Novel USB power

[frahkn]

I have a Hobbit stove on order and today I received some free items from them. I was surprised as I had not spotted this on their site when ordering.

 

Anyway, one of the items was a USB charger powered on the same principles as a stove fan, you put it on a hot camping stove and it generates enough power to charge a cell phone.

 

I only mention this as I was not aware of the existence of such a device.

 

Merry Christmas all.

 

Frank.

[cuthound]

Is the Hobbit stove a replacement for your Old Dutch Frank?

[Chewbacka]

There was a discussion about this type of power generator for boat battery charging - basically you need a fire a lot bigger than a Hobbit and it must run very hot to stand a chance of putting any meanigful power into your leisure batts, but for a phone charger sounds like it might work.

Just don't absent mindedly leave your phone on top of the stove whilst charging

[Catnip King]

Yes you can get stove generators from here http://www.tegmart.com/

Edited December 17, 2016 by Catnip King

[frahkn]

Is the Hobbit stove a replacement for your Old Dutch Frank?

 

 

Yes, I have just finished a new surround, replacing the scorched timber with Masterboard and an air-gap etc, Tiled the space and decided that a smaller stove was the best bet. The Epping copy was too big to allow the correct clearance from the surrounding woodwork, the surveyor mentioned it when I bought the boat.

 

 

 

It's only for the back cabin - I have a diesel stove in the saloon - so I plan to keep the fire low anyway.

Yes you can get stove generators from here http://www.tegmart.com/

 

The free one looks smaller than any of those - I think it's designed for camping, when you put it on top of a camping-gas stove. You have to put water in it so that it can't get too hot.

[Bee]

When I first moved onto a boat the lighting was a Tilley lamp and an Aladdin lamp, very good they were too. I knew that when these lamps were common in houses you could get an array of thermocouples to generate enough electricity to charge the 'accumulator' i.e. the battery for the radio, I looked in vain for some way to generate some electric from the heat of the lamps. Everybody thought I'd made it up but Ha! in your faces doubters!

[Arthur Brown]

SOE produced an electrical supply from chimney flue heat and supplied them during WWII. With USB there is an issue that some devices will not accept a small charge rate. A smartphone fed with less than half an amp will go flatter, because the battery monitor circuit uses that much. USUALLY powerbanks will take what ever you offer them and then charge smart phones quickly.

[jonathanA]

 

SOE produced an electrical supply from chimney flue heat and supplied them during WWII. With USB there is an issue that some devices will not accept a small charge rate. A smartphone fed with less than half an amp will go flatter, because the battery monitor circuit uses that much. USUALLY powerbanks will take what ever you offer them and then charge smart phones quickly.[/quot

 

A battery monitor taking half an amp ain't no battery monitor that's for sure

 

I suppose there must be minimum for charging to occur which must be at least greater than the standby draw of the phone

[Arthur Brown]

A Lithium battery will accept any input as "charge", the problem is that some devices use the full microprocessor to monitor charging, others use a simple charge monitor chip.

[Detling]

No just some manufacturers, usually fruit flavoured, insist you must use their expensive charger. Any charger /phone should charge on less than 100mA it will just take longer.

[Phil Ambrose]

No just some manufacturers, usually fruit flavoured, insist you must use their expensive charger. Any charger /phone should charge on less than 100mA it will just take longer.

Windows phones if plugged into any USB socket other than their own charger tell you "warning use the correct charger, a slow charger makes a phone unhappy"

Phil

[Chewbacka]

Windows phones if plugged into any USB socket other than their own charger tell you "warning use the correct charger, a slow charger makes a phone unhappy"

Phil

My windows phone will only alert you to a slow charge when plugged in to a low power charger. A USB charger with ipad capablity (2.1A from memory) is fine. If using on a very low power USB socket it does not charge at all, and may even loose charge.