What charges your phone while warming
your soup? It is a BioLite’s CampStove. A
portable stove for the outdoor gadgeteer, this
nifty contraption uses the heat from a
campfire to generate electricity by way of a
thermoelectric generator, which then powers
a fan to create airflow for improved
combustion.
Surplus electricity is sent to the USB port for
use in charging electronic devices.
Basically, plug in your phone, sit around
burning wood and toasting marshmallows for
a while and, after around two hours, your
empty smartphone will be back to life.
The BioLite CampStove might not be the
most useful phone charger in the market, but
it certainly works and you have to give its
creators points for out-of-the-box thinking.
The sun
If you’re really keen on using fire to charge
your phone, you may just want to consider
going all out by using the sun
You know that massive ball of burning gas at
the centre of the solar system. Well, it turns
out that it throws off astonishing 400 trillion
watts on regular basis – roughly the amount
of energy it will take to power 500,000 years
of our current civilisation in a single second.
And, yes, that includes charging phones. Of
course, harnessing the sun’s rays is the
tricky bit — which is why we can be thankful
for the Solio Bolt Solar Charger + Battery
Pack from the aptly-named Better Energy
Systems.
With its on-board battery and rotating solar
panels, the Solio Bolt charges can charge
USB-powered gadgets ranging from
smartphone to MP3 player, e-reader and
cameras.
The maximum voltage is 5V; but there are a
few more ingenious ways to recharge your
batteries. On average, a smartphone will take
around three hours to go from zero to full.
Hey, who could dislike a gadget whose
slogan tells us to just ‘Plug into the sun’?
A piece of fruit
What could be more appropriate than
charging an iPhone with an actual apple (or
more subversive than doing the same with a
Samsung Galaxy)? Well, provided that you’ve
got the right tools, a bit of time and,
presumably, some fruit you’re less than keen
to eat, it can be done.
Essentially, what you’re building here is a
circuit – like the ones you used to put
together in science classes – using a
regulation vegetable battery, created by
sticking strips of zinc and copper into your
fruit or root vegetable of choice.
The electricity comes from the oxidation of
zinc, with the organic matter serving as a
conductive barrier, and the copper (in the
form of a penny) completing the circuit.
One fruit/vegetable will generate around half
a volt of electricity, with stacks of alternating
layers of vegetables, zinc and copper
creating a lasagna-like battery series, each
set adding to the total voltage.
It might be a cool experiment, but it’s by far
the least efficient phone charging method on
this list (which is presumably why it hasn’t
been commercialised).
As science enthusiast, Theodore Gray
performs an experiment. This is explained in
his book, Mad Science 2: Experiments You
Can Do At Home, But Still Probably
Shouldn’t: “To charge an iPhone I had to
rearrange the battery into six stacks of about
20 apple/penny slices each, with the six
stacks connected in parallel to increase the
current capacity. Even so it charged the
phone for literally about one second, just long
enough for it to come on and display the
charging symbol.”
The wind turbine
Do you think the term iFan applies only to a
person who camps outside the Apple Store
the night before a new model iPhone is
released? Think again.
The iFan’s wind turbine approach to
charging allows users to harness the ‘green’
power of the wind to energise their
smartphones.
Designed by ‘3D interior and exterior
designer, Tjeerd Veenhoven uses a modified
computer fan.
The charging process takes around six hours
– but enthusiastic (and fit) callers can speed
it up by attaching their iFan to a bicycle.
The hand-crank
Desperate smartphone users will get around
30 seconds of talk time per minute of
cranking the BoostTurbine 2000, with the
potential to crank all the way to a full
charge. At 2000 mAh, you won’t be able to
effectively charge laptops or tablets, but
phones, MP3 players and other 5V personal
electronics should all work effectively.
Eton’s BoostTurbine 2000 is a purveyor of
hand-cranked emergency devices – mainly
flashlights, radios, and the sort-geared
toward outdoor enthusiasts and survivalists.
Source: Know Your Mobile
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