Gravity Light - a Homemade/DIY one (version 1)
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- Опубликовано: 15 сен 2024
- My homemade/DIY gravity light/gravity generator, that uses falling masses to power an LED as a reading light. The Gravity Light was invented by two fellows from Deciwatt for replacing kerosene lamps in remote villages.
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** Now up to 8 minutes run time with only a 2 1/2 foot / 0.75 meter drop. Raising it to the ceiling would give 15 minutes. See the following video. **
Gravity Light - Making and Enhancements (version 1)
• Gravity Light - Making...
Gravity Light (v2) Homemade/DIY
• Gravity Light (v2) Hom...
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The video showing my homemade Gravity Wheel is up! Check it out. Next week's video will show how it was made - lot's of neat construction tips, interesting even if you're not building one of these.
would you be willing to see if you could trickle charge a cell phone overnight with a longer chain making a increase work load and a longer out put?
My comment there on Deciwatt was that fellow people in those areas found out that if you make a small hole in your roof and stick a Coke bottle in it (half filled with with water and a small layer of oil on it), the sunlight will go trough the bottle and give light to the equivalent of a 100 Watt lamp. Costs: just a few pennies. Of course this is not suited for any house and/or the night, but by daylight by far out the cheapest invention for a whole load of light. Ps: if anyone knows the RUclips video, please post a link. If you see the video and the superb amount of light one bottle gives, that is really amazing.
Hey 2 minutes is just right for my attention span, you have a winner there. On a more serious note it will be interesting to see how you progress this. On a less serious note you could always send a small child up the chimney to drop a weight from a greater height
Glad to hear it fits your bill. And I'm interested to ass how I progress on it too. I thought it was send up a teenager. :)
I like the idea so much that i decided to make one using popsicle sticks and it really works. I'm able to power devices with a usb connection. A cellphone, a light or charge a battery pack. Fun project.
This should definitely be used on the grid but on a bigger scale of course. great job with the build
I'm interested in finding a way to make this concept manually power a water pump in an aquaponics setup
Oh my god Rimstar that's wicked! I don't know what it is about this project, but for some reason part of me became irrationally ecstatic about this lol. Great video. Definitely looking forward to seeing the "Long Running Gravity Light" video coming later in 2014 ;D
Cool! What I'd like to see is a wind up generator. One that you can wind up like a clock.
You could also use the mechanism of a winding clock to provide enough energy to a DIY generator to turn on the LED.
If we combined this with some magnets would it be able to be converted into a battery for energy storage?
Yes, you could put together a circuit to charge a battery with this.
why would you need magnets? his machine itself cannot be converted into a battery because batteries need certain chemicals, among other things. you could maybe get this to charge a battery slowly, if the voltage is high enough.
Hi, I'm also making a similar project. Why does my motor require a fast rotation to produce electricity? While yours, even though it is rotating slow it still produces electricity?
Mine isn't slow at all, at least not inside the generator. At every step along the way from the falling weight to the electric circuit, you need to convert slow rotation to faster rotation. My final step is the motor taken from a microwave oven. I use that motor as a generator and it converts slow rotation to very fast rotation inside the motor.
A system of 4 pullies can make a length of rope move 4 feet for every foot an object drops. A rope that can hold 50 lbs alone can suspend 200 lbs with a 4 pully system and need only 50 lbs of force to lift the 200 lbs weight.
That's how old clocks without a clockwork work. They also have one or even two weights on a rope, that slowly pull with relatively large force on thhose ropes, to keep the clock running. Some of them have an additional pendulum.
Yeah, I was going to mention grandfather clocks in the video but I couldn't find as image that was not copyrighted in some form or other. We used to have a cuckoo clock and had to pull the chains to lift the weights once a day or so.
RimstarOrg In another RUclips video it's called a "Gravity Battery"... same concept.
we are making a working model of this project....thanks for ur idea
Prathima Talari You might also want to look at my newer version 2, this one "Gravity Light (v2) Homemade/DIY". I'll be uploading a video with the enhancements on this coming Friday.
Great job ! I can't wait to see your latest version. I have one of my own and am almost done with my latest version. I will post it when it is done, my old one uses a large wooden pulley a strong nylon string and water bottles for weight. It turns my geared motor that is out of a power wheels ride-able toy. Here is my video link. Gravity Powered Generator
Cool! Very rugged yet simple design! You might be able to get more light if you use a high wattage LED like a 10 watt one. You will not run it near the 10 watt ratting but it will be more efficient.
Thanks! I haven't looked at the output of this generator yet, and I'll be trying other generators too. Once I know the output better, then I can match up an LED. Though 10 watt LEDs are new to me. I'll look into them further.
Cool! 10 watt LEDs are a little over $1 a piece.
www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR12.TRC2.A0.H0.X10+watt+led&_nkw=10+watt+led&_sacat=0&_from=R40
Makerj101
I don't know if you saw my follow-up video but I got it to light 3 LEDs, and with the additional help of a circuit. Though, yeah, using a single, high efficient LED would be better. Thanks for the link.
No I have not. I will go watch it now! I have not been on RUclips for over a week! Your welcome!
More gears,higher, and larger weight,that is all,this look very good
Can I ask what’s the watts, volts and rpm of the microwave turntable?
I don't know the actual rpm that the turntable spun at but the motor label says 6 rpm. It also says 120 VAC and 3 watts. You can see it on my webpage here rimstar.org/science_electronics_projects/gravity_light_homemade_diy.htm along with many more details and calculations.
Won't gravity accelerate the weights constantly? I think there should be some sort of timing mechanism like what pendulum clocks use.
I think all the friction and the load from the generator help keep it falling at a relatively steady rate. However, the version in this video does speed up at the end as there becomes less and less chain on the other side. In the next video Gravity Light - Making and Enhancements (version 1) I show this problem and how I solved it by adding a counterweight to the other side. But that may become a problem again in future versions.
I have plans to make one of those but with a block and tackle type setup
Oh, I'd enjoy seeing what you would do with it. You could probably do one with a very large mass.
nice video , try adding a supercapacitor to it , should last longer for every descent..and also if only it could be run by a perpetual wheel that never needs rewinding
If you made it taller you could make the time more before it touches the ground
This was really good. Maybe add a joule thief to get more LED's lit up. That must have been really hard to get set up. We appreciate that. It was quite entertaining.
Thanks. It was actually easier than I expected, probably since it went so well and I got lucky the first time. I'm looking at possibly joule thief type circuits for my next version. In case you haven't seen it, I did get brighter light with the help of some circuitry (as well as a longer run time) and show it in my follow-up video "Gravity Light - Making and Enhancements (version 1)".
Gravity light is amaizing!
What's the black gooey material on the top small pulley? It can't be grease.
And what did you use as the generator? That's the most important part.
The black gooey material on top of the small pulley is actually black vinyl electrical tape. It just looks irregularly shaped because it's made up of many smaller pieces. The generator is a microwave oven tray motor, the motor you find underneath the microwave oven. Note that if you turn this motor too fast, you can damage it, though it usually works again later. I'll be uploading a how-it's-made video on Friday.
Kudos for mentioning that this was done just because. I was fully expecting to see the usual "Or" person commenting on and on about other things you "could have" done.
Thanks. I figured it was either mention it was done without much expectations, or disappoint people with false expectations, which I wouldn't want to do. Hopefully I will be able to make a decently long running one, but who knows.
RimstarOrg What did you use for the generator? I used a stepper motor from an old printer for a wind turbine. It's on my other channel though.
The Sqoou
I used the motor from a microwave oven, the one that turns the tray. The ever helpful Mongrel Shark suggested it a while ago when we discussed it on my google plus page. I also tried a motor form a laser printer but it died too easily. I find if I turn this microwave oven motor too fast it can also die for a short time, but then it comes back to life - at least I think that's what happens. I test the LEDs and they're fine.
amazing, thanks rimstar!
Thanks! Glad you like it!
Hi, may I know how u control the speed of the dropping mass? I am doing a similar project to yours and I would like to know how do I calculate how fast the mass is dropping
I don't have any formulas for the speed of a dropping mass.
The way to control the speed is to increase the gear and/or pulley ratio between the mass and your generator. Luckily, microwave oven motors, which is what I use, have a lot of gears inside to turn a very slow rotation of the motor shaft into a very fast rotation inside for the motor/generating coils.
I give some tips on how to do that, including calculations, on my webpage here:
rimstar.org/science_electronics_projects/gravity_light_homemade_diy.htm
Also, check out the videos on that page for making my version 1 and version 2 since they give a lot of construction details and tips.
Damm ..I thought I came up with this idea.... I have a electric 24vdc fork lift. I can lift 3000 lbs to 12 ft. I was thinking of using a clock typ gear to regulate a generator to charge batteries at night. Solar Panels to charge battery bank & lift through out the day. Theory is once battery bank needs charged a colinoid frees a break to start gravity charge..... of course I don't have the time to put this into action for a few years but I think it would work.
Nice vie guy!
Thanks. Sounds like you did come up with this idea. More than one person can come up with the same idea independently. 3000 lbs to 12 ft will generate a lot of power. It would be cool to see that in action! Hint hint.
If the wheel system were attached outside of the house near the roof, could have much longer falling times. Much less noise, too.
A rope 'reset' cord would be cool, too. A simple pull every couple of minutes isn't so bad.
Yeah, if you noticed the way I just slid it on the pole, you'll see that what you suggest is very easily doable. I sorta had that in mind when I designed it.
Great to see this running :) I can see it took a bit! I'm surprised how much extra gear ratio you had to add. Is that black silicon for grip on the drive shaft pulley? I'm assuming you dont want to add too much extra weight for a longer running version. Any idea how many joules for the weight you have per meter? I'm thinking it looks fairly lossy? all that gear ratio in the motor... I'm also curious about the led choice. Would have thought you'd add more of them, or go for a higher wattage. If you rectify into a cap and discharge at same time via resistor, what's the output watts? I'm only asking all this so I can offer suggestions for the longer run version. I'm thinking the turntable motor is great for availability, but not efficient enough. Although maybe you could charge a (super)cap and run a JT? Or step it down through a MOT for 12v?
First thing that comes to mind for extending run time, is use the smaller sprockets on the wheel. Although I see thats going to need more weight, and you cant add much more and have it people friendly. I'm thinking at least 50% of the power is lost in the gearbox, probably a bit more loss with the motor being less efficient than an alternator. So maybe 20-30% of the power is making it to the light? Going to be hard to improve on with salvaged parts and low budget. Shame you dont have a great big stepper like the one I got from a photocopier... That would improve things a lot I think. Its about half the turning resistance as the turntable motor, but puts out a lot more power, you'd be able to go strait to the small cog, probably triple your run time right there. I wonder how hard it would be to make an alternator from some MOT coils and a Neo magnet? Or a more environmentally friendly copper only alternator? Seen them done for DIY wind projects, but dont know a lot about winding ratios etc... Not a lot you can do with the wheel pulley you made. Looks pretty good. Little more belt tension maybe or another belt if you can find one that size for cheap.. Maybe some tubes or a loop cut from one tube and stretched? Its the gears in the turntable motor that are going to have to go. To be replaced with big copper coils that will provide mechanical resistance when under load. I cant hand turn some of my steppers with the leads shorted... Even the nema17's are really hard to turn with low enough resistance load... I think the first thing to do is get a rough estimate of the HP and RPM at the output of your pulley wheel, without the motor. Then look into better alternator/generator. Don't suppose you have a working car alternator handy? I tried to turn one by hand when hooked up to charged battery once. Wasn't going to happen.... If you had 3-4 primary coils from a MOT and some big Neo's. I think you could make a rudimentary alternator that would get you in the ball park.
Sorry for such a long comment and so many tough questions and vague ideas. You got my brain gears turning. I'd love to see this one work out in a more practical way. Keep up the great work :)
I can definitely see your brain gears are turning! :)
Next week's video has the construction details and will answer some of this. But for now, the drive shaft pulley has vinyl electrical tape on it for grip. Without it there has to be too much belt tension. In fact the belt is a bungee cord also with vinyl electrical tape wrapped on it. Without the vinyl tape I had to put more tension on the belt. There's no slippage now.
I haven't done much optimization yet. The way people were talking on places like hackaday, I wasn't sure I'd even get it to work. Turns out it wasn't too difficult. But mainly I just wanted to prove to myself that it was doable. Over the summer I'll work on a more optimized version. And I'll be rechecking your comment often to make sure I didn't miss anything. And of course, I'll post to google+ etc with progress and hopefully get more good tips. I can see there's a lot to explore. Thanks for the feedback and suggestions!
So I just pulled my good drill apart..... Gearbox is a bit tricky too! I was wondering why I couldn't turn it with battery disconnected and light leds where battery goes. At first I thought it was electronic. Messed with the trigger a bit, then caved and de-soldered the motor from the control unit. Still couldn't turn it, kept jamming. Some sort of reverse torque stopper in the gearbox.... So out with the screws and apart came the gearbox. bits went everywhere! Ball bearings all over the floor. Took me a while to work out how it all went back.... Anyhow I worked it out. There are two needle rollers in there that need to be removed for the reverse torque to be applied. After re-assembling the two stage planetary gearbox without the needle rollers. (Which took quite a bit of lateral thinking) I can now light the LED's soldered to the motor. Takes approx twice the speed as the turntable motor, but requires a lot less force. I think its approx 20% more efficient......
While I was in there I learned how the torque slipper clutch thingy works. Its simple but clever. Thats where the ball bearings came from.
Tempted to do a video on it all.
I also just remembered I have 3 old drills with stuffed batterys in a box somewhere... Probably should put the good drill back together now. But first, I will change that dirty old grease..... And maybe check out how hard it is to get to the bearing I half stuffed making the DIY hand lathe.
Long story short... I think you should keep an eye out for some old drills. Way more current than the turntable motor. One half turn can kill the LED's with a small burst or green then orange!!! I'm applying a lot less torque than the turntable motor, and the extra speed isnt that bad. You could probably go the the smallest cog on your wheel, and reduce the weight, for a similar or slightly longer run time. half watt LED's would probably work well. Its a bit easy to burn out the 30ma ones (past torture tells me that takes about 200ma for instant death with orange flash). The gearbox is fairly tricky, but I think you can work it out. I'll have video up by next thurs anyway, showing how to mod the gearbox for reverse torque.
Just did amp test. Can make 2 amps!!! torque required goes up as resistance is lowered.
Voltage was lower. about .4v at 2 amps with the 2.2ohm resistor in my DMM.... Thats nearly a watt! Tested with a 1.2 ohm resistor My 6y/o daughter can make .8583w and I can make 1.5w turning as hard as we can for half a rev. with 1.03 and 1.85v respectively across the 1.2 ohm resistor. Tried an 82 ohm resistor and the torque is the same as no load.... Drill motor works good. Only makes 4.2v max by hand, but plenty of current and low torque required.
Mongrel Shark
Hmmm... I tried a drill motor back when we first talked about this a few months ago. I took the motor out altogether, spun it up to 9000 RPM using another drill to turn it, and got .75 volts and no useful amps, with a small LED as the test load. I guess I did my test wrong. Thanks for pointing it out.
You previously suggested going to the smallest cog on my wheel. I didn't do that because when I did it required a lot more mass, as you'd expect, but it was more weight than I wanted my structure to be holding up.
Looking forward to seeing your video.
I couldn't get any useful power from the bare motor either. The gearbox has a very high ratio. I might even count teeth and try and work it out.
good job. I would like to know how many joules (or kwh) this system can deliver once the weight is fully reloaded ?
Thanks. I show calculations for my version 2 on my webpage here (near the bottom) rimstar.org//science_electronics_projects/gravity_light_homemade_diy.htm I calculated 180 joules for the 1.2 meter drop.
@@RimstarOrg ok. That's very little... a simple AAA 1,5V battery would be able to deliver 15,390 J.
And I can carry a AAA battery in my pocket.
However you system creates no polution. thumbs up for the idea and the making of it.
Thanks. Mainly for me it was the interesting engineering challenge.
can i use spring from mechenical clocks instead of the falling mass?
blaise tiong I don't know how much energy is stored in a clock spring, so I can't say for sure in that case. A spring would be an interesting area to explore though.
Interesting concept, but was the original idea that much better then yours that it was used in remote villages? It seems like it could only work for a couple of minutes maximum, which would be annoying with having to keep resetting the weight. Wouldn't a better idea be to add some coils around a rare Earth magnet flywheel that you can spin up with bike pedals? It would be more consistent and the person powering the thing could read uninterrupted. Why was the weight driven system needed. it seems like there would be a lot more energy lost in the slow moving weight design because of all the gearing.
The original one, from Deciwatt, runs for 30 minutes. I'm hoping to get 15 to 20 minutes eventually.
That's pretty impressive. It will be great to see how you optimize your design to make it last that long.
Question: how do you compute for the right weight of the counterweight? pls reply thank you
I didn't. I just put on more weight until it moved, but so that it didn't drop faster than I'd like (I wanted it to run for as long as possible). This video is of version 1. The stand could handle the mass, but only just. For version 2, I made a stronger stand ruclips.net/video/GisQYoYw05k/видео.html.
I did do some calculations for the pulley ratios though, which you can see on my webpage here rimstar.org/science_electronics_projects/gravity_light_homemade_diy.htm.
RimstarOrg oh thank you so much 😊
For an improvement, maybe you could try to make the wheel spin slower and use gears to get to the generator's required speed.
That would be the same, I think, as using the smaller diameter sprockets on the wheel. I'm currently using the biggest diameter one. But to do that I have to add more mass to turn it and my support structure can't handle much more.
If you are able to run a 0.1 watt LED (and thus the name Deciwatt), for 8 minutes, with 2 gallons of water, dropping 2.5 feet, that would be 85% efficiency. The math looks like this: 1 watt second = 1 joule. And 8 minutes = 480 seconds. So, 0.1 watt for 480 seconds = 48 watt seconds = 48 joules, which is the output. For the input let's convert to metric to make things easier: 2 gallons of water = 7.57 liters = 7.57 Kg. And F = ma, so F = 7.57kg * 9.8m/s/s (acceleration due to gravity on Earth). And so F = 74 newtons. This force is how hard the two gallons of water are pulling on the chain. 2.5 feet = 0.762 meters. Joules = newton meters = 74 newtons * 0.762 meters = 56.4 joules. This is the input. And efficiency = output / input = 48 joules / 56.4 joules = 0.85 = 85% efficiency. Seams reasonable, about what one would expect.
Cool. Sadly, I didn't measure it but I suspect that the electrical output to the LEDs for this version 1 was likely far less and so the efficiency was probably less. Those LEDs are lit nowhere near their full brightness. I did similar calculations for my version 2 where I did measure electrical output and the efficiency was 26%. You can see version 2's video here ruclips.net/video/GisQYoYw05k/видео.html and the calculations for version 2 are lower down on my webpage here rimstar.org/science_electronics_projects/gravity_light_homemade_diy.htm.
hi sir may i ask some question about this project?
Absolutely, questions are welcome.
what is your purpose of this project?
For me it was an engineering challenge. My final version was version 2 here ruclips.net/video/GisQYoYw05k/видео.html where I got a 12 minute run time and used more efficient LEDs for more light. I don't have any real need for it but I guess in a country without electricity then it can be useful.
First of all, thank you for this video
Today, i went to a shop and asked for a sync motor(220v, 3rpm and 4W). I was not able to rotate it with my hands, I'm sure i was using more than enough force. But I couldn't rotate it :/
I can't rotate the one I use in this video either, not if I hold just the shaft with my fingers. So yours sounds promising. If you grip the shaft with some pliers or something then you should be able to turn it. Just don't turn it too fast because when you turn it you are generating electricity in its coils and turning it too fast could produce too much voltage or current and damage the coils. Since it's a 3rpm motor, don't turn it faster than 3rpm.
By the way, if you're interested in making one of these make sure to check out my version 2, ruclips.net/video/GisQYoYw05k/видео.html. More details are also on my website here rimstar.org/science_electronics_projects/gravity_light_homemade_diy.htm.
Hi sir, can I ask a question? What are the alternatives for the motor you have used?
It may be possible to use a stepper motor. Another alternative is to make your own along with a bunch of gears.
RimstarOrg I mean can I use dynamo instead?
Maybe. I haven't looked into any generators (dynamos) which are made specially for generating electricity. The important thing about the microwave oven motor I used was that it has a lot of gearing in it to turn a slow rotation of the shaft into a fast rotation between the magnets and coils inside. If the shaft of your dynamo is easy to turn by hand then it won't work. That would mean it doesn't have the gearing. See my webpage about this for a diagram and more of an explanation rimstar.org/science_electronics_projects/gravity_light_homemade_diy.htm.
Great sir
Crazy! Thank you!
It might be interesting to build a gravity powered fan as well.
Actually, a fan is such a small load I could probably just add it to the top shaft once I extend the shaft.
What were the specs for the generator?
I get asked that a lot so I put photos and details for the generator on my webpage here (just scroll down a little and you'll see the photos).
Neat idea.
awesome bro
Hi ! I would like to know what is your generator exactly ?
Thanks !
It's a motor taken from a microwave oven. It's the motor that slowly turns the tray in the oven. It was randomly selected since it came from a random microwave oven that someone had thrown out, so as far as I can tell, any microwave oven motor will do. You can see photos of what's written on it and other details on my webpage here rimstar.org/science_electronics_projects/gravity_light_homemade_diy.htm.
Oh, and note that I did a version 2 of the gravity light as well ruclips.net/video/GisQYoYw05k/видео.html.
Awesome. Looks like a decent light output. How many pounds for the weight?
Thanks. Eight kilograms, so eight liters of water. Let's see... 18 pounds. I was worried it was going to be a heck of a lot more, if it turned at all.
RimstarOrg
That's pretty good light for 18 pounds. I'm getting about 2.85v at 25mA using 25 pounds. I think with your metal gearing you could put much more weight than the deciwatt gl could ever handle, which I think is max 27 pounds, although the structure would have to be able to hold that up. That's one of the problems with the deciwatt light, in that you need a place to hang it from. Also the flickering light. I installed .3 farads supercaps to smooth the output to a solid light. Anyways very nice for the first build. Oh I wanted to ask have you tried powering a joule thief, and adjusting the base resistance to make to drop time longer?
*****
I get flicker when the mass isn't dropping fast enough - though I'm guessing the Deciwatt one has extra electronics in it that may make it not so simple as that. I haven't tried a joule thief yet. I can see I'll be doing more testing with this one before starting my next one.
RimstarOrg
The deciwatt does a straight connection from the motor to the led. There is a switch which will engage if the weight exceeds the 27 pounds, which will turn the red led on, but that's about it.
I became fascinated with 'primitive machines' after watching a documentary on Heron of Alexandria - on YT, Ancient Discoveries Ancient Discoveries - Robotics: Heron of Alexandria (Documentary)
Yeah, I love those primitive machines too. They're ones we can make!
Made me think if the rope the bottles were on went around six bike tires like a coil, and if you shrunk the smaller wheel by half... You should be good for about 1/2 an hour? :)
But it'd be a long rope...
Elaine Kain
Yeah, going higher is certainly an easy fix. In fact, if you notice the way I mounted it on the pole, the pole could easily be a flag pole and I'd get longer running now with no changes expect the longer rope.
Great! Like it
nice work, love your channel.
keep'em coming
What if you combined this with pendulums like a cuck-coo clock? They function at least 12 hours between winding, and even just an hour would be useful in a power-outage - one can reach over and rewind if desired!
A cuck-coo clock has a pendulum for timing purposes. So the pendulum wouldn't help here. But some of them have falling weights instead of a windable spring or falling weights, like this gravity light, for power. Ours did.
How many volt and amp ?
I didn't measure it for my version 1 but for my version 2, it was 24 volts and 2.7 milliamps. You can see it in this video ruclips.net/video/GisQYoYw05k/видео.html at around two minutes and forty-nine seconds in.
What you need connected is a flywheel mechanism.
May I know the cost of doing this
I don't have any idea what the cost would be. I used spare parts and scraps for everything.
@@RimstarOrg so it means u done it with free of cost
I'm totally confused!... Re: 0:39, isn't the weight falling slow BECAUSE of the wheel?
:)
Bigger wheel = bigger circumference. At the same weight drop speed, the bigger the wheel the faster the generator's spin rate = the more instant Wattage over the same time lenght. In that case we don't need more weight to power the whole house: we only need a bigger wheel. It wouldn't make sense.
I'd say a bigger wheel = slower weight drop = slower wheel spin. But the wheel's circumference is bigger... So, how's the generator's spin rate affected?
:)
As far as I know, the slower the weight falls the less instant power you get over a longer time lenght. Less instant power = slower generator spin. So the bigger the wheel the slower the generator spins?...
So, if a bigger wheel means slower weight falling / less instant power, a smaller wheel would mean faster falling weight and more instant power. The faster the weight falls the more instant power (the energy concentrates on a shorter time lenght)?...
Then if you'd attach the weights straight on the generator you'd get the the fastest fall and also the most instant power?... How?... The generator would spin the least number of times that way -- only with more torque.
Obviously, my logic is flawed. But I don't understand where.
It is confusing, so you're right to be confused.
Yes, the weight is falling slowly because of the wheel. And also because that generator has a lot of gears in it. You can't turn the generator shaft by hand. You can turn it by hand using the small pulley at 0:50. That's why I chose that generator.
If I made the wheel any bigger in diameter then the mass would no longer be heavy enough to pull it around. Likewise, if I were to keep the same wheel but remove a little of the mass then it would no longer be heavy enough to pull it around. Similarly, if I used the very smallest diameter sprocket on the wheel it also will no longer turn. I did a lot of adjusting of the mass to get it just right. So you couldn't keep making the wheel bigger and expect to use the same weight to power a whole house. The bigger the wheel the more torque the mass has to apply to the sprockets at the center in order to turn the wheel.
So I started with too little mass. Too little mass can't apply enough torque at the center to turn the wheel. So I added more mass until it had enough torque to turn it. Then I added more until it was turning at the speed that would turn the generator at its maximum rated speed.
So yes, "bigger wheel = slower weight drop = slower wheel spin" and that equals slower turning generator and less power out. At that point more mass is needed to keep the spin as fast as needed.
And yes, "As far as I know, the slower the weight falls the less instant power you get over a longer time lenght. Less instant power = slower generator spin. So the bigger the wheel the slower the generator spins?..." Again, you'd need to add more mass to fix this.
Yes, "So, if a bigger wheel means slower weight falling / less instant power, a smaller wheel would mean faster falling weight and more instant power. The faster the weight falls the more instant power (the energy concentrates on a shorter time lenght)?... " But you'd also be turning the generator faster than it's rated for and the higher voltage inside would create short circuits in the coils and it would be ruined. I don't remember exactly but this generator is rated for only a few RPM.
"Then if you'd attach the weights straight on the generator you'd get the the fastest fall and also the most instant power?... How?... " Yes. But again, you're ruin the generator.
"The generator would spin the least number of times that way -- only with more torque." I don't understand why you conclude this. The generator would spin more times. Hopefully it's clearer now though.
"'The generator would spin the least number of times that way.' I don't understand why you conclude this. The generator would spin more times."
If the weight would be placed directly on the generator's wheel, the generator would spin less times. But the RPM is going to be bigger, I guess, otherwise it wouldn't put out more instant power.
So, my bad there, when I asked "how".
If the weight is 2 m. up, and the sprocket's circumference is 100 cm., we get 2 spins. If the wheel's circumference is 3 m., a double spin runs 3 + 3 m. of cable on the generator's wheel.
If the generator's whell is 50 cm., then the 6 m. of runnning cable will make it spin 12 times.
Now. If you'd put the weight directly on the generator's 50 cm. circumference wheel, the 2 m. of weight falling will make the generator spin 4 times (instead of 12 times).
All your math looks right to me. And yes, if you put the mass on the generator's wheel then it will fall faster because it has less work to do. The RPM will be bigger.
200 tonnes (ex. 2,9 m. sided cube of iron) dropping from 30 meters will continuously power 10 light-bulbs of 100W each for 8 hours.
:)
Can anyone check if that is true?... I'm not good with formulas, I've worked that out looking up formulas on Google and I'm not sure I've used the right ones, nor the numbers. To me it seems the 10 X 100W gained is too little.
Thanks!
Sounds like fun. Here's my try at it...
Assuming by 200 tons you meant 200 metric tons, where 1 ton = 1000kg.
200,000kg x 9.8m/s^2 = 1,960,000N (Newtons) weight or downward force here on Earth
1,960,000N x 30m = 58,800,000J (joules) energy produced or work done in falling that distance
8 hours x 60 minutes/hour x 60 seconds/minute = 28,800 seconds
58,800,000J / 28,800 seconds = 2041W (watts) the power produced every second
So you can power 20 100W lightbulbs (2041W / 100W = 20.41) during those 8 hours.
BTW I did more of these calcs about halfway down on my webpage here when I was working out efficiency:
rimstar.org/science_electronics_projects/gravity_light_homemade_diy.htm
Yes, I meant tonnes. I've edited my original message.
Thanks for the reply!
I assume that with 100 tonnes I'll get to the 10 100W light bulbs.
awesome way of generating power but not practical. But you could use an enormous gear and wind power to generate lots of electricity.
that's so cool omg lol
It seems a joke, such a huge apparatus for just a small led. I use for camping a led lamp with the size of my hand, it has a small arm, turn it 30 seconds and you will have far more light for 15 mimutes, and it just costs $15.
This is version 1. I show enhancements in Gravity Light - Making and Enhancements (version 1) that get more light and runs for 8 minutes. If I raise that one to the ceiling then I should get 15 minutes. My goal is for around 30 minutes. And I think this is way cooler as a reading light at home than a hand cranked one. There's also no fun or challenge in making one of those, which is why I make it.
Аа!я чуть не лопнул от смеха.ну это же не серьёзно.
You can actually turn this into a clock too😅
Put that thing on a 30ft pole/tower and you might have light for a couple of hours.
Yup! I'm currently dropping it around 2 1/2 ft, and since this video came out I've increased the run time to just over 8 minutes. So for a 30ft pole that's over an hour and a half.
RimstarOrg Great for third world countries with no electricity. Add a clutch so you can pull the weight back up and have the rope next to the place your sitting/laying and you can pull it from there and keep on having continuous electricity (of course the momentary black out when pulling the weight back up, lol).
This idea is novel but I can get 8 hours of light to read by. I just use a garden path solar LED. And it only costs me $5.00
But you wouldn't have had any fun making anything nor the interesting challenge.
When no power I think I would take 2 Mims over nothing
nice but REALLY not practical, looking out for a practical compact package :)
Nope, the 2 minute runtime makes it not practical. I think it's portable enough for around the house though. But not for taking elsewhere. This was just my test to see if I could make a working one at all. From listening to others, it sounded like it would be much harder to do - and maybe getting a longer runtime will be.
If you want a practical one, check out deciwatt's website. I know they were planning on mass marketing theirs soon. Wavefront101 (he commented below) has one already and even has video of it on his channel.
wow a two minute flashlight...lots of work, have to get up constantly
To loud,very small power,use flash light instead,last longer
A LOT OF ENERGY LOST!!
Yup. Version 2 is a little better, using more efficient LEDs ruclips.net/video/GisQYoYw05k/видео.html.
Pretty noisy, I must say! And just for the record, this was NOT invented by who you gave credit to -- ALL credit of course, goes to DEUTSCHLAND, when, during WWI, soldiers were equipped with standard issue compact incandescent lamps utilizing the same principles, to brighten up their lovely stay in the Trenches Motel during artillery evasion mode..
Of course, during the raping of Deutschland by the j.u.s.a after WWII, all of such patents and intellectual properties were subsequently stolen and made your own - so I don't blame you for lack of mention of their ingenuity. Thanks for the video, though..
This is crap! The sound would irritate me to no end! AND...Yours runs for 2 min?! The REAL one runs for 20min or longer...
This is version 1. Version 2 (ruclips.net/video/GisQYoYw05k/видео.html) runs for 12 minutes. As for it being "crap", this is very difficult to do for even 12 minutes, hence it being a fun engineering challenge.
Damm ..I thought I came up with this idea.... I have a electric 24vdc fork lift. I can lift 3000 lbs to 12 ft. I was thinking of using a clock typ gear to regulate a generator to charge batteries at night. Solar Panels to charge battery bank & lift through out the day. Theory is once battery bank needs charged a colinoid frees a break to start gravity charge..... of course I don't have the time to put this into action for a few years but I think it would work.
Nice vie guy!
I did some math on this a long time ago, lifting rocks as a sort of primitive, steampunk battery. Use sun to life the rocks in the day time, then you have a big, super large gravity battery for night time. It turned out that a flywheel would be better if you could make one fairly cohesive (a large piece of circular concrete). Flywheels were some of the earliest batteries (see: pottery wheels). You could also use the sun for other energy uses because charging a flywheel can be done quickly. Spend most of the day melting iron for smelting, save the last hour or so to charge the flywheel for the night.
joshcryer I did some studies on flywheels a while back. I think the fly wheels friction drain over time would come into play on long term storage. Not to mention the wheels RPM's needed would be way to high for a cement or any homebrewed structure to handle..
Gravity storage would last as long as needed. Do you have any formulas that you can share on "weight to potential energy"
I have an electric fork lift but I think an electric winch would work as well. make your dump load on a solar/wind system operate it. If I was not in the middle of my silo build I would play, but I have so many projects going on play... Cord wood floors here I come! ;)