10 replies to this topic

[Adam Roach]

I noticed that more and more people are using computers, and that lots of people spend time chatting and surfing the web, or just doing work.
I'm sure that the energy used in hitting a button on the keyboard or moving a mouse could create some energy, this power multiplied by millions of people on millions of computers, would generate a lot of power, and it's good for the enviroment.
Think of it. Wouldn't the world be a much better place if we could use keyboards and mouses to create energy?

[dark_drgn]

Your proposal though interesting is highly improbable. The energy spent hitting a key is virtually nothing, if you want to put a generator under every key not only would it cost a great deal, but it would be extremely hard to hit the buttons.

[wild20]

No he is right. You see the mouse wheel creates some power, stored by office buildings to mainstream electric companies, power would be CHEAP. It would cut costs down. Okay here is what you would need:

A generator, basically a reverse motor that when the wheel of the mouse (lol, this will have to be non-optical), is turned, it wil generate power. Now you can also make the mouse with several wheels, just mini ones located all around, each generating power. So this may actually be "Big".

Then with the keys you would need a small wheel taht when a key is hit down and up, it rotates a small spindle with a small generator at the end. With one of these at the end of every key, you could get some handsome power coming out. How owuld this benefit people? Office building would pay for the key board easily with the power sold, and then make a profit. They could also use it themselves. For typing or editing companies, they could make a huge profit off this.

Could it work? I don't know, but this is an incredible suggestion, and thanks for bringing it up. Cheers!

[Paul]

Quote

Your proposal though interesting is highly improbable

I agree with dark_drgn, this idea is VERY creative, again it is also very impossible.

First of all, the costs are too high: Just imagine, how expensive it is to put little power generators under each key 0.5 cm key of the keyboard.

Secondly, the energy generated is so minute that it wont make much of a difference.

According to IBM, an average computer user's keystroke generates about 6.9 mW (milli watts). Let us assume that there are a million users using their keyboards, all at once. They will together generate, 0.0069 X 1,000,000 = 6900 Joules/Second (Watt = Joules/Sec).

A 17" CRT monitor uses about 80 Joules/second (Watts). Considering this, the power generated by our 1 million computer users in 10 hours (69000 Watts) will keep the 17" CRT monitor running for about FIFTEEN minutes...

Hope I did the math right ... i probably did.
Hope this sheds some light on the topic

Edited by Paul, 02 June 2006 - 04:48 AM.

[matto]

But implementing these things would end up making the hardware in question (keyboards and mice) much larger, which is inconvenient.

[Cerebral Stasis]

And then there's the whole problem of energy, as Paul said (good work, by the way), and getting energy would be the whole point, so if that wouldn't be worth it, then there would be no point at all.

[Adam Roach]

Well, First of all, i kind of do think that the keyboard idea would be pretty hard/impossible. But the mouse you could have optical, just have a little ball on it that would be the generator and not make the ball move the mouse on your screen, but think of it, millions an millions of people use a computer everyday, think of if we could harness that power it would be a much greater bundle of energy. Plus as technology gets greater and more micro-designed, this would probably be possible in the future, considering that they have a cell phone you can just put on your ear.

Edited by Adam Roach, 03 June 2006 - 04:15 PM.

[dark_drgn]

I still think that it is highly improbable, though it may be possible in the future, the cost of maintanence and buying the equipment and finding a way to store of this energy is way too costly.

[Madkat-Z]

Well I never thought about it, but you are right alot of people use keyboards and mice every day and create alot of energy doing it. Maybe your on to something there, but just don't let big business and the gas and power companies know about it. LOL

[wild20]

You would have to completely change everything guys. You would need to completely re-do generators, and power supply. See you would need an amplifier that made more power available. Your preposal Paul is good, but you would need to use top of the line technology to change it all around. See the keyboard would need to be changed with small mini generators, taht when you hit a key, it would roll a ball next to the key, whichh with a gear, could tranform the power into something greater then what you have listed. The mouse on the other hand could really make some nice power. See each time it rolls, the mouse itself, with a converter installed, would work. The mouse would also need a small ball that could roll roll easily. This would be kind of like a miniature alternator. This would enable you to create more power. Like I said though, you would need hears or something to amplify the power.