
Charge Your Phone in 30 Seconds? An Israeli Firm Says It Can - shawndumas
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/04/07/charge-your-phone-in-30-seconds-an-israeli-firm-says-it-can/?utm_source=loopinsight.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+loopinsight%252FKqJb+(The+Loop)&utm_content=FeedBurner&mg=blogs-wsj&url=http%253A%252F%252Fblogs.wsj.com%252Fdigits%252F2014%252F04%252F07%252Fcharge-your-phone-in-30-seconds-an-israeli-firm-says-it-can%253Futm_source%253Dloopinsight.com%2526utm_medium%253Dreferral%2526utm_campaign%253DFeed%25253A%252Bloopinsight%25252FKqJb%252B%2528The%252BLoop%2529%2526utm_content%253DFeedBurner
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beat
If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Consider internal resistance, power measured in watt-hours, and thermal
behavior. When I was a kid, I grew around drag racing. Lots of times, I saw
incredibly powerful cars try to put over 1000hp to the wheels at once, and
just snap an axle or explode a transmission.

An iPhone battery is about 5.45 watt-hours. To charge that in 30 seconds from
mostly dead (say 5 watt-hours), you need over 500 watts, discounting any
thermal losses! Do you think the tiny solder joints at the power coupling are
really designed to take 500 watts of power? Devices designed for 500 watts of
power look more like your refrigerator.

~~~
tkinom
Typical toaster, coffee pot are ~800-1500 watts according to google. Pumping
500 watts into the phone might be possible as long as it is not via the normal
usb connector. How long would that batter last might be different story.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=toaster+wattage&client=ubunt...](https://www.google.com/search?q=toaster+wattage&client=ubuntu&channel=cs&oq=toaster+wattage)

~~~
beat
1000 watts into a heater element is a very different thing from 1000 watts
into delicate microcircuitry.

~~~
gatehouse
The only thing I can think of in the same league is a graphics card, the AMD
R9 290X has a TDP of 250 watts I think, it's still quite a gulf.

~~~
richthegeek
And the 290X2 with 500W TDP, although that's technically going into two cards
on the same board.

~~~
gatehouse
Yeah, I've only seen rumor quality information but I think that one might have
an external radiator: [http://videocardz.com/50102/amd-
radeon-r9-295x2-pictured](http://videocardz.com/50102/amd-
radeon-r9-295x2-pictured)

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miahi
>The prototype charger is currently the size of a laptop charger

That's not the charger, that's the _battery_ attached to the phone. A Li-Ion
would blow to pieces charging at 120C (120 times the capacity).

So what's wrong:

\- that's the battery

\- they don't actually say the battery capacity (the phone would report 100%
charge even with a 100mAh battery, if it's "fully charged").

\- they don't say anything else about the battery (weight, internal
resistance)

\- the current provided by that plug they connect to the battery can probably
be used to weld thin metal, if the battery capacity is close to the original
one (think sparks/small fires in an accidental short circuit)

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tzs
They don't mean charge a phone that has a lithium ion battery. They mean
charge a phone that has one of their batteries, which is similar to a super-
capacitor.

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bertil
I’m not sure I understand the science behind that: they insist on showing a
actual phone, running normally, therefore I’m assuming that means the battery
isn’t different, right? The WSJ article doesn’t exactly give much details.

That thing is fed with standards copper-wires that can handle current, that
can be of a certain voltage and amperage -- both are presumably linked. You
can do funky things with time, like alternating, but… other than shove with
higher voltage, I don’t see how you can feed that much energy in there, not
unless you change the battery technology. And that’s not possible.

Therefore, what they have and the big bulky thing is a prototype battery. IT
is an order of magnitude too big for the moment — not really a problem until
you go though industrial design, I’m guessing. One that appears not to heat as
much, otherwise that think would be burning when holding.

My question is: why do we have to guess so much from a video?

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ihnorton
The other article has at least _some_ content:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7546332](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7546332)

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TrainedMonkey
Without knowing capacity of the battery this demo is useless. Charge time of
lithium ion batteries already depends on capacity, so if you have low enough
capacity you could achieve 30 second charge time.

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grej
I wonder if this has any effect the number of cycles the battery can handle.
If this is real, the implications for electric cars are most intriguing. Fill
up with electricity becomes as fast as a fill up with liquid hydrocarbon.

~~~
JimmaDaRustla
Batteries degrade with heat. Heat is generated by rapidly discharging or
charging a battery.

This would destroy batteries - wouldn't suggest this at all unless you only
want your battery to last a year.

Edit: Some resource -
[http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/ultra_fast_charge...](http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/ultra_fast_chargers)

~~~
corin_
As long as it's not a device with a non-removable battery (such as iPhone),
I'd be fine with that. If I could recharge my blackberry in 30 seconds I'd
have no problem buying a new battery every 6 months.

~~~
amalag
Then it comes down to the monetary and environmental cost of the replacements.

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shawndumas
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9DhJ...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9DhJZAhjbcI)

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MimiZ
Seriously, at the end they said "late 2016" for commercial production? Press
release 2.5 years early.

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theDoug
“Can” and “does” are two very different things.

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hosh
Charging phones are great.

Are there any applications for this for helping with stuff like buffering
power generated by solar and wind? Anyone?

~~~
hosh
Ok. Folks who downvoted, tell me why you did. I thought this was a relevant
question.

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aioprisan
the video was posted for April fool's, wasn't it?

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acd
This is revolutionary!, its seems similar to the super supercapacitor video
[https://vimeo.com/51873011](https://vimeo.com/51873011)

This should have implications for car batteries as well. Tesla is essentially
a car running on very many laptop batteries.

Thus if you can charge a phone in 30 seconds. You can probably charge a car
with distributed battery modules in similar speedy time frame.

This will mean pollution free cities in the long run, clean cars powered by
Thorium reactors. Imagine mega cities without the car pollution.

Shorter time frame, your laptop should be able to fully recharge 50 watt hours
in 300 seconds with this type of battery.

