Powering My Gadgets With Lego!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 พ.ค. 2023
- Patreon: www.patreon.com/user?u=122597865
See my latest experiments and behind-the-scenes footage!
Can you power your phone using a generator made of Lego? What about a homemade Lego speaker? Let’s find out!
I’ve made a lot of generators in my time. Many of them have been silly DIY experiments and don’t output much electrical energy. But this time, I wanted to make a simple generator made of Lego that is actually useful - powerful enough to help during a power cut, and compact enough to take anywhere for emergencies.
This Lego gadget is simple enough for anyone to make if you have some magnets and copper wire.
#lego #moc #generator #energy #experiment - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
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[5:58] Dankpod would be amazed of that crunchy noise
Haha I'd be honoured 😄
You could add a joule thief circuit to output a steady voltage. this kind of circuit is used in shaking torches and is designed to be used with coils in generator circuits.
*shanking torches*
I dont think i want to know what that is
😂
I love joule thieves - made a bunch a while back. Very elegant little circuits. Could totally show those off in a future video!
@@theanomynusguy autocorrect
@@aussiecrocs1 ohhhh
im still scared
why tf would one want *shaking* torches
dont blame it on autocorrect again
I would love to actually see a generator that could power up a house
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, your videos are amazing! I really hope to see more of them.
Also you might be able to use a capacitor to smooth out all the the blinking in the leds
Thanks a lot, really appreciate it 😊 And totally, caps are great for a lovely smooth lighting setup!
I was just gonna type that lol
Gonhcbi
This is why I subbed to your channel! I absolutely love your content, and you are a genuine inspiration to many people, myself included! And I love your funny bits like testing electricity with your mouth, so unexpected 🤣
Aw really appreciate your comment, thanks a lot! Delighted some folks find these silly experiments entertaining 😄
Very cool. Impressed that you can power your speaker with it. Now all you need is a Lego hand to turn the crank.
And then a Lego human to move the hand 👌
@@JamiesBrickJams and lego food to feed the lego human
@@Electrokitty281and a lego farmer to harvest lego food
totally not a furry background on the phone?
Not anymore
Where?
How is quality content like this just ignored by TH-cam? I liked this video so much I'm willing to recreate this
(Might 3d print instead of Legos but still)
Lego is too expensive where I live unfortunately
I'm sure using other materials like 3d printing will give you excellent results (probably even better) - good luck!
You can probably increase the efficiency by using electromagnets instead of permanent magnets like real generators use. You'd need to make lego brushes and use either use a magnet generator like this one on the same shaft or a feedback circuit to power the coils.
I would absolutely love to try building a self-exciting generator using electromagnets, but still need to do a lot more reading on how to get it to work (and to start and control when it's running). Cool idea, cheers for the suggestion!
With two or more lego rings from the speakers, a good amount of strong big or small magnet blocks and coil arrangement...
a well designed shaft or bushing levitating system for decrease friction...
A flywheel....
and a good detachable gearbox...
Could end up on a really and powerful selfmade lego generator!
With a vertical helical cardboard or papper propeller in the end could work as a Vertical axis wind turbines?
If it works and isnt expensive, I would try to make one too X)
Definitely going to try making either a vertical or horizontal turbine generator! Already had some promising experiments - I'd definitely encourage you to try your own if you're interested in this stuff. If expense is an issue, other home materials work great!
Connect every generator you have into a breadboard and charge something
you should hook up a weight and pully system so that you can convert kinetic energy into rotational energy, with a high enough gear ratio that it takes hours for the weight to fall, and keeps spinning the magnets. you can also put in an old timey lathe pedal so you can lift the weight without manually cranking
Oooh a foot pedal is a great idea, I'll definitely look into that - thanks! As for a gravity drive, I've actually already got something like that working. It's real tough to get it to run for a significant period of time though as you're limited by the physical robustness of Lego. But several minutes is possible. In fact I have a video coming out in a day or two that borrows a similar principle using a pendulum 😉
Now you only need to create a gravity battery and hook it to the crank, and you're sorted. Will have to figure out the proper gearing and a way to stop the weight from accelerating beyond a certain point, but I'm sure you'll sort it.
Love the way you think! I've actually already made one - using an escapement (tick tock) to slow the feed, and a big magnet as the pendulum. Love the idea of gravity batteries - thanks for the suggestion!
You need 2 cheap things to make it more efficient than that. The first one is a full bridge rectifier that takes the negative part of the AC voltage the reverses it to make it a kind of DC voltage. You can implement such kind of rectifier with 4 simple diodes if you search on internet. Then at the output of the rectifier you need a capacitor in order to smooth the voltage and make it stable. You will see that the leds will stop blinking and it will be producing more stable voltage.
Yup, later in the video those are the exact things I used to power the speaker and phone. The small block with pins was the full bridge rectifier and the capacitor bank was used to smooth the output!
put smaller copper coils on the top and bottom to give out more power
Nice work. My only question is where did you get that buck/boost converter, it looks fantastic. Everything else you did speaks for itself.
It is a beauty! I actually just found it on Amazon for around 12 bucks. It's not the most efficient at around 88%, but I love the easy to understand display and the fact it can take a good 40 watts before needing a heatsink!
I just generated this comment faster than u making a lego generator
Easier done than said 🫤
You win this round ...
@@JamiesBrickJams are you challenging me? 🔫🤠
Not funny
@@shaangamer1013 + didn't laugh
You could attach/build a foot treadle mechanism to it, that way your hands are free.
That's a cool idea, I like the thought of pedal pump power
Hell I'm invested in this channel now I wanna see what you got next and after that
Aw appreciate it, thanks a bunch 😄
Awesome. And Awesome prototyping.
Thanks man, appreciate it! 🙏
3:11 exactly like michael faraday when he was inventing the dynamo (the power generator, this machine he is building)
Gotta taste that power 💪
I love how to speaker sounded exactly like Skullcandy Crusher on max whack
😂
That hand crank generator reminds me of the USB hand crank generators, except yours have more current
A amizing video!, you should make one that powers itself
Cheers! 😁 I'll certainly show off some more experiments with my weirder generators in time
Add a gearbox to lower the amount of rotations you need on the handle to make the magnets spin even quicker
Can do if a device needs higher voltages! Though for lower voltage devices, the losses in efficiency with higher gear ratios tend to make it perform significantly worse
Then make an engine instead of hand cranking it. Maybe a pneumatic one?
Now you're talking! I've already got a pneumatic one running 😉
the most important question. Can it run doom?
Not yet ...
fun fact: you just assembled a motor, if you give electricity to the coils, the crank will spin
You'd still need a smart motor controller for this setup, but yup, in principle it's sort of a motor too
3:12 the electrian checking to see if my mains is working
Mmmm medium rare
Maybe by connecting diodes to + and from - going to and from both terminals of the coils
You mean like a rectifier?
@@JamiesBrickJams IDK what a rectifier is but if you mean the thing that uses 4 diodes to make the backwards power forwards and the forwards power also forwards than yes
Rectifier sounds about right
Ah gotcha, that's the blocky silver thing I was using in the vid!
@@JamiesBrickJams makes sense. I imagine the blinking isn’t the power going up and neutral and down and neutral, but rather up and neutral and up and neutral, where neutral is no power and down is backwards power. I thought the blinks meant a lack of rectifying
this channel is gonna blow up soon!
I'm just happy you folks get a kick out of these silly experiments 😄
Should use a flywheel to help efficiency
I have a idea. Add a battery for storing the electricity
btw you can take a lego air pump generator to power it with out having to manually spin it
I like the way you think 😉 I've actually already got a generator working on a pneumatic engine. Might make a video of that sometime
could you make more of these and put it into series and array it ? using belt chain to like them all up
You could ... Although what you're really doing is turning mechanical energy into electrical energy. So if you did that, you'd have a very lossy system of generators. You'd be better off putting all of your mechanical input into just one single generator and using that to power something
You have space for 2 more coils, could about double your power output if you added those.
I'll demo a much better 3 phase generator in a future vid!
I want you to try to make a ceiling fan with light kit that’s the light in the motor are controlled by pull chains
It wouldn't be portable, but you could connect the crank to a wheel and weight similar to a clock.
I like your thinking - I've actually done something similar in the past!
Now make the generator power a motor that powered the generator 😂😆
This is friggin sweet
Cheers man!
@@JamiesBrickJams cheers, that's actually really cool
Could you add a few gear steps to increase speed?
Can do, increasing speed will increase voltage! But at the cost of current and efficiency. So if you need the voltage higher, it might be worth it. But otherwise you're better off using as little gearing as possible
how does the copper coil not just short out? you would need to coat it with smth so it doesn’t short out
Almost all copper wire / magnet wire (like this stuff) is already coated with a very thin enamel which keeps it from shorting
Now to build a nuclear reactor with Lego! Mia ha ha ha haa
Interesting video.
Cheers 😁🙏
Here's an insane idea, change the gear ratios and add a lego motor to trigger the gears. Can you make this a perpetual motion machine powering its self
Haha I wish. Unfortunately there are massive losses between generation and driving a motor. This wouldn't output nearly enough current to drive a lego motor with any speed.
Bro should use lego motors to constantly turn the generator XD
Could do! Though I feel that's sort of defeating the point - better to just use the power source feeding the motor 😅
If your phone supports fast charging, it will almost certainly survive more than 5V, and has a chance of charging faster with it. Though unless you want to implement a negotiation circuit, you'll need to look up the details of your phone yourself.
You're probably right .. I'll probably try again with a 3 phase generator outputting lower voltage but higher current just in case!
Once Again, LOVELY VID!! just a small question, why don't you add a protection to stop magnet moving side to side?
Thanks a lot! 😊 To be honest, I just didn't bother preventing sideways movement because the magnets are so strong - they don't budge at all, even when spinning fast!
I would add more gear ratios and (if possible) a bigger gear
It's possible if you want to increase voltage! But more gears decreases efficiency, so you'll end up with a net loss compared to no gearing
How about you hook up a low power high speed motor into it to create somewhat infinite power
Sugestion
You can put gears for the more RPM and perfect voltage
You can, if your goal is just to increase voltage for something. But you will also incur more losses in efficiency and current
Have you tried to increase the cranking speed with an electric drill? Will that make any difference in the time needed to charge the phone? Obviously that will drain the drill’s battery but still.
I haven't tried that, no - it would almost certainly increase the output massively. At least until it warps or breaks the Lego. Better to use the battery powering the drill 😉 But as a proof of concept, it would certainly charge the phone quicker
What parts did you use for the lego speaker ?
Hey, it's a simple 25mm neodymium magnet and some thin copper wire! Feeding it is just a small Bluetooth amp that takes music from my phone. I've a video on how it was made if you're interested
@@JamiesBrickJams Thank you
i chould taste the moment when you tested the output voltage
It's an acquired taste for sure 😜
You should add a Lego air engine to it
Already got it working, will likely do a video on that in the near future 😉
5:00
Please dont ac from gen to electrolytic cap directly, those short ac
Don't worry, those leads came from the rectifier, so the caps were being fed DC!
@@JamiesBrickJams ok then!
If we dont stop this man in the next video he will have a fully working lego nuclear power plant
😂
@@JamiesBrickJamsnow im thinking this could be a good idea to get a steel plate outside that make water hot and powers a lego turbine
If you didn't now what to make for a future video this could be fun
(Ps sorry for the english i am french and im still learning)
@@gpops22az70 Your English is great! I've already made a basic tap-water powered generator concept, so a steam powered plant is technically possible, though I'd need to somehow protect the Lego from the heat. Certainly worth testing, thanks for the suggestion!
Make the gear ratio super high so it spins super SUPER fast at low speeds
Can do, but the gear ratio results in massive efficiency losses - so voltage will increase, but current will drop. And when attached to a load, the losses become very noticeable
what diameter is the wire you used for the speaker? also 3mm?
Hey, I think the wire for the speaker coil was a bit thinner... maybe .25 or .28mm?
Neat!
Cheers!
What if i power the axle with a lego motor that gets the power from the generator? Infinite power glitch?
I wish 😁 Unfortunately there will be massive losses in between them. The generator really isn't very efficient, so the output isn't enough to even drive a small motor. Motors generally need quite a significant current to drive them
What about the lego motors?
I've tried it, but I can't shake the feeling that it's defeating the point - may as well just use the power source feeding the motor then 😅
Make a hydrodam Generator
1. Build a magnet powered super collider. 2. Put the crank handle into a groove where the ball is being spun/pushed so that the handle is pushed by the ball.
3. Free Energy!
Damnit I've been cranking this myself like a sucker 😯
Anyone: uses a volt metre of such
Him: let's see if it works Ow I think it works
Tasty tasty electricity 😋
Alternative name: powering my crap with toys
Pretty much sums it up 😅
Well, thats a fat like and sub😮
Aw well big thanks 😁 And thanks for joining!
if it makes about 9 V could you add a lego motor to turn it becouse they only use 9 v to run??
It outputs around 9 to 10 volts, but the current isn't particularly high, so it's not very good for driving motors unfortunately (which need a lot of current)
Wait what if you use Lego piston engine or lego motor for this generator so you dont need to do that manual
I've a video coming out in a few days that does that 😜
Lol like that would help a ton because its atomated and it would make more eletricity instead of manualy hand crancking it
Huh, that’s kinda interesting, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard the term “power cut” before (only “power outage” and/or “blackout”).
Huh must be an Irish or South African thing 🤔
1:31 "these guys aren't going anywhere"
>They aren't in the next shot
Lego magic!
what would happen if you hooked up a lego motor that took the electricity it generated
Very little 😅 The amount of current produced is barely enough to drive a tiny motor very slowly
😁 My multimeter is KAIWEETS brand! I'm always amazed at the intricate builds Jamie, hell I'm impressed with the phone cradle/charger stand 😆
I've gotta get off of my ass and start building some crude projects soon or I'll lose my mind.
Thanks a lot, appreciate it 😁🙏 That's awesome, hope you do some tinkering of your own! All I really want from these videos is to show folks some fun experiments they can do themselves. And yeah Kaiweets is pretty sweet - I found them from another TH-camr. They're popular for a reason. Good luck man 👌
Add more coils!
Next one will be 3 phase 😉
You can add an air engine
Already got that working 😉 Will demo it in a future video
I'd love to see a Lego Tesla earthquake machine (yes, its a real thing - sorta) lol
I've heard that a few times now, so I guess I gotta read up on how that all works 😅 Cheers for the suggestion!
can you put a magnet on the "side" so it will auto rotate? :D
Hey! I suspect any more magnets would cause extra drag ...
But you don't have to crank@@JamiesBrickJams
I legitimately thought you were at like 1 million subs
Haha well I'll take that as a hell of a compliment, cheers 😁🙏
You pointed the microphone the wrong way again (5:10). With that microphone (I believe it's the AT2020) you want the logo/side with the light to be facing your audio source since it will basically only pick up sound from that side.
That's about as close to parallel to the speaker I could get with this tiny mic tripod - will try a different approach next time!
what if he put a motor spinning the magnet whilst being charged by the magnet
Haha unfortunately massive losses - the amount generated is minimal compared to the amount required to drive the motor 😀
What size magnets are used ?
I believe these are 40mmx40mmx20mm. And I think they're either n52 or n42. They're scary strong, and a real pain to work with to be honest
@@JamiesBrickJams Thank you so much
Put a resistor before your bare LEDs when powered with a generator, they look expensive!
I've tried to burn them out but alas, they're resilient little dudes
Now make a Lego phone
😂
Do you keep your builds or do you destroy them to continue making other videos?
To be honest I destroy a lot of them. Though I tend to keep some builds around to iterate on them - especially if I feel I'll forget how I made them!
Where is the full bridge rectifier? WHERE IS THE-
There it is 😁
@@JamiesBrickJams *Electroboom has been summoned*
Can I use normal wires?
You possibly could - do you mean silicone covered wires? You'd need to use a lot of it. And you'd need some powerful magnets. But it's possible!
can it be automated though
If you mean powered by something else, certainly! Hook it up to some wind power or hydro turbine and it'd run very well. I'm currently playing with some of those
Next: lego gun
I've a pneumatic gun video 😁
wonder what the wallpaper was before,, 🤨
🤔😋
You should add a LEGO motor to the end of the crank so u can use the energy created to power the motor to create more energy and so on... if this theory doesn’t work please tell me why as I am open to correct answers about my theory
I see where you're going with that theory. However that's the common 'perpetual motion machine' proposal, and it breaks the fundamental law of conservation of energy. Essentially what will happen is that energy is lost to its surroundings. So when you crank the handle, although some electricity will be generated, much of the energy will be lost to mechanical friction, sound, heat, etc. And so the amount generated will be smaller than what would be needed to feed the motor to turn it. In fact in this case, my generator is VERY inefficient. Motors generally require massive current to drive them. Mine really doesn't output much
@@JamiesBrickJams now that deserves a sub
Thanks for joining 😁
@@JamiesBrickJams anytime😀
I wanna know what his background was before so bad now 🤔☠️
🤔
Honestly same lol 😂
why does everyone try to power by hand instead of foot it would be so much more power
It would ... But there's only so much torque Lego can handle. With that said though, there are definitely better designs that can handle more torque, and I'll certainly be experimenting with them 😉
Would have been cool to see how powerful you could make it by messing around with gear ratios. I think the limiting factor was how quickly you could move your hand 😛
Ha yeah for this one, I could have done with a higher gear ratio or more coil loops! Though in general higher gear ratios lead to significant losses in efficiency turning mechanical power into electrical
Why do those lights flash?
The pulses are the AC produced as the magnets pass in close proximity to the wire coils!
⚠⚠FLASHING LIGHTS WARNING⚠⚠
2:02
You meant: in turning mechanical power into friction and heat?
you said . MECHANICAL POWER INTO ELECTRICAL POWER..
how can a simple gear do that
Yep, the gearing causes efficiency loss to friction and heat. That's why I stressed that less gearing is preferable, as this is where your efficiency loss comes from. In an ideal world, you'd have no gearing, and would tailor the number of coil windings to generate the approximate voltage you need at a given speed
Unclear instructions
My damn generator is just spinning faster and a fusion is happening inside
Harness that puppy and we got energy forever! We'll deal with the melted Lego later
what are the peses
It produces AC, isn't it?
The direct output is AC, yes. And then it goes to the rectifier which turns it into DC. That's needed for powering devices like your phone. And once it's in DC, you can use capacitors to smooth the signal too
3:12 MMMMMM
mm
Om nom nom
I feel like at some point in 2044 our attention span is so low that lego has to put a small screen with subway surfers playing in each lego parts just so that you actually see it