Cordless Power

The cord is only needed to connect the appliance or tool to where the electricity comes from.

Petrol lawn mowers are cordless. Petrol hedge trimmers are cordless...

One could use a Stirling Engine on-board in the appliance to generate its electricity from sunshine...

There are reports of individuals constructing tuned antennae in the loft spaces in their houses in close proximity to radio broadcast transmitters, and using the power derived from the antennae to power their homes. In many cases, prosecutions have been successful...

There's quite a bit of info on the web: google "wireless power transmission"

For possible near-future applications, check out:

http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn10575-evanescent-coupling-could-power-gadgets-wirelessly.html

very interesting I wonder if the distances will exspand to allow power tools or even electric cars to tap into ,thanks for the link I didn't even try google as I thought the idea too complex to be pursued but it looks promising .

http://www.edn.com/article/CA6409677.html?partner=enews&nid=2019

That's how RFID tags work. They receive the input of a determined frequency and respond to it using the energy of the input signal itself.

There is a fair amount of electrical "noise" in the air around us. Some from cell phones, and TV broadcasts, but much more from lightning strikes around the world. Some modern tools could conceivably use this energy to keep themselves powered, but you won't get much. But...depending on the tool, maybe enough! Unlike solar energy, you would not need battery backup at night. This would allow the item to be very light in weight and maybe even very cheap to build.

So what applications might benefit with such ultra light technology? Critter cams, border and battlefield monitoring. Victor Papinek's school invented a 3 cent radio useful in third world countries which could use this technology. Medical applications abound...inner ear implants, and a thousand other apps come to mind.

I am sure you can come up with some ideas on your own.

Nicola Tesla did all of that before "Marconi" invented the Radio. Does not any one ever read the history of our science any more? I am thinking that the new philosophy of today's generation of if you do not find the answer in one "Google" session it's either time to throw in the towel, or go asking for info to the general either out there. I have spoken with many young Engineers and they are locked into the "Feed Me" style of life rather than the "Hungering for Answers" that my generation was brought up with. And just where did the curiosity for wide areas of knowledge go two? As an Engineer we should be able to do many calculations, designs, estimations, and just good engineering work out side of our core area.

to dbdwoods
I'm not sure who your directing to about Tesla .I am curious about exactly that and this isn't google .So what wisedome do you have to share on that subject ? I was considering how those ideas could be utilized in todays world maybe Tesla was ahead of his time and we need to re examine those ideas .I'm going to look at the site earlier mentioned and see if I can learn something .

Tesla was one of those rare human beings, a super-genius. He was indeed away ahead of his time, and people today are still trying to work out how he accomplished his findings.

The power source that Mikey refers to is an example of one of Tesla's working theories. He devised an electrical frequency resonator that he was able to tune to a frequency he determined must be coming from space (the "black matter" that we are currently investigating). This just operated by sympathetic frequency, like stroking a violin string and listening to a nearby violin string tuned to the same frequency start to play. By taking power off along various lengths of the resonator, he was able to provide a unique power source. He died without being able to provide a readily available and reproducible source of his research. (Do I recall that he was accused of consorting with the devil to produce his results, and that his working examples were destroyed by religious nuts? Note the warning I passed along to Oomsarel in the Perfect Sphere discussion about basing belief on one's faith systems resulting in disruption and havoc.)

While it may be possible to use the electromagnetic frequency generators found in the above two linked articles to set off powering devices for recharging batteries, they still are not "transmitting" electricity. I thought the original blog referred to ways of accomplishing the transmission of power (safely???) through air or space. It seems to me that channels for this transmission would have eventually to be constructed from tightly focused microwaves, or perhaps light/energy conversion using--instead of fiber-optic cable-- pulsed proton guns or lasers (or other photon emitters) focused through pipelines so as to prevent interruption, light conduits, etc. as "conductors". Losses would result from conversion to and back from useful electricity; but there might be some benefit to transmitting power without cables.

Mark

Thanks for your positive input .I think a day will come that we laugh at our natural resistance to what will become a common idea .A power cord will hang in the Smithstonian and kids will wonder how dumb we were to not see how simple the solution was.

Hey dbd,

I think people don't take time to READ what the question is really all about. In this instance, some of the responders seemed to confuse wireless signal generation with wireless power generation. I think this is a more fundamental error than being well-read enough to know about the Tesla inventions.

I do agree with you though, that we don't know "what has gone before". Hence, we spend a lot of our time "reinventing the wheel".

Thanks for your input!

I'm tired of hearing how Marconi invented radio. He didn't. Radio was a Canadian invention, like the electric light bulb that everybody thinks was invented by Thomas Edison. All Edison invented was the use of the tungsten filament for light bulb longevity.

Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans patented the first electric light bulb and tested it in Montreal. They then sold the patent to Thomas Edison for the then princely sum, it is reported, of $5,000.00.

Reginald Fesseden, not Marconi, should be considered the true "father of radio". Fessenden developed voice transmission and transmitted history's first wireless voice message in 1900. Then, in 1906 on Christmas eve, he made the first ever radio voice broadcast: singing a carol to especially equipped ships in the Atlantic and as far away as the Caribbean. He also invented television, by the way, in 1919.

To read his story, go to www.ieee.ca/millennium/radio/radio_unsung.html

Mark

Russians claim Popov was radio inveter.

I hope we all know that Marconi didn't invent radio. But, he did incorporate the work of others to achieve a workable system, and that is probably equally important, maybe even more so.

Just talking about cordless power, it's been done before in a very large and sophisticated way. Edison and others put a spike in the free power movement.

Again it's just History

Nicola Tesla had all of his work confiscated after his death by the FBI. His work is probably the foundation behind the Orwellian RFID and GPS devices playing heck with personal privacy in today's market. To find a working model of his era, you'll probably need to have access to "Skunk Works" labs working with the stuff and making life hell for normal people.

Tesla was the father of modern AC. His long range power transmission was not workable. He was able to energize an area and tap a tiny % here and there.

What good is a field you feed with 1 megawatt that is a 1/2 sphere resting on the earth where you can light a few 5 watt lamps?

Forget about his work being suppressed. It will not work. The energy needed to fill a sphere is far larger than what you can get out of it even if you filled the volume of the sphere with collectors you would only get 5% of the energy back.

These system where you create a resonant coupling between two coils separated by a distance are much the same. Most of the energy goes to energize a sphere and the small amount you need to charge a razor is just a few % of what yu feed to the field.. It makes good reading, but it is like the 1000 mile per gallon carburettor that the oil companies have suppressed... just an urban legend, as is teslas long range energy transmission,.

The best they can do is a microwave transmitting dish sending AC in as narrow a beam at 10 gigahertz as possible. At the other end synchronous FET switches on a dipole field where the beam is focussed can reach abour 25% efficiency, maybe slightly higher. They have been postulated for dirigibles with cell antennas flying at 60,000 feet to cover an area. They will only work where there is no jet stream.

Forget Tesla's dream, remember him for his successes

aurizon:

Great post ... I too am a big Tesla fan, but his power transmission ideas were as you said, unworkable.

Like you these endless "conspiracy-suppression-urban legends" forces that prevent all those terrific things from coming to market get my goat .. and they don't stop. They are just passed around uncritically, with no real evidence ever offered, yet they are presented as though "everybody knows they are true"... as a given. Not only that, forget Edison, assuming for a moment that power could be transmitted as Tesla envisioned (By causing the earth's electric field to oscillate), how in the world could you stop anybody from tapping into it, wasting it, taking far more than their share etc ., and not to mention how would you prevent gazillions of things from accidentally becoming electrically charged, and/or draining away power?

Regards,

Greg

There are a load of con men out there who keep these things aalive.

They feed on suckers with money (the best kind...)

one is Joe Champion. In here are a few of his scams

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=%22joe+champion%22&btnG=Google+Search

It is not the con men so much that disturb me but rather the everyday people who buy into their cons uncritically, driven by nothing more than wishful thinking.

Power transmition is used in access control. The unit trasnsmit a signal. a tag with a 'paracite' recever pick up the signal tap enough power from the signal to enable transmitting a return signal. the distance is howevel limmited. if the effective power ratio is 1:1 at 1mm the ratio would only be 1:1000000 at a 1000mm.

Yes, the inverse square rule, but that didn't apply to Tesla's idea, since he was going to cause the earth's electromagnetic field to oscillate, and that would spread the power around the world pretty uniformly.

My thoughts were, in the case of a skill saw, the power loss would be acceptable for the convienance .As is the idea of useing gas cartridges for running air guns .Exspensive but worth the convieniance .I visuallized one power supply to a home that would be distributed throughout without wiring or outlets .We could throw away our exstension cords .A utopian idea but would it work? I would assume the developers of wireless internet computers had resistance but it is reality .

At the electric rates I pay, I can't afford pay much more, let alone a big multiple just to dispense with cords, even if it were possible. My lamps, toaster and refrigerator have no need to be wireless, and I certainly wouldn't want to inhabit a dwelling with kilowatts of energy pulsing through the ether. There are enough potential health concerns from the low (mW or lower) levels of electromagnetic radiation from CRTs, microwave ovens, cell phones, etc already.

"I would assume the developers of wireless internet computers had resistance but it is reality."

The minimum amount of energy required to "transmit" information by all manner of means has been and is the topic of much scientific and/or mathematical work, but suffice to say, the energy requirements are insignificant compared to transmitting significant amounts of power without physical "conductors" of some type. There is no relevance to comparing the two. Wireless networking is only using minute amounts of energy to transmit and receive information, the computers, modems or whatever, are powered entirely separately.

I will still remain optomistic maybe there will be ways of distributing power we have yet to discover ,I find the fuel cell concept intriguing , just because it seems impractical doesn't mean it's irrational .Remember telephones were initialy a hard sell ,so were cars etc. I try to be nice but domesdayers are loosers .I have prospered off those who said it can't be done .So just keep saying it won't work and I'm inspired to believe it will .Thanks for the negative vibes ,see you at the bank

The book on Tesla that I read quoted him as "Running Model Boats," powering and controlling them with his transmitted power" on a lake. Those boats were not little bitty ones either. With that being true, quite a bit of transmitted power was getting to the receiver end. So how could that be a failed or impractical use of power? In today's market power transmission is through beamed high frequency RF, with resonant circuits recieving and converting that into power.

Things have come a long way, but there are many similarities.

well, radiate 50 kilowatts and use 50 watts on the board = bad economics

dbdwoods:

"So how could that be a failed or impractical use of power?"

Failed or impractical are relative terms. In Tesla's case, the efficiency was just way too low.

Transmitting power has a place, but it is limited to specialized applications where the economics work.

Tesla also wanted the world to have free power. There would have been enough for all. No over use or under use, the guys that wanted to sell the stuff instead of giving it away won. Plain and simple free power passed from mankind grasp, thus we have the nightmare of dependency in today's market. Instead of all of us doing gainful stuff with our money we need it to buy gas and electricity. That sponsors a number of other sins.

"Tesla also wanted the world to have free power. There would have been enough for all. No over use or under use, the guys that wanted to sell the stuff instead of giving it away won. Plain and simple free power passed from mankind grasp...."

Yes, I too have read Tesla's treatise on "The Problem of Increasing Human Energy".

Please give us a break!

Just who do you propose would pay to produce and make all this free power available? How do you propose to enforce "no over or under use" and that everyone got their "fair" share?

"....thus we have the nightmare of dependency in today's market."

Your "nightmare" is called an "economic system", where we earn money by providing a service to others, and we pay money to receive services.

"Instead of all of us doing gainful stuff with our money we need it to buy gas and electricity. That sponsors a number of other sins."

How do you earn YOUR money? I would like very much for you to work for me for free! Will you?

I doubt any of the wage earners making money from working in some area of the energy industry would agree with your bizarre Utopian vision.

Greg

Of course, you're right.

But this blog and this site are not always and only concerned with "what is". Science fiction, for example, gives our technical dreamers glimpses at potential future technology, conveniences and life styles.

Tesla was, admit it, far ahead of his time. Very little in this world is perfect the first time around. Refining and improving are part of the nature of science. Pioneer ideas trigger new approaches.

So, just because "what is" doesn't exactly match reality is the very reason to postulate "what can be" with it. And then, some guy is going to see an apple fall, causing Bob to be everybody's uncle.

Mark

I have no special attatchment or reverance to Teslas work as is apparent others clearly do .I used it for referance so trust me I'm not trying to prove a point that his work was the essence of all solutions ,more so as a referance . As with any new idea or rehash of an old one its sometimes as simple as as rexamination or an application of new principals of science ,or even thought, that reveals a new solution . I see a lot of primadonnas that simply say "it is what it is " and that's the way it will be .If that attitude prevailed we would still be bleeding people or using pay phones for mobile calls.I have been following the developement of methenal and will post a new thought that will be sure to get all the farty engineers foaming at the mouth ,I hope you all will particapate ,nice jousting with you till then !!!!

Mark,

And of course you are right also.

The world is full of things that were previously thought impossible by the "scientific' community, but on the other hand, just because something is thought impossible today doesn't grant it any special status as far as possible future realization.

Tesla is one of my heroes. He was without doubt a genius, but he was also more than a little "strange" and offbeat in some of his thoughts. Just because he was ahead of his time in some things doesn't mean other parts of his work have any validity for ever being achieved. Many great men (Einstein, Stephen Hawkins just for two examples) had some things wrong but lived long enough to find that out and revise their beliefs. Others passed before they had that chance. It doesn't take away from what they had right. For someone to credit Tesla with having anything to do with the development of RFID and GPS technology or devices is a stretch beyond all logic.

Science fiction is a step or two (or even more) ahead of wherever we are when it is written, but it is not fantasy either, (although there is a subset of writing under the category of "Science Fiction/Fantasy"). It is also often just fiction with a little "good" or "bad" science thrown in. However, the best science fiction takes off from our present state of knowledge, adding new things, revising a thing or two in a specific way, but it doesn't just ignore it.

It is always important to keep an open mind, but that is not to say we shouldn't be discriminating, and give all ideas equal weight.

A large part of what is taken as the "criticism" of new ideas here is really more along the lines of "this is why it shouldn't/wouldn't work, so be more specific in how it might be accomplished". By offering specific reasons why something won't work stimulates both the original posters and the responders to focus on it or similar possible scenarios. If we don't ground the discussions in present knowledge, we have no framework at all, and might as well just throw all kinds of fantasies around.

So many of the posts here deal with wishful thinking mixed with "bad" science. If someone posits an idea that is presently "impossible" by everything we think we know to date, it doesn't mean it is an absolute impossibility forever (at least in some form of realization), but it certainly means it is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future if ever, and the burden is on the presenter or people posting in agreement to offer at least some ideas as to how it might be achieved ... otherwise, again we would be off in ungrounded fantasies and wishful thinking. This is after all a technical forum.

You said:

"So, just because "what is" doesn't exactly match reality is the very reason to postulate "what can be" with it."

I think we (collectively) do that exact thing.

Concepts of "free" this, or "free" that are by their nature abstract, obfuscating terms, smoke and mirrors resorted to out of intellectual laziness and an attempt to advance some agenda. Even the air we ourselves breathe isn't free. It's here, and we don't pay for it per se, but to "breathe" it we have to expend energy to inhale and exhale, and to carry the oxygen we need through the bloodstream while scavenging up CO2. To have clean, breathable air in many situations, does cost energy (and money) to provide (commercial aircraft cabins, mines, etc). So whether something is free or not has to do with how narrowly we define the word, and what or who we choose to leave out of the equation.

The concept of transmitting large amounts (more than a few watts) of power broadly, over any distance beyond a few inches, with any kind of reasonable efficiency, in a safe manner is so far removed from anything we know as to be an exercise in fantasy. And then to do it for "free"?

Yet, many specialized applications were mentioned, along with beamed (directed) energy, that are presently being used or offer some potential.

Regards,

Greg

Please tell me your are kidding. I hope you're just posting that free power (ie, free energy) for all stuff just to get people wound up.

You Tesla people crack me up.

It is great fun to Soap Box things once in a while. Passion for a thought an action or to right a perceived wrong is an expression of what we are and what we want to aspire to.

I have ridden the what's good for me must be good for the world point a view before, and then did just the opposite to see if the shoe fits. lately the song by Elton John that showcases the thought of "Never Take More Than You Need" is my happy point. However real world issues are paramount and these digressions into the past are fun exercises.

I find that most people in person are reasonable, it's just when they do not take responsibility for their actions and pass their sins of design and deed on to the shoulders of "I am just following Orders" that bad can happen to the group of to just you or me.

Hey, Juba! (hope you don't mind me calling you by your prefix! "Mr. Jabba" sounds so formal, don'cha think?)

The funny thing about reading your comment was that in another forum, "Bad Astronomy", I sometimes post questions that are specifically intended to get people wound up....and here's the kicker: My handle in that forum is :"Free Energy".

No kidding. You must be psychic!

Mark

PS. I never considered myself a "Tesla person", although I do claim to know one.

Something I've planned to do with the kids (before I can no longer call them kids) is to build a couple crystal radios -- which, as you no doubt know, have no power source other than the radio wave itself (they are essentially a ground, an antenna, a rectifier, and an earphone). The sound level is possibly a milliwatt. If 1000 kids made these in an area, that would be one watt. If 1,000,000 kids in NYC made these and tuned them to 770 (which I guess is still ABC?) then they'd be consuming 1000 watts. Therefore, if enough kids made these, they could absorb all the power radiated by ABC. Then, when the next kid builds one, would he hear nothing?

Tesla was unable to run his own economic affairs. He made money and squandered it along with the money of others on experiments that were made as large as the money available = used up all the money every time. Tesla won big on AC power. His other AC power tricks diverted him from what should have been his end game....radio, the transmission of information and not power. He erred in his focus

Let us say I find a source of free power. I offer this free power to a man 10 miles away who wants a megawatt/hour. Who will run the wires from my place to his? Remember transmission through the air will not work as a megawatt point to point beam will impose a lethal path between the two points, so we must use copper/aluminum wires, and we need to transform it from what I have to what he needs and to do this at high voltage to reduce copper use and transmission losses.

So who will I coax or badger to get that free wire and the land for any poles etc and the men to build it and maintain it?

aurizon:

I agree.

Tesla would have been wealthy except that to help out his friend, George Westinghouse when Westinghouse got into deep financial trouble, he ripped up his royalty agreement for his invention of the AC electric motor: $1/HP !

Later, when Westinghouse regained financial health, he or Westinghouse never revisited the royalty issue.

Regards,

Greg

Hey what can I say, I'm as locked into the system as anyone can be. Utopian beliefs aside there have been some sorry decisions that make life today rougher and more deadly to the world we live in. When these turning points happen it is good to recognize them. The past is where we look for things not to repeat in the present. Patterns of past Human behavior are all we have to base now and future decision points on. We could have done it this way or that way for this reason is how to avoid mistakes or pain inflicted today. Pain is what we are in for if the present pattern of intrusion into peoples lives with these hidden but intrusive devices not controlled by public recognition of what is happening to us.

The RFID and GPS community even has goofy people volunteering for implants. Old Nicola Tesla would be turning in his grave if he knew that his inventions were being used for such a heinous purpose.

Who is ready to answer this question?

US /North America electric power distribution systems are using mostly over-head transmission, Europe undeground cables. Why?

Huricanes, storms and lightnings crete much more black-outs, so where is economic explanation for over-head transmission lines?

density

In many places in Europe they cannot take wide swathes on land for transmission corridors.

Underground is also more expensive and has ongoing problems with 'water trees', which air insulated overhead lines do not

The economic justification for overhead transmission lines is that they are often far cheaper to install, repair or modify. Where I live, on Long Island, NY, we have mostly overhead, but new construction often has underground cables if in an area not already served by overhead lines.

Europe has very many overhead transmission lines also.

I would think that cordless power would have to be delivered coherently, line of sight. Also, there are too many variables in the way to ensure it got to where it was going. Remember it follows the path of least resistence. How does this play into it? The further the distance it had to travel, you would have to amplified and repeat it, to avoid voltage drop. Can it be done safely? That is another question.

"I would think that cordless power would have to be delivered coherently, line of sight. Also, there are too many variables in the way to ensure it got to where it was going."

I wanted to make a clarification regarding "ensuring it got to where it was going." What if an object came into the path of line of sight cordless power? What kind of grounding would an object need? Like an aircraft currently uses, due to a lightning strike? $$ lol!

The only way around this is changing the medium of how chordless power is transmitted, to make it safe for all in contact. The first thing I would do is charge a compressed carrier wave. What frequencies are FCC available, and will it work? It looks like we are going to have some of the workings of a maser in the end. You wouldn't get the patent on the Ray Gun either. Making it safe is key here. Think about the E=IR. You need to make the current smaller to make it safe, so that means only one thing to voltage, It has to increase by amplifying.

All the other ways this has been done in the past, have not really been chordless. You can send a signal to a control panel wireless, the panel can then send a wireless signal to a remote location, but in the end it has had a 120V connection, like your TV/Remote combination. We are talking cordless power directly to the end. You could transmit enough power to a Village wireless, and be able to phase out telephone poles and wires at will.

There was a guy at MIT that did work with wireless power that was from an electromagnetic voltage transmitter that worked within a range and wound up with big power losses, just plain inefficient. He was listening to Dale Dorman, WRKO Boston but couldn't hear through the static. Poor guy went through 23 radio speakers that semester. I also hope he had a jock stap with a lead cup.

Tapping the energy available is one thing and should be possible.

To deliver power implicate that energy is transmitted for someone else to use.

The efficiency will be very low.

I had the same idea in 1960 and did experiment with it. I had a wire-recorder (used a thin steel wire as recording media) that was capable of transmitting. when a florescent tube was held close to the areal a faint glow could be detected. (maybe imagined)

I had more fun running a radio station (illegal) than to continue investigating a dead horse.

I build a little light wave transmitter using an IR diode on one end, and a photo diode on the other. There also were big losses, unless you sent the signal through a black inside painted tube.

I still think it can be done particularly when you would be recharging a say 18 volt drill or skill saw sure a big power drop from 110 to 18 volts, you would waste a $.25 a day so what if it works . I had even a better idea to transmit only magnetic (power) and use the on board battery power to convert the rest ? Everyone gives up so easy .

Traditional

Now, that's an interesting idea! How do you propose to (a) overcome the fade/distance problem, (b) transmit magnetic influence linearly over distance as a means of power transmission, and (c) do you have an idea of how to convert the received transmission back to power directly e.g. without using a dc generator?

It's an interesting concept that I have not been aware of until now, except for a vague reference somewhere (I think it might have been Von Daniken).

Mark

Why not ? I think there is a way to transmit power without wires it will be done all we need to do is open our minds .I'm thinking a generator has few components one is magnitism a field maybe some other component break it up into components and add one remotely bingo you have cordless power .Obviously simplistic but it can work !!!As does the stirling engine it shouldn't but it does .Radio waves sound , microwaves it's there somewhere .

OK. Now you're duplicating the Tesla stuff with sympathetic response to a resonating field. There are two problems that immediately come to mind with this. The first is ambient magnetic interference and being able to block all but the useful/intentional lines of force. The second is transmission in a direct line to the end-user with as little dispersion loss as possible. Unless there is a conduit using quantum parallelism somehow, how could that be accomplished?

I know I'm opening myself up to at least one "Told ya so!" here, but as nifty an idea as this is, I can't see how it can work within so-called normal physical realities.

As far as the Sterling engine is concerned, it works because it has a firm basis in applied physics. There's no mystery about how and why it works; and it does work, believe me, as it should. Also, perhaps contrary to some popular ideas, it is in fairly common industrial usage. Somebody even figured out (and I'll never understand why!) how to fuel them!

Mark

There's some interesting work at MIT I'm sure they will get it .

If there are usefull applications that demand it .

I think thier using sound waves. I have my guesses as to how ,but it is an interesting subject, that may be over my head. I'm happy to learn that other people have a simular interest and wonder .
I'm sure people seeing Ben Franklin flying a kite in a lightening storm had some question as to the viability of his ideas and may have pushed forward on design of a straght jacket the next morning.

My thought was to transmit line of sight to avoid power loss and voltage drop. You would have to amplify and repeat to go long distances.

I was thinking of a small 120V transformer that had a resonant frequency to the primary coil of the transformer. How else could you do it?

Germans have invented a EV battery charger which when a car is parked near it charges the car battery without using a cord