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OK problemchild , give me your take. They look like it could be a kickass little stove , suppose to be available in a month or two?
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that's sweet, wonder what they're going to run for. -
that is slick, I put myself on the waiting list."If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions."
--James Madison
'Letter to Edmund Pendleton', 1792Comment
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Two!
This is the second company, the other was Goal-0 solar, that has started off as a "Save the poor people of Africa" non profit company. They get tons of free airtime showing off their save the planet device and then rich entrepreneurs see the device on TV and give the non profit start up capital. I guess its a genius way to get cash and start a company.
OK so here is my question to you. Can anyone think of any other crap the poor Africans need so we can start a new biz?
Using a peltier in reverse. I often wondered why no company was utilizing this technology. I mean you could line a muffler and header of a car or truck and have a hybrid AC unit for free. Many many uses for these peltiers modules. Nice product. It wont work in the desert or the rain and probably not in the snow. Notice he picked a fall day with dry leaves and sticks? I guess the peltier units are not very efficient. I think a 55w peltier produces 1.5v and 1/2a. But if you had 10 of them you could charge a few car batteries in a day or so.
The stove design is very nice. I bet the price will be very high in the mid 300's.
Think of the uses. Line a wood stove and get free lighting or a fan.
This guy talks about doing it in a house.
Last edited by problemchild; 02-15-2011, 7:53 PM.Comment
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I'd like to have one of those. I'll look forward to finding out the cost and seeing reviews.People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think, don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome.
--River TamComment
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That looks awesome. The weight is appealing too, at only a smidge over a pound. Let's hope it's not too heavy on the wallet...Comment
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"OK so here is my question to you. Can anyone think of any other crap the poor Africans need so we can start a new biz?"
Swimming pools, Shade, push-up bras, Slurpee carts, EBT cards, to name a few.Comment
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You might be surprised at the number of folks on the African Continent already carrying cell phones and EBT cards.Comment
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Don't forget the bug spray!Comment
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Interesting. So, the general idea is to use waste heat to generate electricity to run a fan, which gives a forced-air feed to keep the fire burning hotter and more efficiently, with less unburned gases and reduced particulates.
One big key is how well it holds up. Electronics and moving parts in a small stove are going to be at risk, especially over years of daily use.
I used to work with Peltier devices for CPU cooling, back in the day, and they had a couple of problems that kept them from being widely used.
Cost - they're expensive to manufacture. Maybe these guys have a more streamlined production setup and can get costs down.
Fragility - the Peltier device itself tends to break easily under impact or vibration; sometimes the whole thing separates, sometimes individual elements break loose. Again, maybe manufacturing has solved this problem.
Cooling - the two sides have to have a good temperature differential to work well. Using it in a compact stove like this, the temp differential is quite large, so this doesn't seem to be a problem for this use.
Efficiency - as problemchild said, they're not very efficient. This was a problem using them for cooling, but for this application, since you're harnessing waste heat anyway, it's not an issue, but you do have to keep them cooled.
Sounds like a great idea. We'll have to wait and see how the execution and large-scale field tests work out.
ETA: Forgot to add this - forced-air burning can cause the fuel to burn faster, as well as hotter and more efficiently, depending on their draft system. This is ok for some apps, but if you're cooking, say, dried beans or rice, you don't necessarily want faster or hotter, but slower and steady. I didn't see any data on this, but I also didn't look at the entire web site.
You see lots of specs for camp stoves talking about how fast they'll boil a liter of water, but not always how long they'll keep it at temp. This is easier to control with gas stoves, of course.
Also, thinking about the charging capability:
They claim 1-2 watts of excess power - call it 1.5 watts of reliable power. It looks like a USB port for output, which makes a lot of sense. They run at 5 volts, so you're looking at 300 mA of current. Let's call a typical inexpensive cell phone battery 1000 mAh, or a rechargeable AA 1500 mAh.
It would take 3 hours to charge the cell phone from empty - not too bad, as long as your fire's burning that long. The AA would be 5 hours, which is starting to look like a problem, and that's not a modern hi-capacity AA, or 4 of them.Last edited by maxicon; 02-19-2011, 11:09 AM.sigpic
NRA Life MemberComment
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Meh, I'm not interested.
I don't use much light other than a campfire and when I need to find something I use my headlamp. I don't use my electronics much in the woods, except for a camera once in a while.
MSR Pocket Rocket, the best light weight portable stove on the market.
Unless of course you want to use a hobo stove.sigpic
INGSOC comes to America.
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DDT to save a million a so a year from malaria, but the tree huggers would rather let them die.
"Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." --FREDERIC BASTIAT--
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