KS: Anywhere Electricity Powered by Shape Memory Titanium

[EEVblog]

I expect this crap on Indiegogo. How did it make it onto KS?
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/efa/anywhere-electricity-powered-by-shape-memory-titan

[timb]

Someone should hook one of these up to the Fontus Self Filling Water Bottle, then you can get continuous water from air!

[ludzinc]

Read their page, didn't watch the video.

Only power rating I saw was the in-development unit that ruins on 'industrial heat' and puts out 65W.

So with a large Delta-T I can see some usefulness to this - but who would it compare to a bunch of thermocouples in it's place (i'd assume the latter is more efficient just through the lack of moving parts).

As for the field demo with a small Delta_T during day / night, sure it can light a bunch of leds, but how doe sit compare to simple solar cell??

 

[cat87]

There are actually some poor guys that bought  whatever those guys were selling.
I really think I'm in the wrong line of work 

[timgiles]

How can KS allow this project page on their site! It is awful. Even if it was for a nonBS project, it should have been removed or never allowed up. Just awful.

[edy]

 

Why did I ever click on the link... that is 5 minutes of my life I can never get back.

   Complete and utter 100% grade "A" BULL SHEISTER... There is so much wrong going on that it defies explanation.

From what I gathered from their horrible animations, the Nitinol (which undergoes a phase change due to temperature and is one of the features exploited by orthodontists when using Nitinol wires for braces) is used to stretch and expand a hydraulic piston which, due to a one-way valve, presumably works like a pump to compress oil from a reservoir into a cyclinder. When the oil is released from the cylinder through an exit valve it creates movement of a turbine/motor that is used to generate electricity. The oil is then recirculated back into the main reservoir.

This is just the latest iteration of the old "over-unity" energy scams from at least the 1970's as seen here:




CORRECTION:

It is not over-unity... these devices work and can harvest energy from otherwise wasted heat but the amount of useful energy that can be extracted and the limited application situations make it impractical. The device may work in an environment with frequent temperature fluctuations and the amount of energy it puts out will be tiny.