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Author Topic: An invention thats needed and would be worth billions  (Read 8054 times)

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Offline KennyRTopic starter

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An invention thats needed and would be worth billions
« on: July 16, 2004, 03:57:12 PM »
Sitting here in my hot room, I've identified a hole in the market where a new innovation is badly needed - the humble transformer. No, not robots in disguise, those things that are in practically everything electrical you own - including the monitor you're looking at now.

See, these little transformer things are pretty simple - two copper coils placed slightly apart from each other. Current flows through one side, generates a magnetic field, which causes a current to flow in the other. The number of loops of copper on each side determine how much the voltage goes up or goes down on the other end. Thats what transformers do - transform one voltage to another.

Simple - but with one flaw: they're very inefficient. Because of all that copper, their electrical resistance is high, and they generate a lot of heat. They also lose power from magnetism, and from noise (hummmmmmm). Touch the back of your monitor, or the little boxes that come on the end of some flexes at the plug. They're warm. That's another kind of transformer.

And higher wattage ones (such in all computer PSUs) need active cooling. That means fans. More power wasted. And if you have too many, you'll need air conditioning. Industries must lose trillions of dollars from energy wasted on transformers alone, and the householder too. Replacing them would mean all this money saved, plus it would be friendlier for the planet. As the oil supplies run out, this technology will become even more essential.

So here's the challenge - invent something more efficient that can do the same job. The LED and the fluorescent did it for the filament bulb, the transistor did it for the diode, internal combustion did it for the steam engine. The person or company to invent an efficient replacement for the transformer will end up mega-rich, and will have contributed enormously to science and industry.
 

Offline KennyRTopic starter

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Re: An invention thats needed and would be worth billions
« Reply #1 on: July 16, 2004, 05:48:27 PM »
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Karlos wrote:
Oddly, I always remember reading that the transformer was one of the more efficient devices in terms of energy loss (IIRC, a good transformer is supposedly >95% efficient). But as you point out, they do get warm and they do hum occasionally.


They do indeed. There's a full eight degree temperature gradient between my room and outside. That might not sound like much, but on hot days it makes the room unliveable. I measured 38 C in my room last Autumn. :)

It's not the computers doing it (mine are low power and turned off at night anyway), its not heating. It's just pure transformer wastage. Calculate the kind of power you need to warm a 5x8x2.5m room by 8C and you get a feeling of what is just being wasted.

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What sort of efficiency do solid state transformers (as shipped with mobile phones etc.) have, anyway?


I couldn't put a figure on it, but I'll tell you something - many of these things still get hot even when the device they're attached to isn't even on! My 56k modem for instance, which I keep for emergencies, I have to leave unplugged because of the heat its transformer generates. That's annoying because I'd like it as an auto backup (a router feature).

It's also annoying that my UPS and emergency light, which are basically lead-acid batteries kept fully charged by a transformer, generate lots of heat too - which not only makes my room too hot, it takes years off the service life of the batteries.

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Incidentally, the transistor never actually replaced the diode - they're used for different purposes. Unless you meant vacuum tubes, of course (of which there were diodes, triodes etc).


Yes, that's what I meant - the old switching diodes. The ones that used to be huge and so hot that bugs were attracted to them and burned them out. Hence the origin of the word "buggy" pertaining to computers. Real computers weren't really possible until someone realised that a dirty piece of silicon had such nice properties. I just wish someone would make a similar discovery with transformers! :)
 

Offline KennyRTopic starter

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Re: An invention thats needed and would be worth billions
« Reply #2 on: July 16, 2004, 07:04:20 PM »
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Morley wrote:
Uhmm....we already have SMPS (switch mode power supplies) which are very efficient at transforming voltage down, but can't be used to raise the voltage.


As far as I remember SMPS use capacitors and aren't useful for most applications. And aren't that much more efficient either because of capacitive loss.

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But once we can utilize superconductors coiled transformers will be nearly 100% effective. Or close enough.


There's probably no such thing as the room-temperature superconductor because of quantum decoherence. Superconductors need cooling which needs more power...

Anyway, its the same principle. Use a magnetic field to jump power from one cable to the next. There has to be a better way.
 

Offline KennyRTopic starter

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Re: An invention thats needed and would be worth billions
« Reply #3 on: July 17, 2004, 12:11:18 AM »
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Karlos wrote:
I dunno. I can remember when liquid nitrogen temperature superconductors were mere science fiction, but that's been surpassed quite a way since then. I don't think RT superconductors would arrive any time soon, but I wouldn't rule them out all together.


Well, we'll see. Even if they arrive, they could be impractical. I mean, if we wanted to save power right now with no practical considerations, we could make all our cables out of silver.
 

Offline KennyRTopic starter

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Re: An invention thats needed and would be worth billions
« Reply #4 on: July 21, 2004, 05:50:02 PM »
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iamaboringperson wrote:
Well, if you're prepared to switch to DC, you could try a plain old voltage divider circuit. It's just two resistors! ...and a great big heat sink to take the heat from the resistors away.

Then there is a voltage regulator circuit. They too just cause the extra voltage to turn to heat.


Yeah, you could be right - the problem isn't transformers, it's resistors. Someone needs a way to make a resistor that can't and won't heat up.