Self-Powered Mobile Charger with Configurable Hydropower Generator

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Mobile phones play an important role in communication. However, mobile phones face the difficulty of battery charging while traveling from one place to another, especially in rural areas that have insufficient source of electricity. So, this necessity is being conceptualized in this paper. A hydropower mobile charger that may be self-powered with a hydro-generator. A flow of liquid may be used to rotate the turbine of hydro-generator to generate electric power that is enough to charge a mobile phone.

METHODS

The idea of the prototype was to generate electricity thru flowing water, it can be free flowing or induced flow enforced in water to generate flow. The fan blade was attached to the DC generator. The aluminum rod was attached to the fan blade to extend the attachment between the motor and the fan blade. to avoid the water to interfere the rotation of the aluminum rod, it was enclosed with a PVC pipe. to allow the rotation, bearings were added. Heat gun was used to soften the PVC pipe and allow the bearing to be placed inside the pipe. Polycarboard was used to make the water guide plate and was placed at the end of the pipe. A foot-long PVC pipe was cut and attached to the Y-tee coupling and it will be the body of the whole system. The pipe guide was placed inside the Y-tee PVC pipe assembly where the water guide end of this assembly was placed at the far end of the Y-tee coupling. The other end of the pipe guide was fixed using a polycarboard. A coupling was attached to allow the rotation of both shafts. A simple wiring, connecting the DC generator to the DC-DC Boost Converter. Since the idea and the production of electricity is based on the water flow, the device was tested in a river in Tulay A, Maragondon, Cavite. A voltage-measuring application was used to measure the voltage and current electricity produced by the device.

RESULTS

Results reveal that the amount of voltage produced averages an amount of 4V in terms of changing and consistent flow and fall of water. It will take 120 minutes to fully charge mobile phones.

DISCUSSIONS

Results show that falling water has higher amount of pressure than flowing water thus producing higher amount of voltage. This means that the higher the pressure, the higher the voltage is produced. The prototype is effective in charging mobile phones and power banks.