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Battery-free Game Boy (2020)

freethegameboy.info

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Re: Battery-free Game Boy (2020)

#111

Post by petodo »

Aachen wrote: post #99
petodo wrote: post #76

I guess Solar powered Game Boy would make for less attractive title.

Because that's not all it is. They didn't just take a console and slap a solar panel on top and wired that into the battery compartment. They took a new CPU, buttons, etc. and run an inefficient emulator (goes to show how big the energy budget is) with auto save state before turning off from lack of light/button energy. Arguably, the former is way more useful in the short run, as you could actually use it for more th…

it pretty much is, they removed battery and replaced it with direct power supply from solar panels, they mention some additional energy from buttons but I really doubt that would have any meaningful gains, after all how can you generate energy and store it between keypresses unless you will be constantly pressing button in which case you need third hand

Re: Battery-free Game Boy (2020)

#112

Post by ajsnigrutin »

vanderZwan wrote: post #51
icoder wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the game a bit but I too am a bit sceptical that this adds much, would be interesting to see a breakdown of solar vs buttons.

Even if it turns out to be useless, this was a research project. Testing if this is feasible in practice is part of the point. Although it is a bit odd that they don't show any stats on the main page. I looked it up in the paper[0], section 5.2 discusses power consumption/generation and pasted it below (I hope all symbols survived the clipboard). TL;DR: the buttons generate a very small difference in power generation…

But the idea of a research project is to find out what is worth doing and what isn't. Do shitty, hard to press buttons actually help? Or would putting just a tiny bit larger solar cells help a lot more. If you're in complete darkness, can you actually press enough buttons to make it playable there too?

There have been many, many really shitty solar projects in the last year, some wasting millions of dollars and euros, and while reasearch is important, it's also important to know what's worth it and what's not.

Re: Battery-free Game Boy (2020)

#113

Post by bee_rider »

8note wrote: post #11
schappim wrote: post #6

This is definitely achievable! When I was a young, we'd take long road trips and my Gameboy (original) would run out of battery. I'd use a small solar panel (in place of one of the batteries) from a science kit to keep going, propped up against the back window. The wires and panel were held in place with chewing gum (yes, kids can be gross). I did have the "frequent power failures". Props to the team on fixing this :…

I just had a wall plug in for my game boy colour. That worked quite well because the grid's always been pretty reliable

Seems region-specific. The sun is more reliable in some places. Harvesting from button pushes is almost completely reliable (may have some accessibility concerns, though, I guess?)

Re: Battery-free Game Boy (2020)

#114

Post by rexreed »

testmasterflex wrote: post #41
sbierwagen wrote: post #38

Oddly enough, the "energy harvesting switches" they used in this are commercial products! https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/zf-electronics/AF... https://switches-sensors.zf.com/us/product/energy-harvesting...

Love this kind of stuff. I made this slim PCB a few years ago with a super tiny NFC chip on it that can harvest energy from NFC: https://youtu.be/_BSfO9LAIqg Made it into a business card as you can see.

I'd love to make that as well or find a source for it. Curious as to costs to manufacture and ease of reproducibility. Any tips / pointers / guides?

Re: Battery-free Game Boy (2020)

#115

Post by agentwiggles »

Shish2k wrote: post #93
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of software emulation, why not hardware emulation? The original Gameboy ran on two AA batteries for 12-20 hours (depending on whether the light was on); I'd argue that rebuilding the original hardware with modern-day technologies could reduce that energy consumption by 90% or more.

> The original Gameboy ran on two AA batteries for 12-20 hours (depending on whether the light was on) I wonder if you googled for this? Googling for “original gameboy battery life” gives nearly this exact quote, but then reading the wikipedia article that it came from reveals that this is talking about the Gameboy Light (1998 - arguably “the original hardware with modern technology to reduce energy consumption”). I…

Ah, you just triggered fond nostalgia for me, of pillaging my dad's stash of batteries for my ever hungry Gameboy Pocket. It ran on two AAAs and my parents must have lost a few sanity points from my constant requests to stop at a gas station for batteries on long road trips (which were almost always denied, gas station batteries ain't cheap).

Re: Battery-free Game Boy (2020)

#117

Post by colechristensen »

hbn wrote: post #110

It's a neat proof-of-concept, but the video gets a little optimistic and hand-wavey about how practical this could actually ever be. "Right now we have interruptions, but[...] that interruption amount is going to continually decrease as we make these systems better and more energy-efficient." Is that really the case? The limiting factor here is not just the efficiency of harvesting energy. The energy being harvested…

With magic solar panels and full sun an iphone shaped solar cell could charge my iphone fully in under an hour and a half. Good commercial solar cells can get a little more than 20% efficiency so really with good sun and a bit of restricted usage an iphone with a solar cell for a back that got a lot of sunshine could power itself enough to be practically useful.

With the ability to scale down the power usage with processors that do a whole lot less it’s certainly practical to get much more out of usable processors.

You can do a lot with, say, 10 watt hours per day and that much is certainly achievable on a hand held device.

Re: Battery-free Game Boy (2020)

#118

Post by compressedgas »

shp0ngle wrote: post #116
jandrese wrote: post #22

I have to wonder just how much power they get out of those button presses. It seems like it must be such a tiny amount that it's hardly worth the effort.

This reminds me of the OLPC crank. (It did have crank for power, right? Or do I misremember?)

There was a prototype with the crank on the device. Later moved it to a power brick. And then it was omitted.

I thought it would have been better as a treadle.

Re: Battery-free Game Boy (2020)

#119

Post by seedboot »

testmasterflex wrote: post #41
sbierwagen wrote: post #38

Oddly enough, the "energy harvesting switches" they used in this are commercial products! https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/zf-electronics/AF... https://switches-sensors.zf.com/us/product/energy-harvesting...

Love this kind of stuff. I made this slim PCB a few years ago with a super tiny NFC chip on it that can harvest energy from NFC: https://youtu.be/_BSfO9LAIqg Made it into a business card as you can see.

now use that energy to mine bitcoin and you'll be rolling in ~~money~~ decimal places before you know it!
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