On October 2, 2005 10:23 am, Randall R Schulz wrote:
Mike,
On Sunday 02 October 2005 06:45, Mike wrote:
...
I wish they were available here. I've been wanting a hand crank laptop since I saw the wind up radio, wondering when or if they'd produce a wind up power supply for other devices..
Old meets new, eh?
I've heard that the Eton Grundig FR200 can charge a cell phone, but I can't see mention of that capability on their Web site catalog. Even if it's true, it's pretty clear it could not power a laptop. They say 180 rotations of the crank over 90 seconds charges the internal lithium-ion battery enough for 40 to 60 minutes of operation. You'd probably have to operate the dynamo constantly to power a device like a laptop.
I was thinking of something like the gumstik http://www.gumstix.org/tikiwiki/tiki-index.php?page=gumstix which draws <250 mA at 400MHz without Bluetooth. Bring back some LED status lights to let you know what's going on. Turn off the screen during a download and keep cranking until the light changes. My original thought was to hook up pedals, or a tredle, but a hand dynamo might do the trick. -- Collector of vintage computers http://www.ncf.ca/~ba600 Machines to trade http://www.ncf.ca/~ba600/trade.html Open Source Weekend http://www.osw.ca