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Saturday, April 20, 2024

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Saturday, April 20, 2024
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$5 gravity energy storage system provides free LED lighting

Nicholas Brown
1

CleanTechnica

Gravity energy storage is not exactly at the center of energy-related debates. However, it does have some admirable qualities. One is that such systems can be designed to last a lifetime. This is very important to everyone, of course, but especially to those living in impoverished parts of the world.

A so-called “gravity-powered” LED lamp, GravityLight, has been created that generates its own electricity with the assistance of gravity… although it is not completely gravity powered.

This is a human-powered LED. Like “wind-up” radios, this can be powered by bare human hands, and it works.

I am not going to label this as just another “wind-up” device, or “old technology,” because it is more convenient, and it’s addressing a critical need of the day. Plus, this device seems to work very well.

When those older, hand-wound devices I mentioned got old, their batteries malfunctioned and they would have to be cranked many times, and for a long time in order to get much out of them.

This LED uses no batteries or fuels. This means that it has the potential to last a very long time, if built well.

How The GravityLight Works

To use the GravityLight, the user lifts a heavy weight attached to the lamp by pulling a rope for about 3 seconds, and then the LED operates for 30 minutes before the rope needs to be pulled again.

The weight is a bag that can be filled with rocks, or any other material, as long as it is heavy enough to pull the rope down and turn the LED lamp’s internal generator.

The generator uses gears to achieve the rotational speed it requires. Exactly how that is done, is not stated.

Normally, people would use the rope to turn a large overdrive gear slowly, and that large gear turns a much smaller gear. Due to the fact that the small gear is so much smaller, it turns at a very high-speed. So the large gear provides a large amount of torque at an extremely low-speed, and that torque is converted into a higher rotational speed (but with less torque) suitable for the generator using this arrangement. I can only guess that this is how this lamp was built, based on the nature of this type of device.

This article was originally published on CleanTechnica. Reproduced with permission

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Comments

One response to “$5 gravity energy storage system provides free LED lighting”

  1. Beat Odermatt Avatar
    Beat Odermatt

    The use of good old cheap gravity reminds me when I was a child living in Switzerland. Farmers and their families had to visit the villages on a daily base to bring the milk, to go to school or to go shopping. Walking up and down steep mountains was not an option. They constructed a “flying fox” type of cable cars. When somebody wanted to go down into the valley, the weight of the passenger provided the energy to go down. If people or goods had to up The use of good old cheap gravity reminds me when I was a child living in Switzerland. Farmers and their families had to visit the villages on a daily base to bring the milk, to go to school or to go shopping. Walking up and down steep mountains was not an option. They constructed a “flying fox” type of cable cars. When somebody wanted to go down into the valley, the weight of the passenger provided the energy to go down. If people or goods had to up to the tops of the mountains, the cable car had a container which was filled with water. The eight of water exceeded the weight of the other cabin and pulled it up the mountain. The system was cheap, effective and helped many of the alpine areas to achieve a reasonable level of communication and economical advancement.
    The simplest solutions are often not only the best, but often the cheapest. Sadly, we have many engineers and politicians trying to find the most complicated and expensive way to do a simple thing.to the tops of the mountains, the cable car had a container which was filled with water. The eight of water exceeded the weight of the other cabin and pulled it up the mountain. The system was cheap, effective and helped many of the alpine areas to achieve a reasonable level of communication and economical advancement.
    The simplest solutions are often not only the best, but often the cheapest. Sadly, we have many engineers and politicians trying to find the most complicated and expensive way to do a simple thing.

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