Energy harvesting IC...

[mtripoli]

Well that's an interesting device. "Free" electricity from vibrational noise...
Interesting enough that I tossed 2 of them into my Digikey cart for future experimentation.

Thanks for the link.


steve

You beat me to it...


I think it's worth trying with some cheap piezo's. I have a bunch of the things around here...

Mike Tripoli

[Byte_Butcher]

Yeah, I'd try first with cheap piezos out of "noise making" devices.

It should be easy enough to connect a piezo to the 'scope and see what kind of voltages it produces when you whack it...

steve

[falingtrea]

Check out the alternate power sources section on page 16 of the data sheet. You can connect it directly to 110AC. Or harvest from a Flourescent light fixture, or a solar panel, or a thermoelectric device. Not just the Piezo.

[Byte_Butcher]

Yeah, it's got lots of interesting options. That's why I got 2 to play with.
I'll lay out a little circuit board for it and slip it into my order next time I need boards for something.

steve

[mtripoli]

I saw on a TV show some time ago about a university student somewhere (full of good information in that statement) that had made tiles to place in public that generated electricity when people walked on them. I have to say I said to myself "yeah, right - practical as hell"... with a device like this... hmmm...

I kinda' believe there must be a device coming on the consumer market that uses this thing or a private company has it embedded in a product. It just doesn't strike me as a device that would get a budget just because someone thought it *could* make money. I did a Google search and didn't find it referenced in anything, yet...

[ScaleRobotics]

Well, you guys have me quite curious. So I hooked the mini piezo buzzer I had up to the scope. And if I cause air to whistle through it, I can get up to about 500 mV. That was about the peak for my mini piezo though.

Then after reading your post about thermo electric, I pulled out one of my peltier devices. Mine has heat sinks on both sides, so you may be able to generate more electricity with just a bare peltier using this method. I was able to get to about 1.025 Volts using hot tap water in a Ziploc ® one side, and an ice pack on the other. Total guess of about 100 degrees difference. I was sort of hoping to see a little more volts out of this one.

Walter

[Bruce]

Walter,

The piezo they specify in the data sheet costs $69.00

Yikes! Where did you find one at? I would like to grab a data sheet to see specs on this part. Hopefully it can be crossed to some similar part a tad cheaper.

[Demon]

... I pulled out one of my peltier devices. Mine has heat sinks on both sides, so you may be able to generate more electricity with just a bare peltier using this method. I was able to get to about 1.025 Volts using hot tap water in a Ziploc ® one side, and an ice pack on the other. Total guess of about 100 degrees difference. I was sort of hoping to see a little more volts out of this one.

Walter

Ok, so now you got me curious too. Can you elaborate on the peltier, never seen one. Pics?


Shoot, if temperature differences can generate energy, I live in Quebec. I can stick a few of these in some windows during winter.

Come to think about it, you can also use it in reverse during summer; one end outside, one end going a few feet deep, maybe into concrete a few feet underground.

EDIT: A quick google got me this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_generator

Thermogenerators are devices which convert heat (temperature differences) directly into electrical energy. For the most part, this term is synonymous with "thermoelectric generator" (TEG) and rarely used in English. Essentially they work on the principle of the Seebeck effect, with typical efficiencies of around 5-10%. Older Seebeck-based devices used bimetallic junctions and were bulky while more recent devices use bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) semiconductor p-n junctions and can have thicknesses in the millimeter range. These are solid state devices and unlike dynamos have no moving parts, with the occasional exception of a fan.


EDIT SOME MORE: Ok, after seeing mention of TEC, I remembered seeing that term somewhere before, this is what I use to cool the cpu in my gamer pc:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/491/1/