Henseleit Off-Topic Lounge

[mkovalcson]

In the it's ugly but it works category, I really couldn't find a good position to mount the LED and have it be visible on the TDR, so I ended up with this. I was sticking it on the back of my battery sticks which put it in an excellent position, but repeatedly sticking and unsticking it seemed like a good way for it to come unhooked.

I imagine that there is a boom support brace that might fit back here and look a bit better than this.

[ElectricSheep]

Check out this article on Mashable.

Who knows when this technology will be available & affordable for us RC folks, but the good thing is that these scientists are legit. The article author says he'll update the article/post once he hears back from the scientist(s)....

Press release is here.

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"Battery Breakthrough Offers 30 Times More Power, Charges 1,000 Times Faster"

By Charlie White 4/17/13

Battery technology has improved over the past decade, but now scientists claim they have made a giant leap in power storage, giving lithium-ion batteries 30 times more power and the ability to recharge 1,000 times faster "than competing technologies."

This is a battery breakthrough that could change the world — it's "a whole new way to think about batteries," according to its creators. The team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, headed up by Professor William King, wrote about the technology in the April 16 issue of Nature Communications.

According to King, battery technology has "lagged far behind" the technology it powers. He says in a press release that his microtechnology "could change all of that. Now the power source is as high performance as the rest of it."

The batteries are so powerful, King says you could use the power storage device in your cellphone to jumpstart your car battery.

How has the team accomplished this seemingly miraculous breakthrough? The secret is extreme miniaturization of the conventional elements of traditional batteries, the anode and the cathode. Assembling these in a 3D microstructure, the researchers have developed what their press release says is "a new way to integrate the two components at the microscale to make a complete battery with superior performance."

What's next? Like most scientific breakthroughs, the scientists are now working on making the technology affordable, and adapting it to fit into today's tightly packed environments of smartphones and other gadgetry. Said the press release, "imagine juicing up a credit-card-thin phone in less than a second."

We've contacted King, asking him when he thinks we might see this technology in our hands, and what devices might be first to use it. We'll update this post as soon as we get a response.

Imagine what a battery with this kind of power could do to our world, which is increasingly dependent on energy storage devices. Electric cars could become a lot more practical and recharge in less than the time it takes to fill up a gas tank. Solar power could be stored easily overnight with incredible efficiency, and many devices that now must be plugged in could be powered by these super batteries.

It's interesting that this technology originated at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the birthplace of the fictional HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
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[jointer]

The problem with this kind of news is that we hear them every year and still nothing...

[jointer]

Owners of TDR and YGE, i want your help and experience:
http://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=523739

[ElectricSheep]

I'm just curious -- how many of you guys have seen the movie "The Big Lebowski"? (It's an American film, so I'm not sure how popular [or not] it is outside of the US).

It's one of those "I don't get it" movies on the first viewing, but gets better and better the more times you see it. It's also one of the greatest "cult" films of all time.

The movie came up in post #138 in the speed fuselage thread; my avatar is based on the movie's main character -- The Dude, aka Jeffrey Lebowski -- but only "Achievers" would pick up on that. Just like only true Blade Runner fans would know my screen name is an offshoot of the novel behind the movie (Blade Runner).

Anyway, I'm just curious.

PS> If you're not familiar with the movie and its cult following, this is a great overview.

The Dude Abides.

[jointer]

Yeah, it is a long time i seen that.
But my favourite movies are the ones with Jay and Silent Bob in them.
And everything sci-fi, not much SF films were made in last year or two, or maybe i just did not noticed?
Year 2012 was full of horror movies and i do not like that much.
And also lot of animated "Toy story like" movies, some were good.

Now i am doing different things then watching movies, but year ago i had a period of watching series like Big Bang, V, Fringe and of course The walking dead.

Anyway, i could recommend you some.
Dark Skies, new thing, sort of brought back the feeling from The X Files...
And you should see both Appleseed movies, you might like that...

Surprisingly, from the last 3-5 years, my favourite film is probably Iron man.

[Groucho_]

I watch TBL every few months or so...

It draws a lot of water..

[OverTemp]

Stored energy is stored energy. Can you imagine the fireball when one goes up?!