Considering the space and wind speed you have available, will a wind turbine be able to give you as much power as you need? And if the potential to create battery power without the use of an outlet wasn't enough, some models, such as the Sidewinder, even have a built-in LED light that will work after a few seconds of cranking. This feature could be helpful in the event you've lost your phone and there's no other available illumination. Yes, it will require more energy to wind the spring than will be released when it unwinds. And yes, a human is not going to be able to wind a spring that would be capable of generating any significant amount of power.

They’re not suitable for every home: home wind turbines just don’t work for everyone. You need to have the right wind speed to power them, which means you need lots of unobstructed space – which is usually only the case in rural homes (sorry, city dwellers!). Basically, we need an alternative STORAGE mechanism for storing electrical energy other than the chemical battery solutions we have had for years. Or even What are the Top 10 affordable (best budget, best cheap, or even best expensive!!!) Wind Up Power Generator available? Etc. What about the kitchen appliance idea? Is that workable? Spring powered blenders, can openers, potato peelers, coffee grinders, mixers, choppers, ect... Could mount the spring to the wall and use a flexable PTO shaft to hook up whichever appliance you want to run, I guess. Powering your home with wind energy is a fantastic way to stay green – but it’s not cheap or easy. Before you take the leap, remember, you need to consider these 5 crucial questions:A portable rechargeable radio is smaller than average but rather convenient. Any wind-up solar iPhone charger will not occupy a lot of space whenever put away, and you may take it anyplace like handbag or pouch. They work with all iPhone devices, iPad or Tablets, most cell phones and popular electronic gadgets. A fit person can produce between 80 and 100 watts, like on a generator bicycle. To produce 750 watthours, a person would have to cycle vigorously for ten hours, to run the compressor for one hour, assuming zero losses for energy conversion efficiencies to wind a spring. In real life, I would expect to lose 1/3 to 1/2 of the input energy due to friction, heating and other inefficiencies. So in real life, (just as an example) a person would have to cycle vigorously for 20 hours, to wind the giant spring that could run a compressor for one hour.

Sony and Phillps have entered the wind-up radio market and Motorola have teamed up with Freeplay to develop a wind-up mobile phone charger that offers 5 minutes of talk time for 45 seconds of winding. The product is designed to work with all Motorola phones and will be available in the US later this year. There are no plans for an Australian release as yet. Freeplay Energy has sold over three million units since its beginnings, and over 150,000 of these have gone to countries in the developing world - most of these through the assistance of government and aid agencies - and although the units are still relatively expensive there is a continuing push to make this technology count where it's needed most. and then, taking off the gears and another plastic layer, the mainspring underneath (right). This is what the spring looks like when it's totally wound down. When it's wound up tightly, it fits entirely inside the white box. It's quite hard to squeeze sturdy metal into such a small space—and that's why it can store energy so effectively: the harder you have to work to compress a

Clockwork toys from yesteryear

They look cool, too!: if you’re prepared to splash out, there are lots of architecturally innovative wind turbine designs out there. Why not go the extra mile and make your home look as futuristic as its energy? You can DC recharge through linking up to PC USB booster through micro USB power connection. High calibre rubber splatter resistant casing radio is just right for activities in the open air, for example hiking, camping. Super small sized, light-weight and effortless to carry, an effective survival system whenever your mobile phone stops. If you have enough wind resource in your area and the situation is right, small wind electric systems are one of the most cost-effective home-based renewable energy systems -- with zero emissions and pollution. Animation: How a cam works: As the green cam turns, the blue box rises into the air. You can use a cam like this, driven by a rotating wheel, to make something happen every so often. The slower the wheel turns, the less often it'll happen.

The gears inside the case take power from the spring and drive the single crank on the outside of the case at The Watch: Its Construction, Its Merits and Defects, How to Choose It, and How to Use It by Henry F. Piaget by Mary Booth. Vinten, 1860. Another good historical introduction, with clear and useful illustrations of things like escapements. You can read the whole book online. It's also available from the Internet Archive. Also, keep in mind that your wind turbine will need long-term maintenance. While some are designed to operate for over a decade without a tune-up, you will occasionally want an expert to come to look your system over and make repairs as necessary. Price For example Gasohol E10 (10% ethanol 90% gasoline by volume) has an Energy Density of 15.08 MJoules per gallon. So, a 10 gallon gas tank in an average automobile stores roughly 150.8 MJoules of energy. That's a lot of energy. Can any spring/shaft combination come close to that amount of Energy? That's what I'm interested in answering. Making Things Move: DIY Mechanisms for Inventors, Hobbyists, and Artists by Dustyn Roberts. TAB/McGraw-Hill, 2011. A great introduction to the principles of simple machines, followed by a very practical look at materials, power sources, and problems like friction. Includes example projects.All of this is just the tip of the iceberg for wind-up energy - mobile phones, MP3s, laptops and scores of other devices become far more energy efficient as well as critical to our daily lives. Products based on the Motorola Freecharge concept are already beginning to emerge from elsewhere and British company Atkin Design and Development have produced a next generation 'wind-up battery' that uses a supercapacitor instead of a rechargeable lithium battery. When this innovation was adapted to the wind-up radio, Atkin Design in conjunction with Sony produced a unit that plays for 90 minutes after one minute of winding. A strange thought I had was to run small kitchen appliances with it, like mixers & blenders; stuff that goes round and round. If there were a shaft coming off the spring with a universal connector at the end, then maybe an appliance could be attached and run. Using hand-powered generators is pretty simple. Some travel gadgets actually have generators built in. For example, gadgets with built-in hand-powered generators that people commonly use on camping trips include a radio and a light that can be used for signaling if you need help. Both of these devices can run off of regular batteries most of the time, but if you're stranded with dead batteries, a hand crank on the side lets you power it up enough to tune in a weather report or use the light. You don't have to worry about connecting the generator to anything because it all works internally. A typical home uses approximately 10,649 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year (about 877 kilowatt-hours per month). Depending on the average wind speed in the area, a wind turbine rated in the range of 5–15 kilowatts would be required to make a significant contribution to this demand. A 1.5-kilowatt wind turbine will meet the needs of a home requiring 300 kilowatt-hours per month in a location with a 14 mile-per-hour (6.26 meters-per-second) annual average wind speed. Second problem---a really powerful spring capable of doing useful work is going to require a lot of energy to wind, probably more than a person can reasonably supply. Using a machine to wind the spring would be wasteful because of energy losses when converting energy from one form to another.