Steam powered iPod generator

Thomas built a steam powered iPod generator. From Jake von Slatt's Steampunk Workshop:

I coupled a Lego Technic Motor to a Jensen #75 steam engine to make a crude generator. From there I built a 5V regulator circuit and soldered in a female USB connection to power any USB device. Since I wanted to use it to charge my iPod, I put in a diode and a .5 amp fuse to provide some circuit protection. Attached are some pictures of it and here are some links to videos of it in action. Unfortunately you can't see the charge light on the ipod, But as you can hear, the iPod really loads the engine. I was somewhat surprise it could hack it.

What a cool idea. Just think if they could scale up this idea and use steam to generate electricity for entire cities!

• [arlopickens]

  Yeah, but does it make popcorn if you put it next to three other iPods?

• [Dungeonbrownies]

  Dont wanna sound like a d-bag, but i concur with willis. Most electricity comes from steam. (coal or nuclear, with a lesser amount from natural sources such as wind and solar or hydroelectric dams)

• [pointfour]

  I think some of you have missed Mark’s sarcasm…

• [Takuan]

  you can buy a small hand crank cell phone charger for five bucks. Why does anyone not think a small steam engine/generator set can’t charge an Ipod?
  This is why we need steampunk, there is such a thing as technoliteracy; the knowing of what is possible through hand and tool. Or were you being arch?

• [spazzm]

  Just think if they could scale up this idea and use steam to generate electricity for entire cities!

  Yay! We’d be able to grow oranges on Greenland, wheat on Antarctica!

• [Takuan]

  http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2006/06/how_to_build_your_own_band_aid.html

• [Connie H.]

  This qualifies on my “actually powered by STEAM” neatness list for stuff alleged to be Steampunkish.

• [Anonymous]

  What I want to know is the efficiency of this method – since it’s basically a bigger version at the other end of the power grid anyway would you get away with putting your own coal powered generator in the basement? (Power line losses are not to be ignore

  It’ll keep the house warm in winter anyway I’m sure.

  Also, I suggest everyone report their recaptcha words so it can be made into a continous written work (it’s words in books that couldn’t be OCR’d, so make it back into a decontextualised book): sentence seances

• [Willis]

  Alright, I admit, the sarcasm was a little subtle for me on a Thursday evening. Sorry, Mark, guess I’m just an Asshole.

• [Michiel]

  What does a toy steam engine like that use to heat the water? Something like lighter fluid?

• [Phikus]

  Mine just charges on the same USB connection I use to load it with music.

• [nck wntrhltr]

  My god, man! If the heat from the charging iPod battery can, in turn, power the boiler you may have unwittingly discovered a perpetual motion machine to solve the world’s looming energy crisis!

• [ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive]

  The city of Burbank is powered by a steam electricity generating plant.

• [Akheloios]

  We need a aPod, based on the lovely Ms. Lovelace’s mp3 hack for the Difference Engine.

• [zandar]

  @#1: Lincoln Logs?

• [four12]

  @1: From the manufacturer’s page, the #75 is powered with dry fuel tablets.

  http://www.jensensteamengines.com/hobby/h2575.htm

• [Michiel]

  @7 Thanks! So, these then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexamine_fuel_tablet

  The Lincoln Logs made me laugh.

• [Anonymous]

  We have steam power for cities, It’s called nuclear power plants.

• [Anonymous]

  mmm…. the sweet, sweet smell of coal smog!
  London just ain’t the same without a choking miasma…
  —-
  still, should the energy apocalypse occur, I now feel more assured that I can still listen to my mp3s.tu

• [Anonymous]

  Don’t we already generate power this way? Fun though, I loved my steam powered model as a kid. i think i should burn down the trees in my back yard to power my Macbook :)

• [Stefan Jones]

  I had one of those steam engines when I was a little nipper. I think I would appreciate it more now than when I was six.

• [Anonymous]

  LOL “Just think if they could scale up this idea and use steam to generate electricity for entire cities!” – thats how power IS generated. with coal fired steam turbines or even nuclear heated steam turbines.

• [spiderman0521]

  I had one of those too, and I loved that thing! Maybe my parents still have it somewhere!

• [rushkoff]

  How does the diode help protect the circuit? I thought diodes were little lights. Do they help buffer little surges?

• [Anonymous]

  There are a number of types of diodes; light emitting ones (L.E.Ds) are just one.

• [trieste]

  “What a cool idea. Just think if they could scale up this idea and use steam to generate electricity for entire cities!”

  I really hate your neo-liberal utopianism. This is just like your stories of underground tunnels in cities that people travel along as well as those ‘aluminum tubes’ in the sky! It’ll never happen! Never!!

• [Willis]

  Just think if they could scale up this idea and use steam to generate electricity for entire cities!

  Let me introduce you to this little thing called a nuclear power plant. They’re great! Ok, not really, but they do use steam to turn a generator, just like that little gizmo up there.

  Rushkoff, Diodes are an electrical component that allows current to travel in one direction, but not the other, thus protecting sensitive pieces of circuitry. A Light Emitting Diode, does the same thing, but has the side effect of releasing visible light.

• [bkofford]

  @4 Pretty much any power plant that burns a fuel or utilizes a nuclear reaction uses the resulting heat to create steam to turn turbines to generate electricity.

  I suspect the last sentence is actually a joke, meant to be read sarcastically.

• [teufelsdroch]

  We all remember this don’t we?

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

  It’s bogus. Something about ‘charge an ipod with X’ fills an urban myth need.

  While this is at least a plausible generator, I’m gonna call bullshit. The OLD urban myth at least faked a ‘charging’ screen.