Lets say a decade before, you were told to replace your old filament bulbs with that time favorite tube lights. You would surely hate the tube light and loved the bulbs for one sole reason that is flickering. The tube light may take even minutes to turn fully on and give a constant light dissipation. This was not there in bulbs even though they were inefficient in converting the electricity to light. So the main problem with the tube light was flickering. This was rectified in the new generation CFL's.

Why CFL lamps don't flicker and have spiral structure ?

How it is different from the conventional tubelights and why does it not flicker when it is turned on?

Let's find out!!!

The Idea behind it :

Before we know why a normal CFL ( Compact Fluorescent Light ) does not flicker, lets snoop into its principal how it really works.

CFL's can be divided into two main parts. One is the ballast which can be magnetic or electronic, which is usually covered in a case. The second one is a gas filled tube, which you can easily see from outside.

To remove flickering we generally use electronic ballast instead of magnetic ballast because they are much faster and compact. 

Lets have an overlook of what electronic ballast comprises of. They contain a small PCB with rectifiers, a filter capacitors and generally two switching transistors. It follows the following steps:

1. Incoming AC current is first converted to DC.

2. It is then converted into high frequency AC by the transistors.

3. The resulting high frequency is applied to the tube.

Working :

The resulting high frequency excites the electrons inside the CFL which has mercury vapors and argon inside. It is also coated with phosphor. This gets illuminated when the electron falls on it. So larger the surface area it is coated, more faster will be its illumination time. The sharp edges at the spiral also boost up the speed of the electron thus accelerating it. Thus we don't see the CFL's flicker. This is not there in the conventional type of tube light.

Disadvantages:

1. Since it uses mercury vapors, its disposal is not Eco-friendly.
2. Since it is a point source rather than a line source of light like tubelight, the light intensity in all directions is not same. So near the CFL the intensity is more.

We must have heard many times some one saying - "There is a magic in the air". But we think, really is there a magic in the air???

Thinking of it I couldn't make up my mind that really is there a magic in the air???

Then I came across a well known idea of generating electricity from the air. But in real time scenerio is this thing possible?? Then a really good idea struck my mind and here it is before you now.

 Before going into my idea let me explain you the concept behind my idea.

HOW IT WORKS??

 A high voltage power source causes sparks to oscillate across the gap.

 Each visible spark is actually a series of small sparks, jumping rapidly back and forth (oscillating) between the terminals.

 The size of the metal plates attached to the spheres from which the sparks are produced controls the frequency of the sparks produced.

 A loop of wire held near the oscilating spark, had a spark jump acrooss the air gap between the ends of the wire whenever a spark jumped across the high voltage.

How did it produce?? Did anyone even think of that???

The induced spark depends on the gap between the coil.

MY IDEA:

• We can transmit electricity in the air removing the need of the transmission wires. We can transmit electromagnetic signals at the transmission station and receive at the receiver station and produce electricity.
• Wireless chargers can be made. The high voltage supply can be converted into desired frequency by adjusting the size of the spheres at the input. Then it can be transmitted and a receiver can have the coil of desired gap. In this way mobile chargers can be made.
• All appliances which needs wire to connect from the plug now can work wirelessly.
• The complex wiring system in the houses and buildings can be removed by having a single transmitting system from which many appliances can be connected wirelessly.

ADVANTAGES:

• The need for the wires will be reduced thus decreasing the pressure on our precious resources like copper.
• There will be no need of wires for plugging in the power supply.
• The charging is now mobile and the appliance can be moved anywhere around.

Now I feel that there is really a MAGIC in the air.........

~SKC

Student At VIT University, Vellore

 Who likes to stand in the hot burning sun???

We usually move under a tree or a shade. The temperature is considerably cooler even if  the difference in distance is very less.

 Did you ever stand in-between the doors such that you are half outside and half inside??

Try this you will notice something very peculiar. The temperature difference you will feel will push your mind to think something ahead. The same thing happened to me to think a bit away.

What if we can produce energy from this temperature difference??? We know the things but find it difficult to put it in a piece.  We usually heard of thermistors. But what really is a thermistor??

I will give a brief idea of how it works??

Thermistors differ from resistance temperature detectors (RTD) in that the material used in a thermistor is generally a ceramic or polymer, while RTDs use pure metals. The temperature response is also different; RTDs are useful over larger temperature ranges, while thermistors typically achieve a higher precision within a limited temperature range, typically −90 °C to 130 °C.

We know this that change due to temperature can produce a potential drop across thermistor and eventually producing current.

APPLICATIONS:

•  This can be used in the western countries where the temperature difference between the outside and inside has a huge difference.
• A thermistor can be installed in the railway station in western countries as the temperature difference is huge. The outside temperature outside can go down below zero whereas the temperature inside is ambient. This difference can produce electricity.
• Nations which have extremely high temperatures can also use this method to produce electricity. The condition over here is straight opposite to the above example. The outside is hotter than inside. So there is possibility of producing electricity here too.
• Even in industries where temperature difference is huge.
• Coal mines and nuclear cooling stations are few of the examples where this is used.

ADVANTAGES:

• Its a clean form of energy that does not cause any harm to the environment.
• The installation cost is also not much as compared to other sources of energy.
• The maintenance cost is also very low.  

DRAWBACKS:

•  The temperature difference has to be sufficiently high so has to produce significant amount of energy.
•  This is not a constant source of energy. So one cannot wholly depend on it for all practical purpose.
• This method can only be a part and not the whole of the source totally available form of usuable energy.
• Since it is temperature dependent a small variation in temperature can cause huge difference in energy. This may lead to internal circuit problems.

~SKC

Student @ VIT University

 Many see that when we press or put pressure on some thing the shape of a thing changes. What if we produce electricity from the pressure that we apply on that object???

That will be really great....isn't it???

But how can we produce this electricity from this pressure??? Here simple peizo device comes into play. Before we go into detail, let us be clear what really does a piezo do??

HOW DOES IT WORK ?

The piezoelectric effect is understood as the linear electromechanical interaction between the mechanical and the electrical state in crystalline materials with no inversion symmetry.

Whenever you apply a pressure on the piezo electric crystal than it converts it to elecrtricity.

The whole idea revolves around this. So when you apply a large pressure or apply pressure to a large no. of piezos together then we will get electricity.

APPLICATIONS :

•  For street lightning in the night piezos can be used. Piezos can be inserted in a part of a road say a patch which then is stored in batteries nearby. It will be best suited when it is installed at traffic signals as the vechicles halt for some time. when vehicles halt the pressure due to them produces electricity.
• It can be installed under some heavy objects in the room say cupboards where you get some constant pressure. Then this electricity can be collected in total to light the house.
• Motorised wheel chair can also make use of this principal.Since the person usually sits on the wheel chair the piezos can be inserted under the seat. This electricity can drive the motor.
• The piezos can be inserted under the chasis of a car. This also has a constant pressure. The electricity produced from it can be used to power the car.
• The piezos can also be inserted on the floors of the big malls or hospitals where you find many people moving in or out. So when they step in on that the electricity is produced from it.

ADVANTAGES:

• No pollution to the environment when producing electricity.
• It produces as high as 20kV of voltage which can be converted into usable forms of energy.

DRAWBACKS :

•  The total cost of installation is obviously high compared to the current methods available.
• They produce stary currents which is very dangerous. They can pick stray voltages in connecting wires connecting them.
• They are proned to cracking when the pressure exceed its limit.

~SKC

Student at VIT University

 What if the energy we use doesn't exhaust at all??

What if the energy we use is again converted to a usable form???

That would be a miracle.....isn't it??

But this thing is not impossible.....as nothing in this world is impossible!!!!

A crazy idea it may seem but it is possible even practically. The whole idea revolves around converting rotational energy into some form of usable energy.

For this you need to know the working of dynamo.

It works on the principal of Faraday's laws of induction. The Permanent magnet is rotated between the coils which produces electricity. This idea can be carried forward in the practical applications too.

Let me explain my whole idea using an example.

Suppose we connect the dynamo to a running fan, what will happen???

It is as simple as that. The dynamo connected to it will produce electricity. What if we connect this current to the fan itself. Energy it uses is again given to it. The energy is used at its utmost level.

So we need to supply a minimum current to run the fan.

APPLICATIONS:

•  This thing can be implemented in the wheels of any vehicle. When the wheel rotates the dynamo too rotates. This energy can be used to power the vehicle again.
• The small wind mill like structure can be constructed at the top of the moving trains so that the wind pushes the blades of the wind mill when it moves. This in turn produces energy which can be utilized for powering the lifts and fans inside a moving trains.
• We can attach the dynamo in the wheels of the trains, maybe a big one connected to many wheels. This in turn produces energy which can be utilized optimally.

DRAWBACKS:

•  We know that practically no device or instrument has 100% efficiency. So energy converted by the dynamo is not 100%.
• While including the dynamo in the circuitry, other forces too act. The main opposing force is friction. Eventually this makes energy consumed for rotation without dynamo lesser than with dynamo.
•  The net energy produced is very less.

CONCLUSION:

•  If we reduce the frictional forces and improve the efficiency of the dynamo we can achieve a desired level of energy that we need to operate the system.

 The day is not far when this comes to existence!!!!!

~SKC

STUDENT AT VIT University