13 Energizing Batteries: Mini Nukes to Hand Cranks

#13 Wind-Up Batteries

 

The batteries we use in dozens of gadgets every day have stayed more or less the same for many years, but that doesn’t mean designers aren’t dreaming up innovative and sometimes perplexing new versions. From human-powered rechargeable alkaline batteries to nuclear batteries the size of a penny, these 13 designs seek out new energy sources in small packages.

(images via: design boom)[Via:]

Wouldn’t it be nice if, when  the batteries in your gadget die on the go, you could just crank them back up? This battery concept by Qian Jiang has a built-in crank and a light indicator that turns green when you’ve got enough power.

#12 Finger Battery Charger

(image via: design launches)[Via:]

Just spin this cell phone battery around your finger – um – 130 times, and you’ll have enough power to chat for hours. This unusual concept by Song Teaho and Hyejin Lee gives fidgeters something productive to do with their hands and eliminates the need for chargers and wires.

#11 Jump Rope Battery Charger

(images via: yanko design)[Via:]

Get your exercise and power your gadgets at the same time with anenergy-harvesting jump rope designed by Jooyong Kim and Sungkyung Kim. Rechargeable batteries are placed inside the jump rope’s handles; as you jump, the display tells you how many revolutions you’ve competed, how many calories you’ve burned and how much charge you’ve produced for the batteries.

#10 Hungry Batteries

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This design is purely conceptual – with no details worked out as to how it would actually work – but it’s interesting nonetheless. Mac Funamizu imagines batteries that would make it physically clear when they’re out of juice by growing thinner as they wear down. One glance tells you how much longer you’ve got before you need to recharge.

#9 Penny-Sized Nuclear Battery

(images via: munews.missouri.edu)[Via:]

You can hold nuclear power in the palm of your hand – literally – in the form of a penny-sized nuclear battery created by researchers at the University of Missouri. Providing an ultra-concentrated power density, the secret to this radioisotope battery is a liquid semiconductor. These batteries are used in underwater systems, pacemakers and space satellites.

#8 Continuance USB-Powered Battery

(images via: yanko design)[Via:]

Not only does the USB-powered battery function as a universal power source on the go for all USB-equipped devices, it also eliminates the need for a battery charger. Plug the batteries into your computer to charge them up and then, if you’re caught with a dead iPod or cell phone, just hook it up to the battery for a quick fix.

#7 Direct Plug-In Batteries

(images via: yanko design)[Via:]

A similar idea bypasses the battery charger by placing outlet prongs right in the battery itself. Designed by Qian Jiang and Yiying Wu, the IF battery ensures that you’re never without battery power as long as there’s an outlet around. Of course, the downside is you can only charge one battery at a time when a charger can take on four or more.

#6 One-Size-Fits-All

(images via: gizmag)[Via:]

Don’t you hate when you buy a new gadget and realize you don’t have the right size batteries on hand? The AtoD battery concept by Pyeong Joo Goh, Jong Seung Choi & Ji Soo Hong aims to eliminate that problem in a rather strange and surprising way: it’s made of memory foam, so it can squeeze into any battery slot. Of course, you’ve probably already realized there’s a problem with this concept: there are different sized batteries for a reason, and this nickel hydroxide battery, with the capacity of a AA, isn’t going to cut it for devices that need a D.

#5 The Micro Lemon Battery

(image via: instructables)[Via:]

Make your own decorative battery-light in the shape of a flower with this tutorial by Madaeon on Instructables. The battery takes the lemon-power concept, which normally requires about 3-4 lemons to illuminate an LED bulb, and makes it more powerful. The design requires just a few drops of lemon juice to light up a 3.5V white LED for at least an hour.

#4 Vibration Powered Batteries

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The Vibration-Powered Generating Battery fits in any standard AA slot and is rechargeable, but you never have to put it in a charger. Just shake it up, and it’ll regain its power. Developed by printer/sewing machine manufacturer Brother, these batteries are the gadget-powering equivalent of the Shake Weight.

#3 Bacon Battery

(image via: instructables)[Via:]

That’s right, you can actually power gadgets with slimy, fatty strips of raw bacon. Instructables offers a number of tutorials for building your own bacon battery, including this one, which can power an LED light.

#2 Wind-Powered iPhone Battery Charger

(image via: gizmag.com)[Via:]

Need to charge your iPhone, but there’s no place to plug it in? Just strap it into the iFan and hold it up to the wind, and let nature do the work. Designed by Tjeerd Veenhoven, the iFan is made from a modified computer fan. It takes about six hours to fully charge an iPhone, but just hook it onto your bike or fix it to a pole in your yard and you’re good to go.

#1 Kineticel: Capturing Kinetic Energy

(image via: reuben miller) [Via:]

No time to turn a crank or spin your finger around in the air? Then this is the human-powered battery charger for you. The Kineticel by Yael Miller is a piezoelectric battery that can ‘capture’ energy from everyday activities like working out, running a vacuum or rocking a baby.

13 Energizing Batteries: Mini Nukes to Hand Cranks

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5 Ridiculously Huge Handguns

The world of firearms is much like the world of male bodybuilding. Iron is pumped, stretched to its limit, and filled with all sorts of volatile chemicals designed to generate explosive power and an impressive aesthetic presence. Following the trends of the overbuilt, steroid-injected weight lifters of recent decades, the human obsession with disproportionately large firearms has only increased as the demand for “more stopping power and a bigger hole” has become the popular and widely accepted trend for judging a weapon’s legitimacy. This trend has literally driven certain weapons engineers stark raving mad, and has raised the issue among seasoned firearms experts: Size matters. But how big is too big?

#5. .50 Caliber Black Powder Wheel Lock Pistol

The .50 caliber flintlock or hammerlock pistols date back hundreds and hundreds of years. The need for the .50 caliber chambering was due to the production standards of the day. A .50 caliber round is exactly one half inch in diameter, making it easy to measure and reproduce accurately by any weapon or ammunition manufacturer. Back in those fabled times, little clamps were produced in the shapes of this common load, meaning that any regular metallurgist could melt down a block of lead or steel and create a projectile for his weapon. It was as easy as using a modern day hole punch. Couple this easy-to-replicate ball projectile (this is not a pointed bullet, rather a ball which is not rifled) with the fact that you can put a whole heck of a lot of black powder behind it, and you have created a weapon which can take down a horse—much less a man—with relative ease. But remember, you only get one shot, and that one shot is not going to be accurate beyond 15 yards and will severely decelerate beyond this distance. Why would you want one for self defense? You wouldn’t. Regardless, they are highly prized collector’s items.

Via: Toptenz.net

#4. Colt 45-70 Peacemaker

At some point during the 1970s some genius was under the impression that the .45 caliber Colt Peacemaker (John Wayne’s gun of choice) did not “have enough stopping power.” How anyone could arrive at this conclusion is beyond sane reasoning, given that discharging the standard .45 caliber load feels akin to slapping a brick wall. American engineering, however, devised a way to make this gun even larger and more powerful. Thus, the 45-70 load, originally developed for use in an infantry and/or “buffalo” rifle, was introduced into the sphere of modern day handguns.

Via: Toptenz.net

#3. Magnum Research 45-70 Government Hand Cannon

Despite what some people will tell you, there are variants on the standard 45-70 government load. Some feel like a jackhammer, while others feel like you’ve pulled the pin on a grenade and forgot to let go. The “Hand Cannon” delivers that good old “grenade-in your-hand” feeling. It is a weapon that should not be fired by the unsuspecting individual, or anyone for that matter. It is utterly beyond practicality in every sense of the word. Certain models measure over two feet in length and are impossible to wield (safely or effectively) with one arm

Via: Toptenz.net

#2. WTS .50 BMG (Browning Machine gun Cartridge) Pistol

Beyond all reasonable doubt, this is the largest and most formidable handgun you could ever actually wield in a gunfight. Following in the footsteps of Hitler’s obsession with giant railroad cannons, the Germans are still producing the biggest, most outlandish crap on the market today. The .50 Browning Machinegun cartridge was designed for use against tanks, airplanes, armored personnel carriers, and in some cases it may be used by high-powered sniper rifles. It is more than twice as powerful as the fabled 45-70 government round, and one can only imagine that shooting it in a pistol format would be painful, unwieldy, and quite hazardous for everyone involved. If a soft target is hit with a .50 caliber BMG bullet, it will be shredded/exploded into pieces. The gargantuan .50 caliber d.e.ath-monster projectile can fly at a breakneck speed for miles, even after penetrating one or two targets. Discharging it at your common household thief is ill advised… unless you don’t mind the possibility of inadvertently p.e.gging one of your neighbors. Would someone be scared of it? Yes. Would they run away? Yes. Would you be able to use your right hand to jot down the grocery list post-firing? Doubtful.

Via: Toptenz.net

#1. Pfeifer Zeliska 28mm Revolver

The biggest, most worthless manifestation of an inferiority complex ever created by one man. Originally manufactured under the name “Remington Model 1859,” this copy of the formerly U.S.-made revolver was built by Ryszard Tobys and measures 4-foot-(1.26 m) long. To give some basis for comparison, the 28mm projectile is 8mm wider than the U.S. military’s fabled “20mm Cannon,” a weapon used primarily for destroying tanks, sinking boats, or shooting down heavily armored airplanes. While entirely impractical and, one would guess, impossible to use as an even mildly effective tool for any purpose other than felling trees, the 28mm revolver has made its mark as truly being the world’s largest pistol. And simultaneously the world’s most comical waste of lead.

by Jesse Stretch

Please visit http://www.JesseStretch.com to find out more about this talented author and his publications.

Via: Toptenz.net

5 Ridiculously Huge Handguns

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The Black Hornet Is A $195,000 Spy Plane That Fits In Your Hand

Microtechnology is very interesting, especially in military technology. Smaller the things, harder they are for people to notice.

The British have been using this little drone for about a year. It’s called the Black Hornet Nano Unmanned Aircraft System, costs $195,000 and can fly for a total of 25 minutes. It is equipped with a small camera that can send back full video or still images to the soldiers screen, with range of up to 1000 meters. The device is 10 cm long and weighing 16 grams, with a 4 inch rotor span – think a little longer than your middle finger.

The Black Hornet is powered by a small battery pack that enables it to fly at up to 10 m/s. What is really awesome about it is that it can be controlled via an ‘autopilot’ type mode where it goes to its destination via a GPS chip.

British troops have been using the device since August of 2012, and seem to find the device very useful. They’ve been so well received in fact, that the British Ministry of Defense has ordered 160 more units for a total cost of £20 million ($31.3 million).

Overall, the use of micro and nanotechnology for military use will increase over the next decade, since not only is it getting ‘cheaper’, but there are more and more breakthroughs in that area all the time. What it means is that eventually this kind of technology will make its way down to the consumer market. Obviously not drones, but the same sort of high-tech miniaturization technology that the military likes. Technology like this often times starts out being used in the military, and then some ingenious business finds a way of utilizing parts or all of the tech in a consumer application.

Source: Gizmocrazed.com

The Black Hornet Is A $195,000 Spy Plane That Fits In Your Hand

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DOUBLE BARREL HAND GUN

Aresenal Firearms has come out with a Double Barrel Hand Gun. It is .45 caliber, and gives new meaning to ‘two in the back of the head’. This is truly a gangsters gun and will get any point across that you trying to make.
Photograph. Google.com. Web.

DOUBLE BARREL HAND GUN

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