Ideas need for "Total charge accumulator" circuit idea

Thread Starter

Cg1947

Joined Aug 12, 2016
1
I want to design a circuit that I will call a " total charge accumulator". Want I want to accomplish is storage of minute amounts of charge from a very very low wind with a wind turbine. . Example: the turbine is turning in a 2 mph wind, but is only producing 1 volt. This is always just thrown away charge. It could produce charge like that for millions of years and all be thrown away. If there was a way to store all of that charge and then put it all back together at a certain charge level that would be useful, it would be a good thing.
So far ideas I've come up with involve charging a group of Ultra capacitors , one at a time, to 2 volts each, then connecting them together into a battery of capacitors ( in series) to get battery charging potentials of around 14 volts. This would have to be a very complex , descrete component circuit or micro controller based circuit. Question is , am I missing the obvious? Overthinking the problem? The use of a joule thief type circuit does the boosting of low voltage to high voltage, but uses lots of current to produce the potential to charge the battery, and in my opinion throws away lots of charge doing that job. In other words very inefficient.I want to use ALL of the virgin charge.
I have been rolling this problem over in my mind for a few years now. If someone can wake me up it would be good. Or give me ideas to help how to do it.
 

Alec_t

Joined Sep 17, 2013
14,280
Welcome to AAC!
charging a group of Ultra capacitors , one at a time, to 2 volts each, then connecting them together into a battery of capacitors ( in series) to get battery charging potentials of around 14 volts.
That would be my approach. It will be inefficient, but I can't think of any more efficient way. Suitable devices for doing the necessary switching efficiently at such a low voltage might be hard to find.
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,086
I understand what you mean but don't think of it as 'charge' as what you want to accumulate. The problem is not accumulating charge because the total about of charge in the wind turbine/capacitor/battery system remains unchanged. It's better electrically to see that energy is needed to separate the existing charge in devices to store energy. The problem is one of energy, how much energy can be collected and stored from a 2 mph wind speed on the turbine that results in a 1 volt output. If you put a load on that 1 volt how much power will the system deliver to any type of storage device and and at what price?
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,086
The problem with such slow wind speeds (wind speed where the turbine starts turning but below the power cut-in speed) is that they generate very low power levels and most of that low power would be lost in the electronics. A better investment in time and money would be a solar panel.
 

#12

Joined Nov 30, 2010
18,224
Let's look at some math.
1 B.T.U will heat one pound of water by 1 degree.
One watt hour will produce 3.413 B.T.U.s
1 farad times 1 volt = 1 amp-second
1 amp second at an average voltage of 0.5 volts will make 1/2 watt second
5/16 of a pound of water makes a small cup of tea.
The water needs to be rather hot to brew tea.
Raise the water from 70F to 190F and pour over tea leaves.
79,109 of those capacitors full to 1 volt of charge will make 1 cup of tea.

As usual, I might make a mistake in the math, but you can see the idea.
 

ci139

Joined Jul 11, 2016
1,898
. . ..It will be inefficient, but I can't think of any more efficient way. Suitable devices for doing the necessary switching efficiently at such a low voltage might be hard to find.
http://cds.linear.com/docs/en/lt-journal/LTMag-V16N03-13-J_FET_Supply-Williams.pdf
http://www.linear.com/product/LTC3108
◄ those things run from low input

• the first way to get better results likey would be converting windspeed by airchannel nework perhaps getting it oscillating at some point
• the second way is reducing your generator's size and weight
• you need trigger-(/switch) state storage like step by step advancing the spring winding gear (there are alternate ((electro-/))chemical proccesses) - since capacitor and spring require ever increasing input to be charged to next level you need a conveyer of "std.-spring-gears" to be cosequtively charged - like the DNA is being procesed in your system . . .
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,086
http://cds.linear.com/docs/en/lt-journal/LTMag-V16N03-13-J_FET_Supply-Williams.pdf
http://www.linear.com/product/LTC3108
◄ those things run from low input

• the first way to get better results likey would be converting windspeed by airchannel nework perhaps getting it oscillating at some point
• the second way is reducing your generator's size and weight
• you need trigger-(/switch) state storage like step by step advancing the spring winding gear (there are alternate ((electro-/))chemical proccesses) - since capacitor and spring require ever increasing input to be charged to next level you need a conveyer of "std.-spring-gears" to be cosequtively charged - like the DNA is being procesed in your system . . .
None of these things will increase the amount of power delivered from the airfoil by more than a few percent and most will reduce the power.

Nothing from nothing leaves nothing.
 

ci139

Joined Jul 11, 2016
1,898
None of these things will increase the amount of power delivered from the airfoil by more than a few percent and most will reduce the power....
it might be but doing nothing does not bring us anywhere eighter - you do sometnig until you're not anymore have a grasp what's going on - then you collate the results - do some analysing - run it all over again - altough tou may not get your answere - youve learned a lot about other things . . . it is pointless to suck the small amounts of out of the wind where there is no (as you can see yourself - well, actually you can't) when instead you can run more efficiently on nuclear batteries - unless the wind is your only option . . .

(Yeah, hi GoperT - swpping my javascript on and off to participate from winxpsp2 - i yet have to get used to this)
 
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