying more than just the carrier freq. (or any number of them) it can collect and amplify ANY frequency that is thrown at it. Including microwaves that have nothing to do with the transmission of telecommunications. the same waves that can be scavenged for use in generating power similar to the way a solar panel works.

the wattage that is being read by Janglur's equipment does not necessarily have to be the carrier from the satellite. it might be the by-products of the transmission from the satellite. (like resonant freq's that are produced by the feed-horns on the satty. ) when i was in the army, and we tried to come up on the bird, we would sometimes find a "side-hump" and try to hit it with our signal, and our controllers would see SOME signal hitting the bird, but no traffic... we'd have to make sure we were dead center on the satty to actually pass traffic over it. it's not enough to be close.

sorry for drifting off topic...

anyways, just because the freq that carries the data isn't pushing 14 watts into anyone's meters, it isn't impossible to be receiving enough radiation from a source that added up generates some significant (-ish) power. After all, that's what a satellite dish does: provide passive gain for a signal.

AND

GL with this project, i'm interested in seeing how it comes out

 

[jivetrky]

It may be possible to collect some kind of power from those things...but trust me when I say that the voltages that were beeing read were not coming from the satellite dish, they were going TO it, to power it. The reciever provides 13v and 18v to the LNBs to power them so they can receive the signal. not the other way around. All you have to do is unplug the RG6 cable from the satellite dish and stick your multimeter on it...it'll show those readings. Then stick the Multimeter on the dish and you'll probably get next to nothing if not nothing at all.

Now there COULD be other types of satellites out there that have far stronger signals and actually do power the dish...but these consumer television dishes are not it.

 

[dlavrenz]

geothermal steam generator powering a turbine which spins to create energy for all your computing needs...


... that might cost a little more then 2 grand though

 

[Too Smart]

How about a steam powered generator? All it needs to do is boil water to produce steam which turns a turbine. This is a common way to produce electricity, but as far as I know the water is always heated with oil or gas. Would it be possible to heat the water simply by building a fire under it?

 

[dlavrenz]

But then it is not self powered now is it...

I guess you could OC it soo meuch that it generates enough heat to boil water

 

[Automata]

Another wind one...

Just browsing and came across a wind generator from old HDD's. If you lived in a windy place, this would be perfect. They are trying to reach 100w with this project, but they don't say how much it is running now...

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~umpare.../top-5-dead-hard-drive-projects-static/5.html

 

[DickH]

trying to be real now, but can you tap into the power from the phone lines in your house? I know the phone company supplies regulated power for phones on the line and I don't believe they actually care about monitoring that power. I don't know for sure, but you might still get power even with the phone line turned off so you can't make calls. Its just an idea, I dont know how much the phone line actually supplies, but I know its a good 24/7 connection that could be used. Also, if this is for a real life situation... at the small wattage you are trying to get, you might as well just make it battery powered with the charger plugged in all the time.

 

[eobard]

The phone line won't give enough amps. Take a look at how small those wires are. They could never sustain the load necessicary for even the most forgiving of computer requirements. Plus when a call comes in the voltage almost doubles (and switches from DC to AC) as the phone rings and gets cut in half if you take the receiver off the hook.

 

[Douken]

I have been on a crusade to build a computer of semi-normal performance that can be powered without the use of an electrical socket. Ever.

That's what I call engineering!

 

[Roman79]

Just browsing and came across a wind generator from old HDD's. If you lived in a windy place, this would be perfect. They are trying to reach 100w with this project, but they don't say how much it is running now...

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~umpare.../top-5-dead-hard-drive-projects-static/5.html

I've been following this (or very similar) projects for years and I've yet to see anyone make a wind turbine out of HDD magnets that producted a reasonable amount of power.

That being said it's fairly easy to make a small wind turbine out of other kinds of magnets that product from 200W to 400W. Larger designs can be made in a workshop that are in the kW range and above. I highly recommend you check out the articles and discussion boards at:

http://www.otherpower.com/

There's some great reading there

EDIT: Actually there's a article on there about a guy that made a turbine almost entirely out of wood at produces 60W of power.

 

[soulfly1448]

Good luck with successfully completing perpetual motion. Which is what you will need for this to work.

 

[eobard]

Although the title would seem to imply that the first post clearly shows that the intent is simply to have a system that doesn't need the conventional power grid, which is doable.

 

[Valk]

How much power do you think you could get from a sterling engine? I seem to remember somone building a suspended phase change engine that could be powered by nothing more than the heat from your hand. im sure you could produce a small sterling principle turbine and power it with solar heat *big black box full of water*

 

[ObsesivComplsiv]

I have seen in "Roadside Emengency" type kits w/solar chargers to get the car started in a pinch. If changing at intervals is within the perameters of the project then a few deep cycle batteries being charged while one is in use would work.

 

[Jmag034]

for cpu, the new 9w 2.33ghz yonah would be ideal, using ddr2 with it, it draws less power, you clock the yonah down to 1ghz with .6v and its drawing 3-4w. 1 256mb stick of ddr2 at 1.6v.

 

[rapter_F22]

I would have to say go with a battery and a solar cell that is capable of charging the battery and powering the computer at the same time. you could always make it a genaric recharger and use any method you wanted to charge the battery. ie solar, exercise bike, wind power. there are lots of sorces of power other than the power company but I would say your thermocouple and satalite ideas are probably out of the question.

 

[Salami_Joe]

Did you have any limits as to how big you want any part of this to be? I would just think to use a large array of solar arrays and use batteries to keep it awake at night.

 

[Shelnutt2]

Hows the project coming? I missed this thread when it started.

Have you thought about hydrogen powered fuel cells? I'll go dig up a few links I use to have on them. Now I know you still need power to produce the hydrogen, but with the budget you have (2K) I think you could produce a few hydrogen fuel cells, and the batteries to store the power.

iirc last time I check the GM building in New York were their hydrogen fuel cell project is/was being worked on, is/was run off of 40% hydrogen fuel cells.

 

[freakdiablo]

Why dont you just make a case entirely out of solar cells? or you could just spin around on one of those rolly desk chairs and use that as a generator

 

[jcw122]

I doubt you will be able to run WIndowsXP, why not shoot for running a slim distro of linux? WindowsXP is quite a long shot for such a low power/spec

BTW Valk, that's a nice idea, I nearly forgot about those little machines, their pretty neat. May be you could use the heat, AFTER startup, from the CPU to power the Sterling engine?

I don't think solar is a great solution though guys, what happens when its ovecast or you want to go inside for a few hours?