Check this out guys…I found it interesting.
It’s a pot you boil water in, and it thermoelectrically generates 5v at 1a! Anybody seen anything like this? I could see something like this making it’s way into my zombie kit…
All standard TECs generate a current if you can induce a temperature difference between the two sides. The trick is generating enough heat on one side and then removing enough on the other to maintain the differential without your “cold” side coming up to equilibrium. The efficiency is very low but it does still work.
Boiling water would not be optimal for power generation (though I think the idea is to get some “free” electricity when you were already going to boil water), as the temperature differential would not be as great as having flowing cold water run over the cold side.
You would need to be careful not to burn the cord.
I don’t think its very cost effective but if you were out bush and had a fire and a pot of water it could be handy in a emergency.
How long would you have to boil water for to charge your 1800mah battery (sounds like minimum of 2 hours)? It takes maybe 5 minutes to boil a litre of water? Packing those (relatively heavy) cannisters on multi day trips means conserving every ounce of fuel or toward the end of the trip you may not able able to prepare your freeze dried food, and I probably don’t need 12 litres of boiling water each time I prepare a meal.
Would it be better to put it in water (like a stream or by a lake) whilst the other side was sat in direct sunlight? Might be tricky to keep it from moving.
It would work. But standard photovoltaic cells would be both more efficient and less troublesome (ie you wouldn’t need to cool them in a stream).
Ahh, thanks Matt! I was wondering about solar panels. If one were to only use this charger for a few minutes each time it wouldn’t be so useful.
thats why i like the idea of the stove. you can cook your meal on it, and then just have a small contained wood fire for a while. though not so practical for wet conditions or areas with no wood to burn
The stove sounds brilliant! After reading more on the site I want one!! I suppose the downside is not having a big fire to provide warmth.
In the picture for the thermoelectric they are using a 230gm jetboil that costs $6.00 and will boil approx 23l of water, so perhaps you could get 2 charges on your phone battery if you’re lucky, but more probably one.
I can buy a 23gm high quality battery for my phone from FT for $6.62. Assuming the latter, I could simply buy an extra battery and take it with me and carry 1/10th of the weight. For the extra $.62 cents I’d also have a battery that I could re-use, rather than have to pack an empty cannister out for recycling which is dubious environmental stewardship. Another way of looking at it, if you carried 10 extra batteries they would be the weight of one jetboil cannister. That same cannister could at best just charge 2 batteries.
Just my 62 cents worth.
I have to say I’m not impressed with the Biolite Stove. 2W of power? What are you going to do with that? Is that even enough for my iPhone to recognize it as a charger? Or is it going to tell me that it’s not supported as a charging device in the same way as a solar charger when a cloud passes by? Seriously, they need to step it up. Adding another module could bring it up to over 10W without breaking the bank. And it woukd make this stove MUCH more useful as a charging device.
I’ll worry if the cord catches fire. Though the good side of this is that you can boil food here.
Great idea, brilliant man, i am just wondering if it is safe enough
As soon as I saw the 2W figure I knew this wasn’t worth the pixels displaying it. It will deliver 400mA, which is less than half the power of most USB chargers. A well made hand dynamo with the right gear ratio can put out 10W without too much trouble. You might break a sweat trying to fully charge your phone, but it is a hell of a lot more survival friendly than carrying a stove/boiler.
Could you use a camp fire instead?
I've been looking for a "well-made" one for ages but mostly just cheap Chinese junk with plastic gears. I did see one that output 110VAC but I was more interested in USB level output.
Do you have a specific recommedation and source?
I have not seen one so far. But I think if you aren’t an athlete, putting 10W mechanical with your hands/arms into a small handheld generator is nothing you will do an hour long to charge yout phone. Remember, 10W is something like pulling a two pound wheight from the ground to your waist within 1 second. Do that for half an hour, but only with your forearms. That’s the fun of an hand-cranked generator! 
10W output would mean even more mechanical input.
Because of that I think even a 2-3W TEG can be very helpful if you are somewhere with lots of fuel like wood to burn.
But not necessarily integrated into a pot.
So if the zombies take over, who are you going to call? (Why prep for a cellphone you can’t use?)
I have a friend who was a “doomsday prepper” back before “doomsday prepper” was considered “cool”. He spent a small fortune on a radio. … One. Radio. “Dude! Who ya gonna call??” “Why, this is the almighty XYZ, I can talk on any frequency and anyone can talk to me!” “Yeah, what radios do THEY have?” “stunned silence, very similar to all the ”dead air” on that very expensive radio”…
You could build your own, on a living-human budget (as in “_LightForum”…) with a Peltier cooler and a few parts from a dead computer.
Needless to say, if you boil your water with LP like in the ad, you’ve already spent enough to get a solar charger, which works even if you’re NOT boiling water… Living in a cave full of firewood under a cell tower, this would be just the ticket!
Good luck with those zombies!!
Dim