Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #05651



To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: Dave Hrynkiw dave@solarbotics.com
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 18:13:07 -0600
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: Solarbotics Miniball Kit for Sale


At 01:34 PM 8/11/99 , Lee Golden wrote:
>Hi --
>
>I bought a Solarbotics Miniball kit several months ago, but have yet to
>get around to building it. The kit is complete and unbuilt including
>the custom made hand built gear motor!
>
>MY cost was $160.00, but I am willing to entertain cash/trade offers
>for it. Just not enough time to do everything I want to...sigh.

Mr. Golden, if you want to return it, we'd be happy to oblige you!

Regards,
Dave
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Um, no - that's H,R,Y,N,K,I,W. No, not K,I,U,U, K,I,_W_. Yes,
that's right. Yes, I know it looks like "HOCKYRINK." Yup, only
2 vowels. Pronounciation? _SMITH_".
http://www.solarbotics.com



5652 Wed, 11 Aug 1999 18:14:29 -0700 [alt-beam] Re: [Fwd: Thermo-PV cells-candle powered radio] beam@sgiblab.sgi.com Sean Rigter Hi Rob,

Thanks for bringing that webpage to my attention!

I stand corrected, I never heard of TPV cells running of candle power but
they clearly exist. I was aware of multilayer wide spectrum solar cells for
use with solar concentrators and these TPV cells also seem to be oriented to
that application to boost total conversion efficiency. Note the relatively
low efficiency of these TPV cells. Also I am not sure if they are
commercially available and how they will compete with fuel cell technology
for converting propane to electricity. There are some other thermoelectric
technologies the oldest of which is probably the ubiquitous thermocouple
thermoelectric generator used with gas heating systems, converting the heat
of the furnace pilot light to provide fail-safe power to the pilot valve
solenoid. These are readily available and presumable could be used for
driving an efficient low voltage motor form a candle. That thermocouple
technology was developed in Russia to provide electric power for a radio
from a kerosene lamp for use in remote areas. There are also US and Russian
nuclear (radioisotope) powered thermocouple electric generators used in
(deep) space satellites. There are also semiconductor junction devices
(Peltier?) which are a type of heat pump used to cool (or less importantly
heat) directly from electric current and afaik conversely generate electric
power from differential heating and cooling . These are commonly used in
electric camping coolers generally powered
from a car battery since they use quite a lot of power.

Somewhat off topic: Steven Bolt sometime ago designed the Green Thumb plant
drought alarm. At that time I mentioned an efficient valve and it was this
gas pilot valve I had in mind.

regards

wilf


television_is@mindless.com wrote:

> Is this candle discussion connected to this??
> Wilf If the candle can power a radio can't it power a solarengine?
>
> This is a site with some explanation of the different types of solar
> cells. About halfway down this page there is a candle powered radio
> using cells designed to take advantage of infra-red from heat (as far as
> I gather). http://153.96.32.2/Projects/Solcells98/kap54.html
>
> http://www.ise.fhg.de/ is the main page of Institute of Solar
> Engineering
>
> Rob

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