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Author Topic: Biolite owners  (Read 12805 times)

RedLeader

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Re: Biolite owners
« Reply #15 on: February 19, 2015 »

Still, if it gets you through a weekend trip it would be fine. Will it do a full iPhone charge from empty?

Is that silvercrest charger capable or charging an iPad? I have a 10,000Mah one I got from Amazon that I've been very impressed with but it was pricier and probably heavier too. Charging phones it lasts for ages but one iPad charge nearly depletes it.

10,000mAh is impressive, and that's a cracking price at £18.99  :o

The Silvercrest one would only be good enough for a phone.  It's got an unimpressive 2600mAh  :'(
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Dowser

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Re: Biolite owners
« Reply #16 on: February 19, 2015 »

Still, if it gets you through a weekend trip it would be fine. Will it do a full iPhone charge from empty?

It says it will but seeing is believing!  I saw it in Lidl back in December and picked it up for the Christmas camp.  It's been lying amongst my camping gear ever since and has never been tested  :'(

Will maybe have a play with it tonight as it's the first night in a week that I should be getting home from work before 10pm
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Rich.H

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Re: Biolite owners
« Reply #17 on: February 19, 2015 »

Well that is me surprised on the battery front, although the paltry 650mah has me still thinking it it used as a regulator. The fact it is only a 3.6v means there is possibly a small stepper circuit to shift it all to 5v.  The 650mah would be enough to then hold a charge long enough so the circuit doesn't get totally drained every few minutes, obviously it would be pathetic as far as actually trying to charge anything from.

As for the other battery packs shown here I would urge caution to folks. Pretty much all of them are made of the same thing. The main circuit which m has all  the charging cleverness, then an amount of 18650 lithium cells. Depending on the quality of these a 10k battery pack could vary as much as 3-4k in Ah, more often than not if you consider a 10k pack to actually only be able to hold around 8k you will be fine. It is rare to find any of these packs with 18650's that actually hold the amount they have printed on each cell, the only real way to check them is to measure them through a full discharge cycle.

I am thinking now though that perhaps chucking in an old phone battery could be better than the big cell used in the Biolite, even old keypad phones have cells in the 1500mah range and they tend to be smaller with a overcharge protection circuit built in. Hell to drop the weight further you could even use a couple of 500 li-po cell packs.
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Dowser

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Re: Biolite owners
« Reply #18 on: February 19, 2015 »

Good info there Rich.H

Keep us posted on how your project is progressing.  If you can put together something similar to the Biolite I would be interested in a component list. 

The Biolite is a great idea and I plan to use it to keep charge in my phone for extended trips but, I feel the burning chamber is a bit small and it clogs up and smoothers itself very easily.  Keeping it hot enough to power the thermal charging thing that sticks through into the chamber can be quite a task  :(
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Rich.H

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Re: Biolite owners
« Reply #19 on: February 19, 2015 »

The problem with peltier units is not so much as how hot you can get one side, but the temperature differential between the two sides. As long as the warm side is around 100c hotter than the cold side then most small units should give you around 4.5-5v at 0.5A. The hardest part of them is making sure the cold side shifts hot air away from the unit fast enough to keep it cool, generally it involves either huge efficient heat sinks or monster fans.

An ironic twist is that you could of been trying to shovel more and more fuel in with the idea that hotter means better, but if the unit was not shifting heat fast enough from the cold side then you are just wasting fuel. From an electric standpoint only you are far better off having a tiny control fire to reach a reasonable temperature at one side, yet cool enough to allow the cold side chance to shift the heat away.
« Last Edit: February 19, 2015 by Rich.H »
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Dowser

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Re: Biolite owners
« Reply #20 on: February 19, 2015 »

An ironic twist is that you could of been trying to shovel more and more fuel in with the idea that hotter means better, but if the unit was not shifting heat fast enough from the cold side then you are just wasting fuel. From an electric standpoint only you are far better off having a tiny control fire to reach a reasonable temperature at one side, yet cool enough to allow the cold side chance to shift the heat away.

More great info Rich, and yeap... I was shovelling the fuel in like a good 'un!  It would have been nice of Biolite to have included that handy fact/tip in the manual. 

I had no idea how the unit actually worked, but now, between what you have told me and what I found out from opening it up, all has become clear.  The fan seems to have been designed to fulfil a dual purpose.  The obvious one is to blow oxygen into the burning chamber to assist the fire.  But, after opening the unit up and seeing the design of the fan I have discovered its second purpose which you have already pointed out.  Because the top of the fan is open, and not sealed, it is drawing its air in through the top vent on the unit and over the heat sinks/cooling blades, therefore creating an airflow through the blades.  Obviously this air is then heated slightly as it passes over the blades and this will also assist the flames as warm air is bound to work better than cold damp air.  That's possibly a triple purpose then, and not a dual purpose  ???

Now that I know how it actually works, hopefully I will be able to work it more efficiently and get a lot more use out of it  :D

Thanks Rich
« Last Edit: February 19, 2015 by Dowser »
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