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Show HN: Trontium Reactor, the first USB Power Delivery battery

trontium.com

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Re: Show HN: Trontium Reactor, the first USB Power Delivery battery

#71

Post by alexkiritz »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #64
onion2k wrote: post #16

The fact the website's team page is essentially devoid of information is worrying. I'm not a hardware guy so I have no idea about this sort of thing, but how hard is battery design? Is it wise to trust $thousands worth of Macbook/camera/etc to a battery designed by a group of anonymous people behind a Kickstarter campaign? If any of the people involved is an experienced and qualified electrical engineer, they really…

The team would apparently be "Alex" I guess? https://trontalk.com/member/3-alex http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alex-kiritz/83/528/b31 Alex Kiritz President at Trontium Inc Redondo Beach, CaliforniaElectrical/Electronic Manufacturing https://twitter.com/AlexKiritz‎ https://plus.google.com/107960025708414384190/posts But this is a Show HN, Maybe Alex can chime in to answer some of the questions we have...?

Another member of the team posted this late last night. What questions do you have? One of us will respond when we're not asleep.

Re: Show HN: Trontium Reactor, the first USB Power Delivery battery

#73

Post by kayoone »

darklajid wrote: post #30
luka-birsa wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always find it amusing when links provided by "nay sayers" present contrary evidence or no evidence at all. From the link: The nuclear power plant THTR-300 ( thorium high-temperature reactor) was a helium-cooled high-temperature reactor of the type pebble bed reactor in North Rhine-Westphalia Hamm with an electrical output of 300 megawatts . Despite its designation as a thorium reactor , it was essentially a normal…

Dear diary: My most bizarre moment on HN so far. Someone referenced my tiny (ugly) birth town in a discussion about energy. On topic: It didn't look impressive. :)

isn't Hamm the place where you have to wait so awfully long for the train ? ;)

Re: Show HN: Trontium Reactor, the first USB Power Delivery battery

#74

Post by Tloewald »

nwh wrote: post #61
Tloewald wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank god it's cylindrical, because I'm sure it's cheaper to make it cylindrical, there's a nice big cylindrical space in every backpack, it's easier to source cylindrical stuff to stick in it, and as a bonus it rolls off tables.

I know you're being sarcastic, but there's probably lots of round aluminum extrusions around to choose from. It would make the thing cheaper to build without having to go and make their own dies, just make two injected plastic ends and you're good to roll.

Interesting point (and I hadn't considered this) but a quick search reveals plenty of standard off-the-shelf aluminum extrusions that won't roll off a table and also could accommodate plastic end caps, such as rounded rectangles.

Now they may want a cylinder to maximize underwater performance, but that seems pretty far-fetched. It's just a stupid shape.

Re: Show HN: Trontium Reactor, the first USB Power Delivery battery

#77

Post by theorique »

simonh wrote: post #29
theorique wrote: post #26

How is this even legal, if it contains actual trontium? Who wants to walk around with a radioactive material in your pocket, irradiating your genitals? Scary idea.

Er, what's trontium again? Must have missed that in Chemistry 101.

I think it's an extra heavy isotope of turbinium that is made in neutron stars.

"get your ass to Mars"

Re: Show HN: Trontium Reactor, the first USB Power Delivery battery

#79

Post by _Robbie »

alexkiritz wrote: post #71
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The team would apparently be "Alex" I guess? https://trontalk.com/member/3-alex http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alex-kiritz/83/528/b31 Alex Kiritz President at Trontium Inc Redondo Beach, CaliforniaElectrical/Electronic Manufacturing https://twitter.com/AlexKiritz‎ https://plus.google.com/107960025708414384190/posts But this is a Show HN, Maybe Alex can chime in to answer some of the questions we have...?

Another member of the team posted this late last night. What questions do you have? One of us will respond when we're not asleep.

Confirmed.

Re: Show HN: Trontium Reactor, the first USB Power Delivery battery

#80

Post by centizen »

alexkiritz wrote: post #33
specialp wrote: post #27

For $299 I can sure buy a lot of lithium ion batteries. There are already many such products out there that are very cheap. 290w/h is 58000 mah at 5v. I can buy a 11,000 mah pack for 29.99 on Amazon and surprise it weighs 1/4 the weight. Even if I bought 5 of them to equal the energy capacity it would be 1/2 the cost. (But it is not a REACTOR) There really is nothing novel at all about this product, and it is overpri…

It has three high power voltage converter circuits which are needed for it to support USB Power Delivery. Those are more expensive than the batteries and no other device has three of them. Lithium-ion packs are measured at 3.7 volts, not 5.

Buck or SEPIC based DC/DC conversion systems absolutely do not cost more than even a single LiIon cell. And to have multiple converters is far from a novel concept.

I think this is a neat implementation but there is no technical justification for this price tag, and the idea is far from unique. Looks cool though, and I guess for some that's all that will matter.

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