Charging Question - Power Mats

[Eisner]

I looked around but did not find this question was asked, if I missed it...Sorry..


My question is.. Can powermats be used to charge the Pandora ?


I believe they use Electromagnetic Induction as the method of power transference.


I was wondering the other day if placing a pandora on such a power mat would charge it's battery the same as it would for cell phones, ipods, etc...


Cheers,

 

[TrashyMG]

I looked around but did not find this question was asked, if I missed it...Sorry..


My question is.. Can powermats be used to charge the Pandora ?


I believe they use Electromagnetic Induction as the method of power transference.


I was wondering the other day if placing a pandora on such a power mat would charge it's battery the same as it would for cell phones, ipods, etc...


Cheers,

The Powermat doesn't magically charge any type of device.. the iPod / iPhones and such need a special case that has a induction coil that allows it to properly charge from the powermat..

 

[dreamer]

^ so the question becomes:


Will there be an induction coil add-on for the pandora?

 

[matzesu]

I think you only need an Powermat Adapter for the Sony PSP, its the same AC Connektor as the Pandora has..,


(i dont know if its right..)

 

[Norfen]

This would be cool, where'd you find the psp induction charger?

 

[matzesu]

I dont know, i use allways my PSP AC Charger to charge my PSP (1004), and i dont have my Pandora until in 2 Months

 

[TrashyMG]

Sure it will most likely work, but if the coil plugs in like it's shown above. I don't see how it's any more convenient than just plugging in the power cord.

 

[WizardStan]

Sure it will most likely work, but if the coil plugs in like it's shown above. I don't see how it's any more convenient than just plugging in the power cord.

But it's the fuuuuuuture! Who cares if it's less efficient as well, it's charging "wirelessly"! How can you not geek out about that?

 

[ToastBucket]

Well the powermat doesn't have to be plugged into the wall I assume, so this way a Pandora could be charged on a long plane, car, or train ride. Or something of the sort where there's no AC outlet handy.

 

[TrashyMG]

Well the powermat doesn't have to be plugged into the wall I assume, so this way a Pandora could be charged on a long plane, car, or train ride. Or something of the sort where there's no AC outlet handy.

There isn't any magical power source to the Powermat it plugs into an AC outlet.. it sends out an electromagnetic field and the other coil receives the field and converts it to current.. THIS IS HOW A NORMAL WALL TRANSFORMER WORKS.. a regular wall transformer is just two coils with a rectifier circuit to convert it to DC and a regulator to bring it to a certain voltage (simplified explanation). A transformer is closely wound together to be more efficient, unlike the powermat.

 

[DaMummy]

so the question becomes "if i plug the end of an extension cord into the begging of it, how much usable power will be in said extension cord?"

 

[banjeed]

so the question becomes "if i plug the end of an extension cord into the begging of it, how much usable power will be in said extension cord?"

Totally dependent on the size of the extension cord. Longer extension cords obviously store more power, but please remember that thicker ones can output more power quickly. You'll want to use a thin one so a small device like the Pandora lasts longer.

 

[Norfen]

Terribly inconvienient. There is a company that makes (usually phone) back covers into induction coils and have a battery built in. Someone needs to make this for the pandora. Set it down on a mat, start charging. It's amazing

 

[SNESFAN]

Terribly inconvienient. There is a company that makes (usually phone) back covers into induction coils and have a battery built in. Someone needs to make this for the pandora. Set it down on a mat, start charging. It's amazing

I would be pretty scared to do this, I had a palm pre, and it had a touchstone (induction charging) made the phone extremely hot... like "holy shit" hot


EDIT: really f'ing hot and lipo batteries don't mix well I've heard


I would agree it would be a fancy ass mod to put a induction charger into the battery cover but for practical use this is probably a really dumb idea. Proof of concept, gimmicky, look what i can do idea, yea sure.... But not daily driver. The estimated battery life is 10 hours of actual use, compare it to the DS and I charged that thing like once a week based off my useage. Are you really unable to find a fairly standard easily obtainable power adapter once a week?


the palm pre wouldn't even make it 8 hours (see elapsed time, not actual useage) before it was dead when I first got it and it almost made sense to use the touchstone because of how often you were charging it.

 

[ToastBucket]

There isn't any magical power source to the Powermat it plugs into an AC outlet.. it sends out an electromagnetic field and the other coil receives the field and converts it to current.. THIS IS HOW A NORMAL WALL TRANSFORMER WORKS.. a regular wall transformer is just two coils with a rectifier circuit to convert it to DC and a regulator to bring it to a certain voltage (simplified explanation). A transformer is closely wound together to be more efficient, unlike the powermat.

I thought they ran off batteries :/ I saw a commercial for one (The only one I've seen for a powermat) and it was talking about how it's wireless and doesn't need to be plugged into an outlet. I assumed they were all like that.

 

[TrashyMG]

I thought they ran off batteries :/ I saw a commercial for one (The only one I've seen for a powermat) and it was talking about how it's wireless and doesn't need to be plugged into an outlet. I assumed they were all like that.

It's wireless in the sense the devices it charges doesn't require you to connect a wire to it, but the charger station is still powered by AC.. This company sells special cases / adapters for popular electronic devices with these receiver inductance coils built on that work with the charger station. It's pretty gimmicky IMO they make a killing on these add-ons for what a second or two time saved by reaching over for a cable and plugging it in?


Batteries would be so inefficient in a device like this, I doubt it would last a half hour with several AA batteries or hell C or D sized batteries.

 

[Stradian]

But it's the fuuuuuuture! Who cares if it's less efficient as well, it's charging "wirelessly"! How can you not geek out about that?

^Nikola Tesla wants to sit down and have a chat with you.

 

[WizardStan]

^Nikola Tesla wants to sit down and have a chat with you.

pfft, I wish, what a great conversation that'd be. There's a man with ideas far beyond his time. All he'd have needed would have been a good publicist and we'd be living the dream right now.

 

[lulzfish]

I think the more important question is, "Can the Pandora draw power from The Cloud"?

 

[Tor]

Due to the (sometimes unfortunate) laws of physics an induction mat will always be very inefficient compared to a normal transformer (an induction mat is after all just a transformer which you unpack from its efficient self and place one coil in the mat and the other in the device to charge.. _very_ bad transformer efficiency). Not to mention compared to super-efficient switch-mode chargers, which are just high-frequency transformers (and those you can't unpack and still keep working).


Induction charging was first made common by electric toothbrush chargers, where you a.) want to avoid the electrical cables, as toothbrushes are kept in wetrooms (the bathroom), and b.) don't need much power.


Induction charging for other gadgets will become common when we have gadgets which just need a small amount of power and can do with little. A Pandora isn't one of these. But imagine if you have tiny little processors everywhere, maybe in clothing and teacups and cables and earrings or even under your skin. If these processors just need microwatts to run, and can do with a charge in the range of, say, ten mAh for the next thirty days, or a year, then the ideal way of charging them (and even the only practical way) will be via induction charging. For such small charging requirements you will not be as much hit by the downside of induction charging, which is its inefficiency (resulting in a lot of heat whenever you try to do serious amp-range charging).