Can You Charge A Phone with Marbles?

Check out the Engineezy merch featured in this video:

I have a bunch of cool mechanical 3d print files available on my website:

The Wintergatan Holy Grail Divider Video:

Tom Stanton’s Generator:

Here are a bunch of articles about different renewable energy storage systems in the works:

My 3D Printers:

This is the Laser Cutter I use for all my projects:

This is the filament I use for all my projects:

Can you harvest the energy of falling marbles to charge a phone? In this video, I take you through the incredibly complex engineering process required to answer this simple question. From converting a stepper motor into a working generator using a full bridge rectifier, to powering this generator with a marble-paddle wheel, to feeding the paddle wheel with hundreds of marbles- there were some interesting challenges I encountered along the way, and some satisfying solutions.

This is probably the world's least efficient way to store energy, but it might be the most fun.

[ForgeCoreCo]

You gotta have a lot of balls to attempt something like this

[aserta]

I setup my brother's farm with water batteries. We're up to 27 now, each about 30k liters of water. Sun moves it up with pumps in the day, turbines make power during the night. It was the best deal, because water is also a reserve for irrigation purposes, to that effect, we plan to expand it all along the borders of the land, which is basically useless because of the hilly nature of the property. Other than maintenance on the pumps and turbines, clean-up of the solar farm, there's basically no other worries, not for the duration of our lives anyways.

[WalnutBun]

The fact you felt the need to make sure the laws of thermodynamics still apply is hilarious to me

[Herbertti]

Casually checks if perpetual motion machine was made. True engineer.

[andrasvoros]

17:52 The power density of chemical energy storages like a battery is always orders of magnitudes higher than of physical energy storages like a flywheel or a capacitor. That's why in mobile applications the energy is almost always stored chemically (batteries in electronics, fuel in cars, airplanes and boats, liquid gas for stoves, etc.).

[schuylerbrock]

"Engineering is all about finding solutions that will make all the work you did last week obsolete"
Love that! And so freaking true 😂
As frustrating as it can be, that's totally the point!
I'm always impressed by your patience with these projects. That makes a huge difference

[TheRealTopHatOnYT]

“Yo bro what’s that thing?”
“Oh, that? That’s just my charger.”

[federicocaputo]

16:33 this guy wanted to literally make a perpetual motion machine.

IN THIS HOUSE WE OBEY THE LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS.

[brawldude]

3:20 I was screaming FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER in my head Electroboom will be proud of me

[KuchiKopium]

16:42 I'm so happy that you included that. My first thought was "Of course it wouldn't work, that would be over-unity (perpetual motion; impossible)." And then I realized that's why you included it...too many fake engineering videos promising free energy would have slapped a hidden battery pack on it and claimed discovery of something "THEY" don't want you to know.

[xalwine]

Watched some of the shorts leading up to this. Could never have guessed this was the end goal. Fantastic!

[Brocklebird]

Wintergatan is perhaps the marble GOAT, love seeing him referenced and the spirit of his work expanded upon. This is some super cool work!

[Theboardbro]

Wintergatan is my GOAT! He literally commits years of his life on the same task and even though he makes mistakes he continues to press on and not give up!

[PhilippeCarphin]

Those animations are incredible. I truly appreciate those who go the extra mile creatively instead of using AI. I think it's worth it.

[LiborTinka]

It's fascinating how much you learn doing seemingly "trivial" projects like these. For me it's the true essence of learning - actually making stuff hands on. There are thousands tiny details along the way no textbook can fully cover, that give you much deeper insight.

[Roobotics]

As an EE I think your setup is likely suffering a lot due to motor choice, steppers don't make for amazing generators at reasonable speeds. Most hobbyist steppers run lower voltages so when you reverse that and spin them, you get a fairly low voltage output that makes dealing with it for power harvesting, a real headache, the losses of rectification start eating a huge portion of the output as a 'simple diode drop' is now at odds with the voltage output as a ratio. DC treadmill motors are fantastic because they already self-rectify and are usually spec'd ~90v DC input usually, and even turning them by hand can make something momentarily useful. You would need to regulate and not over-voltage your phone of course, but you likely won't get 90v out, probably more like 10-30v etc.

[CyborgX]

I had this moment a while back as well, where I wanted non-chemical, preferable mechanical, energy storage and wondered why there wasn't such a thing on the market. Then I did similar calculations to yours and quickly abandoned my wish. Good on you for actually building it yourself and seeing how far you could take it at least.

[rudycramer]

You have the brain and the persistence. How does one so young learn all about this to just fire up CAD, then go to a 3D printer? What a learning curve. So impressive.

[sdgsuperstar]

That sounds like an impressive and efficient setup! The combination of solar-powered pumps and turbines for energy storage, coupled with water reserves for irrigation, seems like a smart way to make the most out of hilly land. Expanding the system along the borders could not only maximize the energy potential but also help improve irrigation for farming in less usable areas.

[epicmemelord]

1:27 I had no idea the animations were stop motion. That’s actually so cool