Yes, I was thinking the same thing. You can buy now on Amazon a hand-crank LED light for $12, so surely these can be made far more efficient and cheaper with $200,000.
I'm not sure why you think flywheels would be a better energy store than a bag of rocks.
Flywheels have a lot of engineering hurdles that can't be met for $5:
- they need to be well-lubricated, clear of dust (which I imagine to be a problem in some of the environments they're trying to sell to)
- they need to be perfectly balanced, or the shifting center of gravity will vibrate the housing - sapping away precious energy.
- they need to run at high, ever-decreasing speeds, which means generators that can extract a constant power level at different speeds
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Yes, I was thinking the same thing. You can buy now on Amazon a hand-crank LED light for $12, so surely these can be made far more efficient and cheaper with $200,000.
But those require a battery, which will only survive so many (hundred?) recharges, no?
I think they use capacitors. At any rate, almost anything would be better than "gravity power". Even a flywheel.
I'm not sure why you think flywheels would be a better energy store than a bag of rocks.
Flywheels have a lot of engineering hurdles that can't be met for $5: - they need to be well-lubricated, clear of dust (which I imagine to be a problem in some of the environments they're trying to sell to) - they need to be perfectly balanced, or the shifting center of gravity will vibrate the housing - sapping away precious energy. - they need to run at high, ever-decreasing speeds, which means generators that can extract a constant power level at different speeds