Hacker News Reader

Comment by spaintech | Hacker News Reader

While I applaud the intent to bring the issue of homelessness to the forefront of the media, I feel like this project is more about gaining self attention for the project rather than solving the issue all together. The ~20GBP for the 18650 or 27500 batteries, the probably ~5GBP of the PCB needed, ~15GBP for the chain hardware and magnets, you are looking for a >40GBP to put this together, you can today get a <10GBP USB hand crank, and you don’t have to use the words “hack” and name “Santander” on your blog. I’f there was intent, then a volume buy, with a go-fund-me campaign, you can get them hand cranks for <2GBP in volume, and it would have had a real impact… I hate it when serious matters are used just to draw attention to one self, IMHO.

View on HN

This is the same mistake the OLPC people made. When you're broke and struggling to feed yourself, you aren't going to waste precious calories cranking to charge a battery. You're going to bum enough off someone to have a calorie-rich drink while you charge in a coffee shop or find a public outlet you can sneak some juice off of.

I met a number of people involved in OLPC and every single one of them was an insufferably smug tool with a massive white-savior complex. Kids in Africa didn't need a hand-crankable laptop. They needed clean water to survive infancy, light to be able to study by, and to not be captured and turned into soldiers.

>every single one of them was an insufferably smug tool with a massive white-savior complex.

Silicon Valley nailed it.[1]

These tech people thinking they're "saving Africa" with crankable laptops are just like the former Crypto pundits you'd see roaming around here in the comments preaching how crypto will save Africa from poverty.

[1] https://youtu.be/ETi_UpG8D_k?si=2EgVaMer-_bFOg2M

> light to be able to study by

this was the point of olpc?

It’s a student project, so the primary intent is to do the work necessary to graduate.

It’s from CSM, a fairly well regarded art college, so you are right on the money.

You see a lot of interesting projects like this come from art colleges - technically quite neat, with a “social message” or theme, but usually not going to translate well to the real world.

That being said. I could see myself actually using something like this in a pinch.

Which I think is 100% ok for art or tech school or project. They are not supposed to be experts in social help, sociology or whatever. They kinda lack training for that. The are supposed to show practical skills and come up with an idea of a project that would demonstrate them.

I don’t see it as self promotion. Also regarding hand cranking: pedalling is almost surely far less strenuous and more efficient

In the article it says he hopes to manufacture it for £3. Not sure whether that price is realistic.

You may be right. Others in this thread mention he's a student. Learning about manufacturing costs should be well worth the time spent.

> USB hand crank

Are any of those actually effective for charging a phone? I used to have a hand cranked radio, but radios built for this only need a minuscule amount of power. Does anybody have real experience using one of these to charge a phone? How long does it take?

I have an emergency radio / USB-C battery combo thing with like 5000mah and the math on the hand crank says I'd have to crank it continuously for like 48 hours to charge it. It's completely useless. I'd die from exertion just trying to charge it if I was stranded.

You don't need to crank the whole 5000mAh, you just need to crank enough for your phone to get a phone call or two out, and that's assuming the battery wasn't already charged prior.

I mean, sure, the person you replied to wouldn’t but if this was your primary method of charging your device, as the original comment suggested, then you would need to crank the whole 5000mAh. Multiple times, since I assume you’ll want your phone charged more than twice.

If a phone call or two was enough to end homelessness then it would have ended a long time ago.

5000mAh battery at 3.7V nominal has roughly 18-20Wh of juice. Your crank would only be putting out 400mW of power if it truly took 48 hours to charge.

Internet seems to think most hand cranks can output somewhere between 5-15W, which would mean you'd only take 1.3-4 hours to fully charge said pack. Plenty of juice in an emergency situation, and certainly plenty for a phone call or something. Maybe that's a big giant crank thing though, and the tiny plastic crap ones only put out the wattage you're talking about though.

It's a tiny plastic crap one :)

iPhones charge at 20watts. Doing that sustained by hand is probably fairly tiring but would be trivial wattage for say biking. From my experience the hand crank radio's would be pretty futile for charging a phone. There are some charging specific devices out there that can generate decent power.

https://www.amazon.ca/Powerhouse-Watt-Hand-Crank-Generator-Q...

There was a video a few years ago in which a professional cyclist is connected to a generator (bike included) and their continuous power output was around 100 W which they could maintain for a few hours. But it would be unreasonable to expect this amount of exertion from an untrained person.

Edit: weeeelll. I'm either thinking of a different one or completely messed up the numbers and duration: https://youtu.be/S4O5voOCqAQ

Assuming my exercise bike wattage is accurate I think most decently fit people could average 100 watts for an hour with a bit of sweating but not like, full on panting. 20 watts is low enough that it's awkward to generate that little power in terms of speed/resistance.

After 6 months of training I went from 150W/h to 200W/h. For most bikes, 100W is like riding 18-20km/h.

Yeah, pro cyclists can put out 400W for an hour. The 20W it takes to charge a phone is less effort than walking, it's honestly the bare minimum a grandma puts into a bike to get it to roll down the road.

Don't tell me you have never used a hand crank. The bicycle dynamo thing is stupid, but at least the expectation is that you charge while you are on the go without thinking too much about it. It makes your bicycle slower, but that is about it. Meanwhile your idea requires hours upon hours of doing nothing but handcranking.

> the expectation is that you charge while you are on the go

Not at all, according to the article text. The expectation is that you will pedal backwards for 25 minutes on a stationary bike, without paying to remove it from the docking station. And slightly further down it says the colour is chosen to match the bike "so as not to attract attention". Doesn't really add up.

Computer people have the biggest case of “everything looks like a nail”.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com