Inductive charging

[haproot]

Anyone ever thought of trying to incorporate inductive charging into an e-cig.

If you have a Sonicare toothbrush you can see, it charges without any physical electrical connection. There is just a coil in the device, and a coil in the charger and when you place them close to eachother (toothbrush on stand) it charges. This concept could make for an awesome PCC or even a pad you could lay your ecig on and it just charges by sitting there.

Thoughts?

Inductive charging - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Dave Rickey]

Inductive or capacitive power transfer can be very lossy and tends to be best for a trickle-charge situation, where you leave the device on the charger all day, then use it for minutes. Getting more than single-digit milliamps moved that way requires very careful mating of components, and getting up to the .25A or so levels needed for charging the typical eCig would probably require EM fields strong enough to wipe credit cards.

It's not out of the question as a concept, but probably not a practical option for modders unless we could find some pre-built components for it small enough to incorporate (that toothbrush, for example, the charging element inside the brush is almost as big as an 18500, definitely bigger than an 18350).

--Dave

 

[haproot]

How about on a big battery mod? Unless the components become smaller of course.

If you look at the wiki article they do mention that they used it on the EV-1 electric cars. Those had to have used a large amount of power. I know with our Sonicare, it charges rather quickly. And we don't have to have the charger plugged in for a good week with two of us using it a couple times a day. (I don't like keeping batteries full all the time because I know it can destroy them)

 

[surbitonPete]

Anyone ever thought of trying to incorporate inductive charging into an e-cig.

If you have a Sonicare toothbrush you can see, it charges without any physical electrical connection. There is just a coil in the device, and a coil in the charger and when you place them close to eachother (toothbrush on stand) it charges. This concept could make for an awesome PCC or even a pad you could lay your ecig on and it just charges by sitting there.

Thoughts?

Inductive charging - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I did try modding a sonicare toothbrush but although it was the right voltage the batteries must have had too much internal resistance or something because it wouldn't even make the atty get warm.

 

[kc0cmp]

Anyone ever thought of trying to incorporate inductive charging into an e-cig.

If you have a Sonicare toothbrush you can see, it charges without any physical electrical connection. There is just a coil in the device, and a coil in the charger and when you place them close to eachother (toothbrush on stand) it charges. This concept could make for an awesome PCC or even a pad you could lay your ecig on and it just charges by sitting there.

Thoughts?

Inductive charging - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Were delving into Tesla's work now. I'd like to see something like this resembling a 510 passthrough. inductive trickle charging all the time. Unfortunately, as Tesla was beginning to discover, inductive power transfer is only good over sort distances and within certain tolerances, and to boot, is pretty darn inefficient. Otherwise the radio stations would charge your radio while you listen

It is a great idea...however flawed. I'd love to be able to walk round the house with my e-cig charging whichever room I'm in. I'm just not ready to install a massive coil on the roof as the transfer antenna to accomplish it.

Ideas, no matter how foolish they seem at the time, drive technology. Keep commin up with them, you'll hit a winner eventually!

 

[Scottbee]

Inductive or capacitive power transfer can be very lossy and tends to be best for a trickle-charge situation, where you leave the device on the charger all day, then use it for minutes. Getting more than single-digit milliamps moved that way requires very careful mating of components, and getting up to the .25A or so levels needed for charging the typical eCig would probably require EM fields strong enough to wipe credit cards.
--Dave

Wow.. I don't agree with that at all. Consider that ALL A/C transformers are inductively coupled.. and coupling large currents is absolutely no problem at all. Even with concentric single-winding air-gap units. And since the receiving core (primary) would most likely be a cylindrical well, the stray fields would be close to negligible. Of course, the secondary coil would then have to be run to a rectifier bridge and the charge control circuitry would have to be on-board the PV. Technically that's not a challenge, but it would add some cost to the battery.

I'm confident that you'll see something like this in the future. A simple desktop cylindrical "well" that you can put the LED end of the e-cig in between use. Substantially more reliable than exposed contacts.

 

[surbitonPete]

actually I am sure that just recently there was something on telly (that I wasn't really paying attention to) about how they have already designed some kind of inductive home where nothing in the home requires being plugged into a power supply. I think I remember seeing a telly and a computer both working without being plugged into any socket.

 

[ApOsTle51]

i saw that too Pete, they had A kitchen worktop with embedded induction power supply and a blender with the same Tech. no wire or plugs , you just put the blender over a specific point on the worktop and it worked as normal...

pretty cool stuff.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwkKkLDhAJ0

 

[haproot]

It is a great idea...however flawed. I'd love to be able to walk round the house with my e-cig charging whichever room I'm in. I'm just not ready to install a massive coil on the roof as the transfer antenna to accomplish it.

Ideas, no matter how foolish they seem at the time, drive technology. Keep commin up with them, you'll hit a winner eventually!

Thanks. However I'm thinking of smaller, shouldn't have to install a massive coil to charge your e-cig. I was just thinking of incorporating something into a batt, and charger that would allow the batt to be charged inductively.

hell, the more I think of it. The power to the atty could be provided inductively as well. The technology is growing, i'm sure it's possible. But may prove too expensive to be practical at this time.

I'm thinking of it just like Scottbee. You could have a pcc your ecig just slips into, don't have to worry about screwing it in or worring about a spring loaded contact, it'll just work, because it's inductive.

But with stuff like the inductive kitchen being concieved, hell probably won't have to even mess with batteries much longer. You'll just tap straight into your houses inductive power grid. That would be awesome.

cool stuff guys thanks for the input!

 

[Scottbee]

Naw.... the FDA will discover that LSIC (Large Scale Inductive Coupling) caused cancer in 1 out of 1,000,000 laboratory rats that were exposed to the B-field. Game over... =þ~

 

[haproot]

Naw.... the FDA will discover that LSIC (Large Scale Inductive Coupling) caused cancer in 1 out of 1,000,000 laboratory rats that were exposed to the B-field. Game over... =þ~

LOL aint it the truth!

 

[surbitonPete]

i saw that too Pete, they had A kitchen worktop with embedded induction power supply and a blender with the same Tech. no wire or plugs , you just put the blender over a specific point on the worktop and it worked as normal...

pretty cool stuff.


YouTube - CES 2009: Powermat Wirelessly Powered Kitchen of the Future

that's it Apo! ......not exactly the same show I saw on telly but the same technology. As you say it's some pretty cool stuff.

 

[Dave Rickey]

Wow.. I don't agree with that at all. Consider that ALL A/C transformers are inductively coupled.. and coupling large currents is absolutely no problem at all. Even with concentric single-winding air-gap units. And since the receiving core (primary) would most likely be a cylindrical well, the stray fields would be close to negligible. Of course, the secondary coil would then have to be run to a rectifier bridge and the charge control circuitry would have to be on-board the PV. Technically that's not a challenge, but it would add some cost to the battery.

I'm confident that you'll see something like this in the future. A simple desktop cylindrical "well" that you can put the LED end of the e-cig in between use. Substantially more reliable than exposed contacts.

Transformers are two inductive coils wrapped around a common core, which maximizes efficiency but is not useful for our purposes. By the same token, a tuned RF capacitive transfer can reach 99%+ efficiency, but only if you're just passing the RF (it won't pass DC, only AC) and the elements are relatively fixed (they can rotate around each other, but tolerances are tight).

It's not un-doable, but finding an existing solution we can cannibalize out of a comparatively cheap piece of consumer electronics that moves the amount of current we need (minimum 100mA) seems unlikely (those toothbrushes, for example, need 24 hours to charge what appears to be at most a 300mAh battery, which implies a 25mA charging current).

--Dave

 

[LameBMX]

Yes inductive charging can be done. It is however crazy lossy. Take the kitchen mat and household inductive pickups, Yes they are possible, and even easy to accomplish! But I would not want to have their electric bill. The possibility is there to have a small coil in our e-cigs and a larger charging coil. Larger coil base to small coil pickup is fine, its more about turns of the coil than the size of the coil.
A long time ago i worked through a design for a large diameter flat coil primary. Smaller diameter ferrous coils and diode for half wave recification. The primary would have been basically in a mousepad. Items to charge would have been cellphone keyboard and mouse. The downfall was it would have needed somewhere around a 400W PC power supply, and for it to be left on all the time to achieve the ease of use I would expect.
And haproot, lithium ion batterys actually fare better when kept charged up, they do not like to be fully discharged. nor do they handle much over charging (which should be a protection in the charger)
And adding that last comment made me realize that over charge protections would also have to be built into the devices. thus possibly increasing size.

 

[surbitonPete]

Yes inductive charging can be done. It is however crazy lossy. Take the kitchen mat and household inductive pickups, Yes they are possible, and even easy to accomplish! But I would not want to have their electric bill. The possibility is there to have a small coil in our e-cigs and a larger charging coil. Larger coil base to small coil pickup is fine, its more about turns of the coil than the size of the coil.
A long time ago i worked through a design for a large diameter flat coil primary. Smaller diameter ferrous coils and diode for half wave recification. The primary would have been basically in a mousepad. Items to charge would have been cellphone keyboard and mouse. The downfall was it would have needed somewhere around a 400W PC power supply, and for it to be left on all the time to achieve the ease of use I would expect.
And haproot, lithium ion batterys actually fare better when kept charged up, they do not like to be fully discharged. nor do they handle much over charging (which should be a protection in the charger)
And adding that last comment made me realize that over charge protections would also have to be built into the devices. thus possibly increasing size.

Hmm damn that's typical ... inductive powered equipment in the home sounded fantastic but if it needs lot's more electricity to run it's hopeless in a time when we are supposed to be doing everything we can to cut down on consumption. ...the rich don't have to worry about saving the planet though so they will all still have it in their homes.

 

[haproot]

And haproot, lithium ion batterys actually fare better when kept charged up, they do not like to be fully discharged. nor do they handle much over charging (which should be a protection in the charger)
size.

That isn't entirely true. In my experience and own research I have done on lithium batteries, being a techy (computer IT professional) I've kept up on it quite a bit.

I know laptops for example if left plugged in all the time, the battery will eventually crap out. I know we've had laptops out in the field, and people just use them on the docking station all the time. They are charged 100% non stop 24/7 for months. And after they finally decide to take it somewhere the battery dies in 2 mins. In my personal experience, they fare better when topped off frequently early in their life, but need to be cycled throughout their life. Keeping it charged all the time is definitely not good for them. If you do keep them topped off, they do need to be discharged completely at least once in a while.

I follow that philosophy with all my li-on batteries, and to date I'm usually the one with the laptop that lasts 6 - 8 hourse, the phone that lasts over a week (with regular use), hell my mp3 player never dies, but it uses lithium polymer.

 

[LameBMX]

That isn't entirely true. In my experience and own research I have done on lithium batteries, being a techy (computer IT professional) I've kept up on it quite a bit.

I know laptops for example if left plugged in all the time, the battery will eventually crap out. I know we've had laptops out in the field, and people just use them on the docking station all the time. They are charged 100% non stop 24/7 for months. And after they finally decide to take it somewhere the battery dies in 2 mins. In my personal experience, they fare better when topped off frequently early in their life, but need to be cycled throughout their life. Keeping it charged all the time is definitely not good for them. If you do keep them topped off, they do need to be discharged completely at least once in a while.

I follow that philosophy with all my li-on batteries, and to date I'm usually the one with the laptop that lasts 6 - 8 hourse, the phone that lasts over a week (with regular use), hell my mp3 player never dies, but it uses lithium polymer.

The different battery materials behave differently. NiMH's benefit greatly from full discharge to full charge. li-po's (i believe) need used, but should not be fully discharged, nor be charged above their actual voltage. Normally there are built in protection circuits in these batteries so that should never occur. ie a shunt ckt at 1v which makes the battery appear dead for all purposes, and a zener diode at its max voltage so it shorts to whatever is trying to charge it.

As for the laptop, most of them have proper battery cycling programs which take care of a charge/discharge for you, my thinkpad went as far as letting you adjust it to on the go, or on the desk. on the go, stayed 99% or 100% on the charger. the on the desk would let it drop down to 85% on the charger.

Now I have never had a cellphone last 2 days without being charged, whats your secret? Hell my treo won't survive a day of good use.

 

[crashtestjeep]

there was something on youtube about this but with cellphones instead of ecigs. I think it was on iphone batts if I remember correctly-was a pad you set it on, could have one at ur desk or whatnot, justt set it down and it charged!

 

[HaploVoss]

What would be easier... and nearly as nifty... that I've been working on and have had relative success with is a magnetic connection system. Using the small rare earth magnets, with a center pin that has a flexible side... then a insulating ring, then an outer magnet (same poles facing upward of course)... Negative lead is acid soldered onto the outer mag ring, positive to the center mag.

With a small plastic sleeve with a flexible rubber collet, you can fit nearly ANY battery size / type snugly through the collet and it will magnetically snap into place with the center pin lining it up vertically... the flexible side extensions on the center pin would also help stabilize the battery, but this can be done away with as well since most manual batteries are coming out without a center hole these days.

Take care,
- Hap

 

[End_User-X]

Yeah like Lame mentioned about the NiMH batts, those are the ones used in trickle charged/inductively charged devices like a toothbrush. Not so good for Lithium based batts.