Ask HN: What is the most undervalued startup you know? - pplonski86
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internaut
Bill Gray's Velkess project was a superior idea to Tesla's Powerwall (IMO!).

It is now unfortunately defunct or at least the website says they're on hold
indefinitely.

Here is a youtube video explaining:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6I2lKtfpLQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6I2lKtfpLQ)

It was a flywheel battery. A physical battery. It turns electrical energy into
kinetic energy (and back on demand) at a very high efficiency rate. If I
remember the specs correctly it could supply 15 kwh. I think the cost for
first adopters would have been $6500 a unit. Actually here are the full specs
from a sheet I got from the website before it went down:

    
    
        Technical Specifcations
        Continuous Power               3kW
        Peak Power (60 seconds)        9kW
        Nameplate Energy               15kWh
        Depth of Discharge             100%
        Interface                      48VDC Virtual Lead Acid Bus
        24h Roundtrip Efciency         >80%
        Expected Service Life          10 years
        Physical Package meter(inch)   1 x 1 x 1 (40 x 40 x 40)
        Weight kg(lbs)                 340 (750)
        Standard Connectivity          Wi-Fi, Ethernet
        Optional Connectivity          CAN Bus, RS-485, Xbee, Powerline, LoRa
    
        Energy storage systems of any size can be built by linking 2 or more (n) Velkess L systems togetherin parallel. 
        Multiple parallel Velkess L modules will self balance and behave as a single energy storage system with performance equal to (1 module) * n.
    

The clever part was that the flywheel (flywheels are dangerous due to the
large amount of kinetic energy) would employ a lasso effect to crumple and use
its own energy to destroy itself if there was a technical problem.

The killer app quality it had was that a flywheel of this sort could
theoretically run for many decades without failure. The first iteration had
'10 years' expected service life but I believe that was being very
conservative and it had the capability to last much, much longer.

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ParanoidShroom
Do you have any links, more information about the 'lasso effect' ?

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internaut
It turns out their website is now live (it wasn't the previous time I checked)
and appears open for business.

Since it's up I'll just directly quote from the horse's mouth:

"Velkess’s flywheel was conceived from the very beginning up to provide
dramatically lower cost for performance. To do this we had to take a
fundamentals approach, re-imagining the flywheel from the ground up.

Flexible vs. Rigid

Traditional flywheels are designed and built like the turbines of high
performance jet engines. They use super rigid materials and super high
precision fabrication to very tightly control the powerful natural dynamics
that are characteristic of all high energy spinning rotors. These materials,
precision, and control techniques are all very expensive, so you simply can’t
use the traditional rigid approach to make a low cost system.

Velkess’s flywheel is flexible and works very much like a cowboy’s lasso. Our
flexible system embraces the natural dynamics of the rotor, redirecting any
stray energies into stabilizing counter forces. By working cooperatively with
these natural rotor dynamics we gain excellent control of the rotor system
without having to crush out its irregularities. Because of this we can use
much less expensive materials and don’t need nearly as much precision as rigid
designs."

[http://www.velkess.com/technology/](http://www.velkess.com/technology/)

One day I hope to build a microhydro plant and having one of these would be
great.

~~~
acedinlowball
> It is now unfortunately defunct or at least the website says they're on hold
> indefinitely.

> It turns out their website is now live (it wasn't the previous time I
> checked) and appears open for business.

So in the 1 hour between your first and second comments, they brought the site
back online and started taking orders? You understand how that might be hard
for people to believe right?

~~~
ryanlol
Instead of trying to imply that he's a liar you could just visit the site and
find out for yourself that he was right the first time around.

[http://www.velkess.com/](http://www.velkess.com/)

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Lordarminius
Omnicharge. A powerful, smart, portable, multi-device charger. It has the
potential to be a massive hit. [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/omnicharge-
smart-compact-...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/omnicharge-smart-
compact-portable-power-bank-smartphone-powerbank#/)

They keep shifting the shipping date.

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Chos89
I thought [https://airtame.com/](https://airtame.com/) would get pretty huge
by now

~~~
selckin
It's called chromecast

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cdvonstinkpot
MaidSafe

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countryqt30
Make your own bubble tea anywhere you want. Only 1 CHF a cup.

[http://www.baobao-bubbletea.ch/](http://www.baobao-bubbletea.ch/)

