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  • Electricity From Keyboards

    mittalanu

    Member

    Updated: Oct 20, 2024
    Views: 914
    In any office there are more than 10,000 key presses on a single keyboard in a day. I was thinking that the energy required for pressing each key is going to waste. Though this energy is very small, but can't it be utilized in any way?
    The idea is that to produce some electricity from the key presses.
    I know that there wont be much electricity produced but at least some amount so that a mobile can get charged while doing your work.
    Can it be done by adding a transducer to some of the keys(which are most pressed like Space and Enter), and elec. can be sent in the from of pulses and further can be stored in a battery?
    Is this possible?😕
    Or if anybody has another method in mind please tell me.
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Replies

  • Kaustubh Katdare

    Administrator • Mar 8, 2010

    Awesome thinking, Mittalanu 😀 Thread moved to CE Labs section.

    What say you, CEans?
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  • lal

    Member • Mar 8, 2010

    It seems to be a great idea 👍 We can place piezo crystals under the keys, and done! We must take special care, not to make any uneasyness to the users. Will have to think of the best way of placing it.
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  • mittalanu

    Member • Mar 9, 2010

    Thank you Admin for admiring the idea.
    and thanx lal for replying.
    Yes, we could do that. But won't Piezoelectric crystals thing be a little costly idea? I also thought of that but dropped this idea as it is not at all practical. please don't mind but no one would give a damn if the keyboard is at a very high cost(at least I won't).
    Is there any cost effective method?
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  • lal

    Member • Mar 9, 2010

    But won't Piezoelectric crystals thing be a little costly idea?
    I dont think its too costly :neutral: Anyway we are not going to place it under all the keys 😀

    So I think the cost wont be too high. We can think of other ways also.
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  • mittalanu

    Member • Mar 10, 2010

    Okay piezoelectric crystals does sound good. But for that what all do I need to know? I mean what all rating and specs.
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  • Ashraf HZ

    Member • Mar 15, 2010

    You can try getting hold of piezo vibration sensors from Sparkfun: #-Link-Snipped-#

    I'm not sure of the power output. Since voltage is quite high, stepping it down and putting bunch of these in parallel might produce some decent amount of current. Its all about testing it now.

    How about getting 10 of these and trying it out? 😀
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  • lal

    Member • Mar 22, 2010

    What is your progress with the project?
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  • YOUNGGRASSHOPPER

    Member • Dec 27, 2010

    Another idea to further this expeiment might be to develop an auxiliary card with the piezo assembly on it to install into the computer. Then explore writing some software to detect each keystroke and send an impulse to the card. Once the impulse is sent the piezo card could tranfer the energy to a central storage system.
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  • vinod12345madhu

    Member • Jan 13, 2011

    if we can use a little friction energy that is produced while pressing keys it can be useful but the keyboard needs to completly redesigned(correct me if i am wrong with the friction part)
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  • Ramani Aswath

    Member • Apr 4, 2011

    vinod12345madhu
    if we can use a little friction energy that is produced while pressing keys it can be useful but the keyboard needs to completly redesigned(correct me if i am wrong with the friction part)
    This idea has been discussed in many forums on the net. There is the small matter of the First Law of thermodynamics. To get energy one must put in energy. The Second Law now gets into the act. One must put in more energy than what is recovered.
    Already occupational disorders like carpel tunnel syndrome are a nuisance with keyboard operation. By putting in the added resistance of the mechanism of electricity generation this will become worse.
    Bioramani
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  • micheal john

    Member • Jan 23, 2013

    sir can you explain more about laws of thermodynamic in a simple way
    please
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  • Ramani Aswath

    Member • Jan 23, 2013

    <a href="https://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae280.cfm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">What is a simple defintion of the laws of thermodynamics?</a>

    1. First Law implies that the total energy in the universe (electrical, mechanical, chemical, magnetic, electro magnetic and others) put together is fixed. One form can be converted into another. But creation of any energy from nothing is not possible.
    Einstein's famous equation: E = mc^2 slightly modifies this statement. The total energy equivalent of the universe is fixed.
    For example Sun gets its energy by the fusion of four hydrogen atoms fusing to form a Helium atom. There is a small reduction of mass in the process, which gets released as energy as given by Einstein's equation.

    2. The Second Law deals with the degradation of energy. All processes that happen spontaneously are more or less irreversible and are accompanied by an increase in entropy.
    Put in another way, the Universe is going from a state of order to disorder.
    Let us consider salt and sand in two containers. The total energy of the two is some value. Let us mix the two. There is no change in energy.
    But the two have mixed together. That is, it has become disordered. You have to put in quite a bit of effort to separate the two.
    The entropy of the mixture is more than the salt and sand when separate.

    In an IC engine, it is impossible to get mechanical energy exactly equal to the heat of combustion. This is because the exhaust gases still have some energy, which is impossible to be fully recovered. Such processes are always accompanied by an increase in entropy equivalent to the energy dissipated to the sink.

    Water flows downhill by itself. To make it go up you have to put in energy.

    The concept is this: Energy always goes from a state of higher availability to a lower availability by itself.

    Mechanical and electrical energy is considered to be the higher forms of energy. Heat is a lower available form. The second law says that all heat engines will be less than 100% efficient.

    3. The Third Law is somewhat esoteric. It says that the entropy of all perfect crystals is Zero at absolute zero temperature. The problem is that there is no perfect crystal in reality. So there will be some residual entropy even at absolute zero.
    A perfect crystal is in complete order. Accoridng to second law, all systems go from order to disorder. The amount of disorder is a quantitative measure of its entropy.
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  • micheal john

    Member • Jan 23, 2013

    thank you very much for your patience and for your answer sir
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