New Printable Antenna Can Harvest Ambient Energy To Power Small Electronics

Originally posted by aboutface
reply to post by Bedlam

 

What is the difference between ambient energy and stray electrical pollution? Could the two be the same thing or related to each other?

Electrical 'pollution' is ambient energy - if you're talking about RF noise. The term "ambient energy" just refers to any sort of EM that's flying around to be captured - like light. Solar cells produce electrical energy from 'ambient energy' in the visible light spectrum. Heat above absolute zero in the environment is also "ambient energy", although to get anything out of it you have to have a temperature difference to exploit.

reply to post by My.mind.is.mine


I was wondering if by chance they strapped magnets to him, when he was buried.
I mean. If he's spinning.....you get the picture..

Originally posted by spacedoubt
reply to post by My.mind.is.mine

 

I was wondering if by chance they strapped magnets to him, when he was buried.
I mean. If he's spinning.....you get the picture..

Well, you know that TPTB have concealed the fact that you can strap a piece of buttered toast to a cat, throw the cat in the air, and they'll spin in midair forever. Whirligig Nikola is another version of it, but there's only one Tesla.

How could this not be good? Broad-banded enough to tap 100MHz to 15 GHz stray RF, and in commonly enough used frequencies where we have an abundance of "pollution", then combined with advanced capacitors capable enough to produce a usable 50 milliwatts from one "printed" antenna.

This should get no derision. Perhaps we're just not thinking small enough, if that's the case. It was not long ago that almost everything tooks "tons" of power whereas today with LED's, LCD displays, and the likes, that we are performing all kinds of "work" with miniscule amounts of electricity. Classes in the 70's my TI-30 was going through several 9v batteries a semester. My TI-30 from 20 years ago ran off the lights inside the building. Surely the micro-watts produced by the printed antennas alone can power sensors helpful in some applications.

Comments liken this to a crystal radio. Is that so bad? As a 7 year-old boy in 1960 I got a ton of use from my little crystal radio alone in my room at night listening to music with it. Play Stations and X-Boxes I did not have then and it was almost unthinkable to have more than one TV set in a house in those days, a crystal radio receiving AM radio stations was terrific. If that is an accurate comparison being made then I'm all for it. BTW, in those days FM radio was not worth listening to as a kid. FM to us stood for "fogie music" long before the advent of "underground" FM stations in the later 60's.

reply to post by Bedlam


I was using ghosts as an example for metaphysical aspects of life on Earth. Simply put, ghosts use up ambient energy to manifest themselves in a physical sense. There's much more to metaphysics though, but I guess it doesn't exist because we can't record it, right?

PS Ghosts do exist. If it wasn't for the fact that I grew up seeing them (along with others in my family), then I would probably be sitting right alongside your judgement of them being "bogus". Because of the fact that I have seen them, heard them, felt them, they are empirical reality to me.

Edit: Nevermind, I see that the OP is all about solar panels. My conception of "ambient energy" is different from photons from Sol.

Duh, Couldnt this be a perfect source of power for nanobots or miniature scouting robots the size of insects???
2nd

Originally posted by Bedlam
Not at all.

Yes it is illegal.

Originally posted by Bedlam

All they are doing is using the electromagnetic waves in the air (radio waves) to move the electrons in the antenna, and that is electricity.

That part's sort of true...

No, that part is 100% true. That is how antennas work.........

Originally posted by Bedlam

That is basically all a radio does. Depending on the size of the antenna, you get a different radio station. When you select a radio station on a radio all you are doing is adjusting the amount of antenna you want to use. Of course, if you wrap the wire around a coil it increases the strength of the signal. Then you add a diode so it only captures half of the wave, then hook up some ear plugs, and you have a radio.

That part's sort of not...

No, that part is 100% true as well. You have a long metal wire, it is coiled up at the end, then it goes to ground. Then you select what part of the coil you want to use to change the radio station. All you are doing is selecting how much wire you are using, a.k.a. the length of antenna. The more antenna you use the larger the wavelength... the smaller the antenna, the smaller the wavelength. When you are selecting radio stations you are selecting the length of the wire, and the wavelength you are listening to (radio station).

Do you know anything about radios? Or do you just pretend?

Originally posted by Bedlam

The problem is, you are using energy that is output via radio stations, and cell phone towers, and television transmitters. This has already been deemed illegal because you are stealing energy from the transmitters, and it actually reduces the power of the radio transmissions.

Absolutely incorrect. Inside the near field zone, you can load down the transmitter's output. In the far field, the wave is uncoupled from the transmitter. No amount of loading there will change the loading on the transmitter - you can intercept the part of the field that crosses your aperture, but doing so has no effect on anything else. This is also why near field RFID doesn't work at a distance.

No, it is not incorrect. The more receivers you use, the weaker the overall transmission is. It does't directly effect the transmitter, but it effects the signal in the air because the antennas are absorbing the waves. If you use a device that is only capturing the waves for energy creation, then you are taking the waves away from people who want to listen to the radio.

Imagine 3 points... A, B, and C.

A is the transmitter, B is some guy with a radio wave capture device, and C was some guy who just wants to listen to the radio. Well, the waves sent from point A will reach point B and some of the waves will be captured and used, and that will make it harder for point C to get a good signal..... That would mean the transmitter A would have to increase the output so C can get a better signal....

Originally posted by gift0fpr0phecy
All you are doing is selecting how much wire you are using, a.k.a. the length of antenna. The more antenna you use the larger the wavelength.

No, it is not incorrect. The more receivers you use, the weaker the overall transmission is. It does't directly effect the transmitter, but it effects the signal in the air because the antennas are absorbing the waves.

If we had an election, I'd be voting for Bedlam on these two matters.
And I say that as a (former) amateur radio operator.
Changing the length of the antenna doesnt change the radio station that you get. You can try this for yourself right now with any FM radio that has a telescopic antenna. What matters is the makeup of the tuning circuit.
And what he said about the difference between "near field" and "far field" is correct also.

Originally posted by gift0fpr0phecy

The more receivers you use, the weaker the overall transmission is. It does't directly effect the transmitter, but it effects the signal in the air because the antennas are absorbing the waves. If you use a device that is only capturing the waves for energy creation, then you are taking the waves away from people who want to listen to the radio.

Imagine 3 points... A, B, and C.

A is the transmitter, B is some guy with a radio wave capture device, and C was some guy who just wants to listen to the radio. Well, the waves sent from point A will reach point B and some of the waves will be captured and used, and that will make it harder for point C to get a good signal..... That would mean the transmitter A would have to increase the output so C can get a better signal....

Theoretically that would seem correct, up to a point, but I am under the impression most RF (radio frequency) signal does not reach the receivers but is eventually absorbed. Unless such an antenna at point B was blocking the signal from reaching point C there would not be a problem. I don't see this as analogous as a multi-masted sailing ship passing on the wind side of a little Sabot and stealing their breeze.

It seems "possible" to construct such an RF sucking device but it seems what is being demonstrated in your example would be like saying that in a dense urban area a much stronger radio transmitter would be needed for the large number of listeners with receivers, each new radio receiver added "sucks" away their neighbor's signal. I am sure there is more signal loss passing through buildings and getting inside a home to a portable radio then any signal loss from their neighbor's large receiver with external antenna.

I believe what you are saying is true to an extent but that the amount of signal received is negligible. Of a 50KW radio station's signal, what percentage and how much power is actually being received by radio receivers in a densely urban area? And how much remains stray? I would think the amount of power received by a printed antenna is rather miniscule and poses no threat to radio listeners. I'm no expert and could be wrong though, I just believe there is an abundance of stray RF that never makes it to a radio receiver.

On the other hand, I have heard of RV campers that use an induction coil and park close to high-power electric lines and "steal" electrical power in this manner. I would think this would be tricky to do, somewhat risky perhaps, and illegal as well, but I don't know of anyone who has actually done this to tell me about it.

Originally posted by alfa1
Changing the length of the antenna doesnt change the radio station that you get. You can try this for yourself right now with any FM radio that has a telescopic antenna. What matters is the makeup of the tuning circuit.

When you collapse a telescopic antenna you technically are not changing the length of the antenna in the manner I was speaking. What really matters is how many electrons you have in the antenna's substance. When you collapse a telescopic antenna you still have the same mass of metal, and the same amount of electrons in the metal. When I talk about "a longer antenna" I am talking about physically adding more mass to the antenna.

Also, the problem here is that I am not using conventional terms... To explain, here is a really simple crystal radio schematic:

Take a look at the antenna and the coil... they are one. The antenna continues down and is coiled at the bottom. That is why I usually combine the two and I call the antenna and the coil together, "the antenna".

Then you have the selector (or tuner, or whatever you want to call it) which is connected to the ground. Depending on where you place the selector on the coil (antenna) you get a different radio station. So what you are basically doing is "changing the length of the antenna" that is being used. The further down the coil (antenna) you place the selector, the bigger portion of the antenna you are using.

It's all about resonance. It's EXACTLY like a guitar string. The length and thickness of a guitar string determines the tone, resonance, frequency of that string. In this case, the antenna of a radio is like a guitar string. When you change the radio station, it's like you are changing the length of the guitar string.

It is also like tuning forks. The size, thickness, etc. of a tuning fork determines it's tone, resonance, frequency. Watch this video about tuning forks:



...and just for fun...

When you tune a radio, what you are really doing is changing the size, thickness, etc. of the antenna so that it's resonance matches the transmitter so that they resonant together like the tuning forks in the above video. However, the tuning forks and guitar strings use sound waves, and not electromagnetic waves like a radio. Does that makes sense to you?

-disclaimer- What I have said may not be conventional knowledge, and you may or may not be able to read about it in a book.

Originally posted by alfa1
And what he said about the difference between "near field" and "far field" is correct also.

The way I think of it is like this:

Imagine the above video with the tuning forks. In the video he only used two tuning forks to demonstrate how they resonate together. Well, imagine he had 20 tuning forks with all of the same resonant frequencies. What do you think will happen if you struck only one of the tuning forks (the transmitter)? Will all of tuning forks resonate with the same strength? Now, what if you took away 2 of those tuning forks and only had 18? Would the 18 tuning forks resonate with increased strength compared to when there was 20? What if you took away 10 tuning forks and only had 10 total. Would the strength of resonance of each fork be higher than when there was 20 forks? Do you think in order to make 20 forks resonate with the same strength as 10 forks you would have to increase the strength of the initial fork that is struck (the transmitter)?

I'd like to know your answers to the above questions... and yes they are related to radio waves.

Originally posted by gift0fpr0phecy
To explain, here is a really simple crystal radio schematic:

Personally, I think thats too simplistic, and wouldnt actually offer any genuine control over selectivity of the received stations. For proper "resonance" I'd add a small capacitor 50-300pf or thereabouts across the tuning coil.
That circuit will "work", but only due to stray capacitance of the wiring, and requires that the coil is too highly loaded. The "Q" will be woefully bad. But my point remains - this has nothing to do with changing the length of the antenna, and is still an application of the tuning circuit.

f = [1 over [2 pi sqrt[LC]]]

I'd also add a capacitor across the headphones, but thats not really related to this discussion.

Originally posted by gift0fpr0phecy
Imagine the above video with the tuning forks.

The answers go back to what was said (multiple times now) about "near field" and "far field".
If the tuning forks are sufficiently close together, they will interact with each other and taking away or adding receivers will affect the transmitter. If the receivers are sufficiently far away, then the number of them will have no effect on the transmitter. But this is only a poor analogy since here we are discussing physical mechanical effects of air pressure and not the electromagnetic force.
The coils in a transformer work on a near field effect, and what you do with the seconadary coil affects the power requirements of the primary coil. The sun works on a far field effect. If a moon of Jupiter comes out of eclipse behind Jupiter and is exposed to sunlight once more, the sun does not have to "work harder" to illuminate it and the other nearby moons dont get dimmer.

Fundamentally this boils down to photons. The carriers of the electromagnetic force. Far field effects use "real" photons, whereas near field effects use "virtual" photons.

Edit - people holding up fluorescent tubes next to high voltage power lines are using a "near field" to power them, like a transformer. Same with RFID devices.

reply to post by LightAssassin


I'm just guessing but... Tesla Coil?

Originally posted by Erongaricuaro
How could this not be good? Broad-banded enough to tap 100MHz to 15 GHz stray RF, and in commonly enough used frequencies where we have an abundance of "pollution", then combined with advanced capacitors capable enough to produce a usable 50 milliwatts from one "printed" antenna.

But not all at once. The 50 mW thing is what you get when you save up the microwatts for many hours, then you get 50mW for a few seconds. Reread the articles and you'll see that you only get a short burst of power. Not continuously.

Originally posted by gift0fpr0phecy

Yes it is illegal.

Absolutely not. Show any real example, please. And by real, an actual cite that's not from a CT source like educate yourself.

No, that part is 100% true. That is how antennas work.........

Air's not necessary.

Originally posted by Bedlam

That is basically all a radio does. Depending on the size of the antenna, you get a different radio station. When you select a radio station on a radio all you are doing is adjusting the amount of antenna you want to use. Of course, if you wrap the wire around a coil it increases the strength of the signal. Then you add a diode so it only captures half of the wave, then hook up some ear plugs, and you have a radio.

That part's sort of not...

No, that part is 100% true as well.


No, sorry to disabuse you. This paragraph shows a deep misunderstanding of radio reception. It is true that the antenna length is related to the radio wavelength, in terms of efficiency. This is much more apparent for the transmitting end than the receiving end, although gross mismatches will also show at the receiving end, and by gross, I mean mismatches that are in orders of magnitude.

For the transmitter delivering substantial power to an antenna, an antenna shorter than a wavelength will appear capacitive, a longer one will appear inductive. You may have to compensate for that by using the appropriate loading at the antenna to re-tune the antenna to match. Note that this doesn't fix the efficiency issue, but it will help with smoking the transmitter due to the mismatch.

The "coil" at the end of the antenna on the receiving end is part of a tuned circuit, not a balled-up wad of antenna that you are selecting the length of. Matched with an appropriate capacitor, the coil and the capacitor form a tuned LC circuit which resonates with the incoming radio wave. You can either fix the capacitor and tune the inductor - which is probably what you're thinking of when you refer to changing the length of the "coiled up antenna", or you can fix the inductor and vary the capacitance, which is what most receivers do since the 30's.

While you will see many references to "keeping half the wave" attributed to the detector, which is usually a diode, this isn't strictly true either. It's a convenient way to explain what's happening to math-naive technicians. The truth is that the diode in an AM crystal receiver is doing something much more wonderful, but it's a thing that can't be explained easily without math. An AM transmission is more complex than the "my first crystal radio" books describe. You get a carrier and a pair of sidebands from the modulation, not an envelope like the simplified books describe. The original modulation is gone. The V-I curve of the diode performs a multiplication that recombines the sidebands with the carrier - you get both sum and difference products, the sum is discarded and the difference is the audio you hear.

Do you know anything about radios? Or do you just pretend?

I've got a masters degree in EE comm theory.

No, it is not incorrect. The more receivers you use, the weaker the overall transmission is. It does't directly effect the transmitter, but it effects the signal in the air because the antennas are absorbing the waves. If you use a device that is only capturing the waves for energy creation, then you are taking the waves away from people who want to listen to the radio.

No, I'm right. In the far field, the signal is no longer coupled to the transmitting antenna. You can intercept what passes through your aperture in the far field, but doing so has no effect on any other receiver, except ones in the diffraction zone immediately 'behind' your aperture. It's a bit different in the near field, where you don't really have propagating waves yet, or at least not all of the energy is in the form of propagating waves. If you snork up some of the H-field or E-field components in the near-field area, it DOES look like a load to the transmitter, and you CAN reduce some of the propagating energy in the far field. But you can do what you like in the far field and it doesn't matter to anyone else.

Think of it this way. If you have a 100W light bulb in a field, putting a piece of black paper on one side won't reduce the light delivered to a piece of white paper on the other side.