If you'd like to help make future projects like this possible please consider supporting this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/iancharnas 🙌 One trillion thanks to those who already support these projects! 🙌
@@Cryptofarmer228 Your wish is my command! I just ordered Russian subtitles from rev.com - it should be finished tomorrow. The cost was around $60 USD. Hopefully in the future I can pay for subtitles for every video with my Patreon.
The fact you have 4K subscribers at the time of me writing this comment is insane. Your production quality is amazing, your explanation of concepts is easily digestible, and I don't regret spending my time watching this. Please please please keep this up. If you ever feel discouraged, just look back on this comment and know you inspire at least one more person in the world.
I truly don't understand how your channel doesn't have more subscribers! THIS IS AN AMAZING PROJECT! Completely bonkers and such high level execution! And easy to understand due to your thorough and fun explanations, absolutely FIRST CLASS content! I hope you keep producing these videos, this build was such a great concept!!
I've dreamed about doing something like this for a while, and I can see it was above my skill level for sure. Those batteries were a really interesting find! Also great job shouting out NurdRage, a quality channel. I can see you'll be going places with this channel, yourself, and I'm glad to be here on the ground floor. Keep up the awesome work!
Keep coming back to this. Jesus it’s hilarious. The shot on the park bench!! That green “radioactive” glow…. with the Ferris Bueller music is too freaking hilarious!
I actually never fully understood the process of fission until i watched you split the neutron into a proton and an electron. Very simple, very easy, thank you
Thank you so much Gorm for the super nice comment! I appreciate it. Something you may find interesting - technically, this process is called "decay" instead of "fission" - the difference is that in "fission" the whole atom splits into two (or more) different atoms, while in "decay" only a sub-atomic particle will change and so if you started with one atom you will still end up with one atom. It's kind of confusing but I hope that makes sense!
@@iancharnas i do find that interesting, lol. I spent a few seconds trying to figure out what the word was that i was looking for, but fission was all that came up. I figured somebody would correct me and then I'd know!
Loved this! I found your channel very recently because of your collaboration with Xyla Foxlin on the exploding greeting cards. I'd love for you to do more collabs to help you reach a bigger audience. Your videos are way too much fun for so many people to be missing out on them!
How is this not the most popular video on RUclips? The fact that I only found this channel yesterday shows that something is clearly wrong with the YT algorithm. You got my sub :)
Solid state batteries have so much potential! I hope we start to see them in consumer products in the next 10 years. Can't wait for the next video, keep em coming
Indeed! Maybe QuantumScape will really come through on manufacturing solid state batteries big enough to power an electric vehicle. Thanks for the super nice comment Chris!!
Great question! The batteries individually hold 50 micro ampere hours, if I recall correctly. A typical AA battery might hold around 2500 milli ampere hours. So it would take 500,000 of the tiny solid state batteries to hold as much energy as one AA. It's a very niche product :-)
Do you think those batteries store enough energy to ignite an electronic match used in model rockets ? I believe it needs a minimum of .60 amp (600 milliamp Thanks , great video by the way
Another great question! I haven't looked at the datasheet in a while but I think the maximum power output was around 100 micro amps. So you would need 6000 in parallel to get to 600 milliamps
Holy crap, how do you not have over 10 million followers? If this video doesn't put you over the top I'm going to buy a million of those nuclear tubes to play one sad song on a first generation ipod.
Would you believe I only let the smartest, coolest people like, comment, and subscribe? By the way, congratulations on making the list! 🏆 Seriously though, thanks for that super nice comment. It made me smile 😊
How about adding solar panel charging as a supplement and charging it? You should be able to use it more quickly if you charge it with sunlight in addition to charging it alone
Hehe you are definitely right! If I made a solar-powered Gameboy that would work better. Somehow though my projects always fall into the "not super practical, but funny" category.
We have a lot uranium ore in lower Austria. Actually this would be a much better source for this setup, I am just not sure how the radiation would affect the semiconductors in the solarcell over time.
Hi Dan! Thanks for the comment. Yeah the NurdRage channel basically did that. They had a solar cell on one side and a mirror (well, aluminum foil) on the other side. But it works best (generates the most power) with solar cells on both sides.
@@iancharnas You are very welcome. I was reading some comments on making this tritium cell at hackaday and read about your video, so I looked for it. I'm looking to buy a tritium-powered red dot sight for a paintball marker and one thing let to another. I have zero background in this matter but it was really enjoyable to read about this and see your top production video.
@@denniskatinas cool! I"m a huge fan of hackaday, they do a good job of showing interesting projects and keeping it entertaining while still talking about the tech.
Cool. I assume it would be possible to make a tritium generator that doesn't use the detour of florescence and photocells to generate a voltage/current and uses the electrons... beta particles... directly to generate the voltage and current? I wonder how much tritium it would take with the optimal design to generate enough wattage to run the gameboy indefinitely 🤔
Anders thanks for the super nice comment! I appreciate it. Yeah what you're describing is totally possible. They call that a "betavoltaic" cell rather than a "photovoltaic" cell. They are indeed more efficient. The only trouble is they cost several thousand dollars. Maybe one day when my patreon has a few more supporters 😉
Great project next up a RTG to power a real Gameboy ;-) But wait a moment... I know you. You are Ian from the Tesla Orchestra!! We've met 10 years ago in Linz.
Huzzah! I would love to power a real Gameboy! Also yes hello - I had such a good time in Linz, both with the Tesla Orchestra at Ars Electronica and also with the Waterfall Swing at the OK center. It's such an amazing city. Linz should be on everyone's travel list! Thanks for saying hi :-)
Hi Keegan, thanks for the super kind words! Sure, here are the solar cells: www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/powerfilm-inc/LL200-3-37/9559467?s=N4IgTCBcDaIIwE4EDYC0cAMcDsqByAIiALoC%2BQA The thin film batteries are CBC050-M8C but they are out of stock in most places. Hopefully you will be able to find some. Good luck!
Colin - Thank you so, so, so much for your help on this! I've already added you to the thank-you's in the video description but really - you saved the day. There wouldn't be a video without you. Thank you!
@@iancharnas dang.. maybe I can figure something out in the future but thank you for the quick response and honesty. Will be looking forward to surfing your videos though cause that was amazing👍🤙
Damnit! I wish I would've found this in time for the raffle, that kind of nuclear powered game boy would be so cool to have. Not just because of it being one of many cool custom "Gameboys", but because it's powered by RADIATION!
Oh my gosh Vinnie! It's been so long man! I think the last time I saw you was in Country Kitchen. What a fun place for us night owls back in the day. I just checked out your channel, great work friend! I watched several videos and I can see why they're getting tons of views, they are super helpful and you explain things really well. Keep up the awesome work 🙂
@@RichfieldAutoCenter I would love that! I'm sure I'll do another car project at some point. I had one a few years ago where I hacked my car so the windshield wipers sync'd with whatever music I was listening to.
Hi, great question! I think Radium is a solid at room temperature, and it looks like it goes through alpha decay only: www.nist.gov/image-23773 I'm not sure how to turn alpha particle decay into electricity. It's interesting to think about!
That'd be fun! The nuclear battery could power an ESP32 for a short time. I'd have to check to see the current draw of that micro versus the peak power output of the thin-film batteries, but it seems plausible.
Do the thin film batteries come with any storage charge? I'm having trouble finding a datasheet, could use this for another wirelessly powered smoke detector I've been using supercaps on, but it takes too long to charge between checks for a fire, so perhaps these could help me.
Stephen, great question! The thin film batteries I bought came with no storage charge. However the ones I bought are super easy to charge. The QFN package contains the battery and also a tiny charging circuit, so all you have to do is connect about 4 volts and let it sit there for 20 minutes. That's particular to the ones I purchased, but you get the idea. For a wirelessly-powered smoke detector, is the idea to gather energy via RF waves, store it in a thin film battery, and then periodically wake up a micro to operate the smoke detector? Sounds like an interesting project! The thin film batteries only have a tiny maximum output current, so one challenge is they may not be able to sound an audible alarm because a buzzer might take too much current. Just something to check on as you work on this. Good luck!
@@iancharnas Yeah sweet, thanks, interesting, I might have to grab a few. I was using some low power SiLabs MCUs with custom antennas - waking up to read a sensor every so many seconds, transmitting status to a hub unit with battery backup. The idea was to make battery free detectors, sticky and easily deployable with just a single central point for monitoring. Picking up transient RF radio waves, or nearby emitted RF waves like some 915Mhz ISM @ 2.5W omnidirectional - but range was low and wakeup time far between - solely dependent on the supercap specs. Using radio was basically a month long joke, and emitting our own radio waves was very promising but not to the par of a standard cheapo smoke detector - once ~20ft away from the RF source.... not good. perhaps a thin film battery will improve this range, new radio and MCUs as well, but, inverse square law is evil here haha
@@StephenShafferengineer Cool project! If the detector is for homes and offices, I'd bet you'd get more energy from a low-lux solar cell. I used this one for the nuclear generator project, it's great for getting energy from dim indoor lights: www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/powerfilm-inc/LL200-3-37/9559467 I could see some advantages to RF energy collection though. There's always pros and cons :-)
@@iancharnas Oh yeah 100%, this was just similarly to your project, to learn about CNCing antennas and capturing power, and getting those darn SiLabs MCUs into their lowest possible power state lol (their documentation is the suck, but they're cool in email support)
@@StephenShafferengineer sounds awesome! I too am in the camp of "we do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard" - best of luck on your projects :-)
Thank you so much friend! I probably *should* have called it quits, but when you combine my stubbornness with my lack of social life, this is what happens LOL
@@iancharnas oh and if you're interested, the news article is www.vice.com/en/article/qj8ezm/youtuber-builds-beautifully-inefficient-nuclear-powered-tetris-machine
Excellent video! Side note - phosphors don't necessarily contain phosphorous; the name refers to the ability of the compound to emit light when excited, not its chemical composition. As far as I can find online, it appears that the phosphor commonly used in tritium tubes is zinc sulfide, likely doped with some rare earth element to change color.
That's super interesting, I didn't know that! I had always wondered what the term phosphors meant. Thanks for the comment and also for the kind words :-)
I hesitate to admit it but I'm most excited about the solid-state thin film batteries. I really want to figure out a project I can use them on just for the cool factor but >50µAh @3.8V is not a lot of energy.
Oh yeah totally - the low-leakage really blew my mind. The real-life applications seem pretty niche. I saw one that involved an eyeball pressure sensor that was actually implanted into people's eyes. It kind of grosses me out but also fascinates me.
Consider E-ink. 50uAh should be more than enough to refresh big E-ink display. And 1uW of input power is more than enough to power Artasie series RTC chip. So you can make everlasting clock or even simple ebook reader
@@mocrochip4474 I was considering using them instead of coin cells for rtc and SRAM of a cartridge like system I wanted to design. E-ink sounds fun but I suspect a considerable amount of the power they use is for the processor running the show.
@@oliverer3 It depends on the show. You can completely cut power to display and put your processor in deep-sleep when you don't need to refresh the screen. And modern low-power MCU's have dynamic consumption about 20-50uA/MHz (and way lower for Ambiq Apollo series) so I believe processor shouldn't be the problem. Replacing coin cells sounds also fun, but I have concerns about capacity: typical CR2032 is about 200'000uAh
Hi! Thanks for the comment - I put the music in the video description: Selections from RUclips: * "NES Tetris - Music 03" * "NES Tetris - Victory Theme" * "Korobeiniki Orchestral" * "Korobeiniki Epic"
Hello i just recently came to your chanel and you are amazing i wanted to build something like this myself i got the thin-flm battaries and now im just looking for the tritium can you gie a link to where you bought them thanks!
How about nuclear powered AirTag? Ive been thing to built it into Rigde style wallet. for sure it'll become thicker after photovoltaic sandwiching but it seems doable. However I don't have enough knowledge to calculate everything and build the circuit. What would you recommend to read to gain enough understanding of electrical engineering to get this thing working? BTW this video is very informative. Will def check out the rest. спасибо))
Hey Xavier, thank you so much for the super kind words! 😊It means a lot. The truth is I only let the absolute best people like, comment, and subscribe. Congratulations on making the cut! 🏆
Hello sir Before I start the question, I'd like to mention how good you are at playing tetris. I watched you and you matched those spots PERFECTLY. Anyways, I'm trying to make a simple nuclear battery using Sr-90. It'll be like a betavoltaic battery, but sadly I don't have phosphorous nor do I have any solar panels at the moment. And if I wanted that, I could also just put the solar panels outside. Do you perchance have any idea how I could make such thing? I'm new at betavoltaic, and I own a Sr-90 sample from my old soviet union Dosimeter DR-M3. Greetings.
Can someone give me a place where I can buy these light emitting radioactive things, I feel challanged to make a better version, Wich produces enough power to power a homemade game console (because I don't have a Gameboy neither can afford one) but without having to charge batteries before using
technically isn't a PS5 on a Ohio class submarine a portable nuclear powered game system? and for that matter, isn't the US navy just a giant nuclear powered version of battleship.
I had a brick game like that when I was a kid. The buzzer was the heavy load on that game, it consumed a lot of battery. Sometimes the screen was fading when playing sounds. I hope you disconnected the buzzer or turned the sound off to preserve energy :)
Hehehe - it is indeed cold! LOL. 😆 For anyone reading this and wondering about those terms... fusion is when multiple atoms or nuclei combine.... and fission is when an atom or nuclei splits apart to form two new ones. In this case I suppose neither is happening, so we'd use the term "radioactive decay" instead to describe what happens when an atom emits radiation and morphs into another atom.
Thanks Philip! ❤️ It must have been a very slow tech news week if I make the list, LOL. I love Vice's motherboard tech site. Totally honored this made the cut!
@@iancharnas I got it in my google notifications. I thought it was weird due to you not being a large channel but hey congrats dude. It was a good video so I'm happy to have received the notification :)
@@iancharnas I have a tritium tube as a keyring but never thought there was enough energy in it to power somthing albeit it didn't power much but still, pretty awesome
*OOPS* I accidentally intentionally deleted my original comment. I’m re-commenting to show my support and to keep the engagement up. Great video! Great channel!
Thanks friend (and thanks for the suggestions on the thumbnail)! Folks, you should really check out the Once Upon A Workbench channel! If you like my blend of "early onset dads" humor, you'll love his "actual dads" humor 🤣
If you'd like to help make future projects like this possible please consider supporting this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/iancharnas
🙌 One trillion thanks to those who already support these projects! 🙌
"Ох, он более странный каждый раз"?
Мне не послышалось? )))
@@Hubilgan-v4q hehehe it's totally true!!! 💯
@@iancharnas В таком случае правильнее было бы сказать; "с каждым разом он всё страннее". :))
Попросите оператора сделать русские субтитры пожайлуйста (если это возможно)
@@Cryptofarmer228 Your wish is my command! I just ordered Russian subtitles from rev.com - it should be finished tomorrow. The cost was around $60 USD. Hopefully in the future I can pay for subtitles for every video with my Patreon.
The fact you have 4K subscribers at the time of me writing this comment is insane. Your production quality is amazing, your explanation of concepts is easily digestible, and I don't regret spending my time watching this. Please please please keep this up. If you ever feel discouraged, just look back on this comment and know you inspire at least one more person in the world.
WOW Andrew! That's so nice of you - thanks friend :-) I really appreciate the encouragement!
If there was an award for friendliest mad scientist, I think you’d be destined for a win! Great video as always!
Matt Gray, the legend himself! Thanks for the encouragement :-)
Hah, his shirt even is cutesy but deadly haha
Awesome work! Never heard of these thin film batteries before 🤯
Marco Reps! I love your channel! You and I both like doing things that are hard, because they are hard.
Yeah true. You get ideas from this information
Yeah true. You get ideas from this information
I truly don't understand how your channel doesn't have more subscribers! THIS IS AN AMAZING PROJECT! Completely bonkers and such high level execution! And easy to understand due to your thorough and fun explanations, absolutely FIRST CLASS content! I hope you keep producing these videos, this build was such a great concept!!
0:21 - "Ох, он более странный каждый раз" - "Oh he's weirder every time" :)
I've dreamed about doing something like this for a while, and I can see it was above my skill level for sure. Those batteries were a really interesting find! Also great job shouting out NurdRage, a quality channel. I can see you'll be going places with this channel, yourself, and I'm glad to be here on the ground floor. Keep up the awesome work!
Hey friend, welcome aboard 🥳. and thank you so much for that super nice comment! It really, really makes my day to get a comment like that.
Keep coming back to this. Jesus it’s hilarious. The shot on the park bench!! That green “radioactive” glow…. with the Ferris Bueller music is too freaking hilarious!
Hehe thanks!! That's good encouragement for me. What's your name by the way?
Have been waiting for this! Incredible! Great video!
Yay! Thanks Alex :-)
I actually never fully understood the process of fission until i watched you split the neutron into a proton and an electron. Very simple, very easy, thank you
Thank you so much Gorm for the super nice comment! I appreciate it.
Something you may find interesting - technically, this process is called "decay" instead of "fission" - the difference is that in "fission" the whole atom splits into two (or more) different atoms, while in "decay" only a sub-atomic particle will change and so if you started with one atom you will still end up with one atom. It's kind of confusing but I hope that makes sense!
@@iancharnas i do find that interesting, lol. I spent a few seconds trying to figure out what the word was that i was looking for, but fission was all that came up. I figured somebody would correct me and then I'd know!
Loved this! I found your channel very recently because of your collaboration with Xyla Foxlin on the exploding greeting cards. I'd love for you to do more collabs to help you reach a bigger audience. Your videos are way too much fun for so many people to be missing out on them!
Oh my gosh thank you so much Robert for the kind words! I'll try to do more collaborations, I think you're right :-)
How is this not the most popular video on RUclips? The fact that I only found this channel yesterday shows that something is clearly wrong with the YT algorithm. You got my sub :)
Absolutely amazing, you are such an underrated creator.
Thank you so much!!!
Solid state batteries have so much potential! I hope we start to see them in consumer products in the next 10 years. Can't wait for the next video, keep em coming
Indeed! Maybe QuantumScape will really come through on manufacturing solid state batteries big enough to power an electric vehicle. Thanks for the super nice comment Chris!!
How much charge do those solid state batteries hold? How do they compare a AA or something commercially available?
Great question! The batteries individually hold 50 micro ampere hours, if I recall correctly. A typical AA battery might hold around 2500 milli ampere hours. So it would take 500,000 of the tiny solid state batteries to hold as much energy as one AA. It's a very niche product :-)
9:16 Lookin at you CodysLab XD
Ahaha so true! So ... true....
Cody we love you! No more refining radioactive ore though, LOL
Now we just need to find out how to make a bright glow stick using Unrefined uranium ore 🐸
Do you think those batteries store enough energy to ignite an electronic match used in model rockets ? I believe it needs a minimum of .60 amp (600 milliamp
Thanks , great video by the way
Another great question! I haven't looked at the datasheet in a while but I think the maximum power output was around 100 micro amps. So you would need 6000 in parallel to get to 600 milliamps
@@iancharnas thanks for that info! Keep up the good work
Holy crap, how do you not have over 10 million followers? If this video doesn't put you over the top I'm going to buy a million of those nuclear tubes to play one sad song on a first generation ipod.
Would you believe I only let the smartest, coolest people like, comment, and subscribe? By the way, congratulations on making the list! 🏆
Seriously though, thanks for that super nice comment. It made me smile 😊
Wait how the heck you only have 9k subs? That intro alone deserves 100k subs
Haha I agree with Abdul!! My secret is I only let the BEST people subscribe. Welcome to the channel by the way, you passed the test! 🙂
How about adding solar panel charging as a supplement and charging it? You should be able to use it more quickly if you charge it with sunlight in addition to charging it alone
Hehe you are definitely right! If I made a solar-powered Gameboy that would work better. Somehow though my projects always fall into the "not super practical, but funny" category.
Out of curiosity I googled "how much uranium would it take to power a Gameboy" and I still can't believe someone had the answer
Haha the internet is an amazing place
We have a lot uranium ore in lower Austria.
Actually this would be a much better source for this setup, I am just not sure how the radiation would affect the semiconductors in the solarcell over time.
Hi Jonatan! Thanks for the comment. I've been to Austria a few times. I had fun in Linz and also hiking around the mountains.
Tahini and Banana sandwich looks like a nice mix :)
NEXT, can you make me a nuclear-powered MP3 player that loops the song "Radioactive"? Amazing video!
Haha - love that idea 😆
Amazing as ever, Ian! I'm so sorry it took literal months, but hey, I hope you didn't have a meltdown over it.
Thank you so much Brian! No meltdown here thankfully. I kind of like when a project is difficult. It makes it more worthwhile you know?
could you encase the fuel rods in a reflective mirror container to increase the light power into the solar cells?
Hi Dan! Thanks for the comment. Yeah the NurdRage channel basically did that. They had a solar cell on one side and a mirror (well, aluminum foil) on the other side. But it works best (generates the most power) with solar cells on both sides.
This channel is underrated. Great work.
Dennis thank you so much!
@@iancharnas You are very welcome. I was reading some comments on making this tritium cell at hackaday and read about your video, so I looked for it. I'm looking to buy a tritium-powered red dot sight for a paintball marker and one thing let to another. I have zero background in this matter but it was really enjoyable to read about this and see your top production video.
@@denniskatinas cool! I"m a huge fan of hackaday, they do a good job of showing interesting projects and keeping it entertaining while still talking about the tech.
This is so amazing! I've been researching "micro reactors" but these is absolutely MICRO MICRO reactor!
Haha thank you for the kind comment! And yes you're right, it's soooo MICRO.
Have low light,what model of solar panels good for low light to use this method?
Hi, I used these solar cells: www.sparkfun.com/products/16358
Science and video games go hand in hand very well
Thank you Sinuhé! I'm super glad you liked it :-)
Where did you find these batteries!!!! I've been looking for them far awhile now. Please tell me
Good question! There are electronics surplus companies that sell old stock. I bought mine from RightPartsOnline.com
Cool. I assume it would be possible to make a tritium generator that doesn't use the detour of florescence and photocells to generate a voltage/current and uses the electrons... beta particles... directly to generate the voltage and current? I wonder how much tritium it would take with the optimal design to generate enough wattage to run the gameboy indefinitely 🤔
Anders thanks for the super nice comment! I appreciate it. Yeah what you're describing is totally possible. They call that a "betavoltaic" cell rather than a "photovoltaic" cell. They are indeed more efficient. The only trouble is they cost several thousand dollars. Maybe one day when my patreon has a few more supporters 😉
Great project next up a RTG to power a real Gameboy ;-)
But wait a moment... I know you. You are Ian from the Tesla Orchestra!!
We've met 10 years ago in Linz.
Huzzah! I would love to power a real Gameboy! Also yes hello - I had such a good time in Linz, both with the Tesla Orchestra at Ars Electronica and also with the Waterfall Swing at the OK center. It's such an amazing city. Linz should be on everyone's travel list! Thanks for saying hi :-)
I instantly love this channel!! Great project!.. I’m so happy you didn’t give up!
Hi Chad! One million thank-you's for posting that super nice comment 😊- I really appreciate the encouragement.
man you're amazing. Please add more content like this!
Thank you so much Alberto! 🙏
Just been binging all ur vids and the I love how u explain all the steps really detailed!
Crafty Paddy - Awesome! I'm super glad you're enjoying them :-)
Great video if you mind what were the exact components you used i want to make something similar my self
Hi Keegan, thanks for the super kind words!
Sure, here are the solar cells:
www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/powerfilm-inc/LL200-3-37/9559467?s=N4IgTCBcDaIIwE4EDYC0cAMcDsqByAIiALoC%2BQA
The thin film batteries are CBC050-M8C but they are out of stock in most places. Hopefully you will be able to find some. Good luck!
So much fun, Ian ! Made my week!
Thanks Herb! Glad you enjoyed it :-)
You are truly nuts my friend, awesome work and love the production quality!
Colin - Thank you so, so, so much for your help on this! I've already added you to the thank-you's in the video description but really - you saved the day. There wouldn't be a video without you. Thank you!
Yoo I wanna do this to my blood glucose meter! Think you could help me find those battery chips please??
A glucose meter that never runs out of battery would be a great idea! Sadly though, these batteries don't produce enough power to run a glucose meter.
@@iancharnas dang.. maybe I can figure something out in the future but thank you for the quick response and honesty. Will be looking forward to surfing your videos though cause that was amazing👍🤙
Damnit! I wish I would've found this in time for the raffle, that kind of nuclear powered game boy would be so cool to have. Not just because of it being one of many cool custom "Gameboys", but because it's powered by RADIATION!
Oh my gosh thank you so much! I'm super happy you're into it. This comment made my day
same lol
Ian, this was awesome! Wishing you continued success!!
-Vinnie
Oh my gosh Vinnie! It's been so long man! I think the last time I saw you was in Country Kitchen. What a fun place for us night owls back in the day. I just checked out your channel, great work friend! I watched several videos and I can see why they're getting tons of views, they are super helpful and you explain things really well. Keep up the awesome work 🙂
@@iancharnas ow wow. Thanks man. If you need an automotive guy for a collab, I’m your man.
@@RichfieldAutoCenter I would love that! I'm sure I'll do another car project at some point. I had one a few years ago where I hacked my car so the windshield wipers sync'd with whatever music I was listening to.
Would something like that work on radium Gas?
Hi, great question! I think Radium is a solid at room temperature, and it looks like it goes through alpha decay only: www.nist.gov/image-23773
I'm not sure how to turn alpha particle decay into electricity. It's interesting to think about!
I think you very well could have a hit channel on your hands sir, best of luck!
Greenland Santiago - oh my gosh thank you! It really makes my day to get a nice comment like yours 😊
Great stuff, now I want a nuclear powered ESP32
That'd be fun! The nuclear battery could power an ESP32 for a short time. I'd have to check to see the current draw of that micro versus the peak power output of the thin-film batteries, but it seems plausible.
Do the thin film batteries come with any storage charge? I'm having trouble finding a datasheet, could use this for another wirelessly powered smoke detector I've been using supercaps on, but it takes too long to charge between checks for a fire, so perhaps these could help me.
Stephen, great question! The thin film batteries I bought came with no storage charge. However the ones I bought are super easy to charge. The QFN package contains the battery and also a tiny charging circuit, so all you have to do is connect about 4 volts and let it sit there for 20 minutes. That's particular to the ones I purchased, but you get the idea. For a wirelessly-powered smoke detector, is the idea to gather energy via RF waves, store it in a thin film battery, and then periodically wake up a micro to operate the smoke detector? Sounds like an interesting project! The thin film batteries only have a tiny maximum output current, so one challenge is they may not be able to sound an audible alarm because a buzzer might take too much current. Just something to check on as you work on this. Good luck!
@@iancharnas Yeah sweet, thanks, interesting, I might have to grab a few. I was using some low power SiLabs MCUs with custom antennas - waking up to read a sensor every so many seconds, transmitting status to a hub unit with battery backup. The idea was to make battery free detectors, sticky and easily deployable with just a single central point for monitoring. Picking up transient RF radio waves, or nearby emitted RF waves like some 915Mhz ISM @ 2.5W omnidirectional - but range was low and wakeup time far between - solely dependent on the supercap specs. Using radio was basically a month long joke, and emitting our own radio waves was very promising but not to the par of a standard cheapo smoke detector - once ~20ft away from the RF source.... not good.
perhaps a thin film battery will improve this range, new radio and MCUs as well, but, inverse square law is evil here haha
@@StephenShafferengineer Cool project! If the detector is for homes and offices, I'd bet you'd get more energy from a low-lux solar cell. I used this one for the nuclear generator project, it's great for getting energy from dim indoor lights: www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/powerfilm-inc/LL200-3-37/9559467
I could see some advantages to RF energy collection though. There's always pros and cons :-)
@@iancharnas Oh yeah 100%, this was just similarly to your project, to learn about CNCing antennas and capturing power, and getting those darn SiLabs MCUs into their lowest possible power state lol (their documentation is the suck, but they're cool in email support)
@@StephenShafferengineer sounds awesome! I too am in the camp of "we do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard" - best of luck on your projects :-)
Super cool video Ian!
Thanks Matthew! I'm super glad you enjoyed it :-)
do not..... i repeat....... DO NOT let the mothers get this or our gaming life will be limited to an hour of tetris every 2 months
Bwahahaa Rishi, you have my word, I will not let this technology fall into the wrong hands :-)
Now that you have Tritium, build a Nuclear Reactor. Just google Farnsworth-Hirsch-Fusor.
Hehe I DO have a free Saturday coming up. hmm....
Great job! Your tenacity is inspiring, I would have called it quits at many points during that process... 😅
Thank you so much friend! I probably *should* have called it quits, but when you combine my stubbornness with my lack of social life, this is what happens LOL
@@iancharnas Sometimes it's the stubborn ones that gets the truly awesome results!
This was the funniest video I’ve watched for a while! Oh, and super interesting too.
OMG thank you so much! A nice comment like this really makes my day :-)
haha I just saw this video from a news article! Amazing!
Yay! I'm so happy to see a nice comment like yours. Thank you! 😊
@@iancharnas oh and if you're interested, the news article is www.vice.com/en/article/qj8ezm/youtuber-builds-beautifully-inefficient-nuclear-powered-tetris-machine
@@undefined06855 awesome! I just saw that Vice article a few minutes ago. I've never been written up in Vice before - super cool!!
Very interesting!
Keep the good work! :)
Thanks Lunga!! Honestly, it's super nice to get a kind comment like yours :-)
Saw the articles dude, congrats! Very cool Nuclear TetrisBoy.
Blep Bloop thanks friend! This was a super fun project / excuse to obtain a Geiger counter 😏
I can't believe that this channel has so few viewers and subscribers compared to the quality of the content and videos production!
Agree!! 😆 Thank you so much Vik, that's super nice to hear. ❤️
Excellent video! Side note - phosphors don't necessarily contain phosphorous; the name refers to the ability of the compound to emit light when excited, not its chemical composition. As far as I can find online, it appears that the phosphor commonly used in tritium tubes is zinc sulfide, likely doped with some rare earth element to change color.
That's super interesting, I didn't know that! I had always wondered what the term phosphors meant. Thanks for the comment and also for the kind words :-)
Hmmm... I wonder what would happen if you made one of these with some of that radium dial paint?
Man, your videos are really cool. You must have more subscriptors. Greetings for Mexico
¡Gracias Antonio! I visited CDMX with the Tesla Orchestra for a performance back in maybe 2016. It was so amazing. I love Mexico.
Unreal wow, awesome video!
Owen thank you so much!! It means a lot to me to get nice comments like yours.
Awesome! RTG next?
Ooooh good idea! [googles safe ways to do that]
Could it build up a static charge you could also use?
AWESOME !
Yes!! I'm so glad you liked it 😊
I hesitate to admit it but I'm most excited about the solid-state thin film batteries. I really want to figure out a project I can use them on just for the cool factor but >50µAh @3.8V is not a lot of energy.
Oh yeah totally - the low-leakage really blew my mind. The real-life applications seem pretty niche. I saw one that involved an eyeball pressure sensor that was actually implanted into people's eyes. It kind of grosses me out but also fascinates me.
Consider E-ink. 50uAh should be more than enough to refresh big E-ink display. And 1uW of input power is more than enough to power Artasie series RTC chip. So you can make everlasting clock or even simple ebook reader
@@mocrochip4474 I was considering using them instead of coin cells for rtc and SRAM of a cartridge like system I wanted to design. E-ink sounds fun but I suspect a considerable amount of the power they use is for the processor running the show.
@@oliverer3 It depends on the show. You can completely cut power to display and put your processor in deep-sleep when you don't need to refresh the screen. And modern low-power MCU's have dynamic consumption about 20-50uA/MHz (and way lower for Ambiq Apollo series) so I believe processor shouldn't be the problem.
Replacing coin cells sounds also fun, but I have concerns about capacity: typical CR2032 is about 200'000uAh
@@mocrochip4474 Coincell wise I was thinking for situations where it can be recharged when the system is powered.
So… who now wants uranium chips after seeing this
🙋♂️
This is so incredibly cool!
Thank you so much! It really means a lot to get a nice comment like yours. I appreciate it :-)
May your channel grow from this amazing content 😁
Dabb you are so kind! Thank you so much 😊
Bei 7.00 Minuten welche tetris Cover ist das?
Hi! Thanks for the comment - I put the music in the video description:
Selections from RUclips:
* "NES Tetris - Music 03"
* "NES Tetris - Victory Theme"
* "Korobeiniki Orchestral"
* "Korobeiniki Epic"
@@iancharnas thank you! 😎😉🤘🏻
Could you use the ore with a layer of phosphor for a much more powerful diy battery?
Hello i just recently came to your chanel and you are amazing i wanted to build something like this myself i got the thin-flm battaries and now im just looking for the tritium can you gie a link to where you bought them thanks!
just subscribed, great video!
Shane, that makes me so happy to read. Thank you.
Here from Ali's video. Super cool project! I would love to see more
i was hopping to see one of those pacemaker nuclear batterys in a game boy, good video
Most underrated channel on site
On the naughty list, just like that kid who made his own nuclear reactor 😋
How about nuclear powered AirTag? Ive been thing to built it into Rigde style wallet. for sure it'll become thicker after photovoltaic sandwiching but it seems doable. However I don't have enough knowledge to calculate everything and build the circuit. What would you recommend to read to gain enough understanding of electrical engineering to get this thing working? BTW this video is very informative. Will def check out the rest. спасибо))
That's a very promising channel !
Thank you so much Lucas!!! I'm so glad you liked the video.
Thanks for the info 👍😀 🍺
Thanks June!
How do you have so few subs with this production quality
Hey Xavier, thank you so much for the super kind words! 😊It means a lot.
The truth is I only let the absolute best people like, comment, and subscribe. Congratulations on making the cut! 🏆
Hello sir
Before I start the question, I'd like to mention how good you are at playing tetris. I watched you and you matched those spots PERFECTLY.
Anyways, I'm trying to make a simple nuclear battery using Sr-90. It'll be like a betavoltaic battery, but sadly I don't have phosphorous nor do I have any solar panels at the moment. And if I wanted that, I could also just put the solar panels outside. Do you perchance have any idea how I could make such thing? I'm new at betavoltaic, and I own a Sr-90 sample from my old soviet union Dosimeter DR-M3.
Greetings.
will u do the same with the uranium?
i know there isn't much beta in there but u can kinda do the same with gamma/alpha right?
"The naughty list" Love it
Hehehe thanks :-)
Can someone give me a place where I can buy these light emitting radioactive things, I feel challanged to make a better version, Wich produces enough power to power a homemade game console (because I don't have a Gameboy neither can afford one) but without having to charge batteries before using
Sure! Just look at the "supplies" section of the Instructable I wrote on this:
www.instructables.com/DIY-Nuclear-Generator/
If you can’t afford a gameboy you definitely can’t afford this much tritium. 😂
How about stacking several of these batteries?
Subscribed!
Okay... i dont think i want to charge my phone with this...
OR DO I
Haha welcome aboard Timmy The Impaler!
technically isn't a PS5 on a Ohio class submarine a portable nuclear powered game system?
and for that matter, isn't the US navy just a giant nuclear powered version of battleship.
Haha very true :-) Thanks Jessica!
Why can't you use thorium ore to run a nuclear battery or you need a phosphor or fluorescent material to run the semiconductor?
I subbed the shit out of this channel.
Hahaha thanks Dan! Welcome aboard 🤝
@@iancharnas pleasure!
Sir, please make a powerbank with nuclear. Iam waiting.....
All I want to know is how do these videos not have the same views as mark rober and veritasium. These are WAYYY more interesting and fun.
OMG thank you so much! Mark Rober and Veritasium are awesome. What an honor to be compared with them. Thanks!
Quality videos and only 4.5K Subscribers? You need to blow-up man!
Here have my sub and like!
Hektorsektor, I am ready for takeoff. 🚀🚀🚀
Haha thanks so much, and welcome aboard 🤝
@@iancharnas 🚀🚀🚀🚀
I had a brick game like that when I was a kid. The buzzer was the heavy load on that game, it consumed a lot of battery. Sometimes the screen was fading when playing sounds. I hope you disconnected the buzzer or turned the sound off to preserve energy :)
like why wouldn't you array a few more solar panels?
Is tritium expensive?
Hi Kong! Thanks for the comment and you are correct - the Tritium tubes are $30-50 USD each, so it gets expensive :-)
so would this be considered "cold fusion"? : )
Hehehe - it is indeed cold! LOL. 😆
For anyone reading this and wondering about those terms... fusion is when multiple atoms or nuclei combine.... and fission is when an atom or nuclei splits apart to form two new ones. In this case I suppose neither is happening, so we'd use the term "radioactive decay" instead to describe what happens when an atom emits radiation and morphs into another atom.
Damn dude, you got a vice article wrote about this
Thanks Philip! ❤️ It must have been a very slow tech news week if I make the list, LOL. I love Vice's motherboard tech site. Totally honored this made the cut!
@@iancharnas I got it in my google notifications. I thought it was weird due to you not being a large channel but hey congrats dude. It was a good video so I'm happy to have received the notification :)
@@pheakay oh sweet! Sounds like youtube's algorithm picked this video up. I'm super glad you liked it! Welcome aboard 🤝
@@iancharnas I have a tritium tube as a keyring but never thought there was enough energy in it to power somthing albeit it didn't power much but still, pretty awesome
Спасибо за напоминания на русском. Совершенно не ожидал, приятно))
Thanks friend! The guy speaking Russian is a good friend of mine. His family is from Russia, so I knew his Russian would be good.
awesome, thanks
Nikita, thanks for the super nice comment!
*OOPS* I accidentally intentionally deleted my original comment. I’m re-commenting to show my support and to keep the engagement up. Great video! Great channel!
Nice!!!!!
Thanks friend (and thanks for the suggestions on the thumbnail)!
Folks, you should really check out the Once Upon A Workbench channel! If you like my blend of "early onset dads" humor, you'll love his "actual dads" humor 🤣
Great editing
Thank you Aayaan!