Posted by no one on December 28, 2007, 4:59 pm
Has anyone out there ever seen or built a Minto wheel? I'm wondering if
there might be some way to make one work to charge batteries. But it looks
like a LOT of work for something that might not work.
Posted by Anthony Matonak on December 28, 2007, 6:17 pm
no one wrote:
> Has anyone out there ever seen or built a Minto wheel? I'm wondering if
> there might be some way to make one work to charge batteries. But it
> looks like a LOT of work for something that might not work.
I personally have not built one but since the topic comes up fairly
regularly (they should be in the FAQ, along with drinking birds) it
should be easy to find using a Google search.
The answer to your question is, Yes, you can build one to charge
batteries. Minto wheels aren't terribly efficient though so it'll
be very large and won't produce much power compared to how much
heat goes into it.
Anthony
Posted by J. Clarke on December 28, 2007, 6:36 pm
no one wrote:
> Has anyone out there ever seen or built a Minto wheel? I'm
> wondering
> if there might be some way to make one work to charge batteries.
> But
> it looks like a LOT of work for something that might not work.
There's a Yahoo group devoted to them. Don't know if anybody has
actually gotten one to produce useful power but it's worth a look
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MintoWheel/ .
Conceptually it looks good. Practically I think that achieving an
adequate heat transfer rate is going to be the problem.
--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
Posted by Tony Wesley on December 28, 2007, 9:23 pm
> Has anyone out there ever seen or built a Minto wheel?
Is that where you put a Minto's into a diet coke bottle mounted on a
wheel and the resulting fizz makes the wheel turn?
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> there might be some way to make one work to charge batteries. But it
> looks like a LOT of work for something that might not work.