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I use a lot of gadgets every day that require battery power. I use rechargeable batteries for most of them, but the problem I always encounter is not having enough wall outlets to charge all the batteries I use. My home is very old and I don't want to overload the outlets and risk a fire by using a bunch
of multi-outlet adaptors for the chargers.
What I propose is a combination battery charger and generator that is powered by tiny fans using ram air from the spinning of the ceiling fan to which they are mounted. You clip it onto the ceiling fan, plug the batteries into it, start the fan going, and let it charge. My ceiling fans each have 5 fan blades, which means I could charge up to 40 batteries (in typical 4-battery chargers) simultaneously without taking up a single wall outlet.
To let you know when a charger is done charging, they could emit a musical tone or a bright light, so if you have several fan chargers done charging at once you get a disco ball effect.
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//disco ball effect// image is nice, but I don't know how you'd get battery-charging energy out of centrifugal force-- you need to move something with the force to do work. |
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Maybe if the fan was really off-balance, you could use those rechargable handheld flashlight battery chargers that you shake to charge up. |
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...wobble wobble wobble wobble... |
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Actually, phlish, I've given this quite a bit of thought. There's no magic involved. The ceiling fans in my home are very old and the blades are quite heavy. If I replace the blades with a lighter material before adding the chargers then the difference in original weight will be considerably less, so the fan will work slightly harder, but not enough to cause excessive increase in energy requirement. |
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As for the centrifugal force not moving anything... you may have me on that one , sninctown. Perhaps if, instead of a centrifugal generator, simply a small propeller were added that is turned by the passing air from the already-moving fan to which it is mounted, that would work better. |
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Fan blade weight is not the issue. Work is. |
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