h a l f b a k e r y
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The computer hard disk has platters inside that have to be spun up to speed before data transfer can take place. This requires energy, supplied by the battery. And battery capacity is a constraint.
Now, if you could provide a spring to store energy, clockwork to make those disks spin and a handle
to wind up it will take a lot of the load off that battery.
The winding handle could be designed as a lever, projecting from the right hand side of the screen. As you are typing the story of your life into it it senses that the hard disk spring needs another wind and moves the cursor to the extreme right of the screen. The winding motion is a push on the lever towards the left. You will have to do this periodically, every time the cursor reaches the right edge.
Data plunger
http://www.halfbake...idea/Data_20plunger
The windup hard disk's lever reminded me of this. [beauxeault, May 28 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]
[link]
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When my CD walkman is running low on batteries I usually start it up with a little manual spin to conserve energy, although it can be counter productive if you spin it the wrong way. |
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I like the idea of having a lever on the side of your computer - it's kind of reminiscent of typewriters where you slide the barrel back every line.
You could also do it with a flywheel and pedal a la pottery wheel. |
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Hrm. Considering that a laptop hard drive draws an average of 3W or so during operation (more during spin-up), we need to provide about 3 J/s. If we assume a 35 cm distance for the lever to travel, and that the lever provides 30 N of resistance (the equivalent of lifting a ~3 kg laptop straight up by the same distance)...scribble, scribble...we'd need to push the lever every 3 seconds. |
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I guess it would give me the exercise I've been looking for, but I think I'll stick with the untried-but-true, half-baked laptop crank generator. |
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Caveat: it's been ten years since I've taken a physics class. Results may vary. |
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Every 3 seconds? My goodness, that would be a hard disk. |
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Problem: The hard drive platters need to spin at an absolutely constant speed. Massive data corruption and nasty such stuff can occur if they don't. |
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I can hear the nerds wheezing from here. |
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