This incredible truly wireless desktop PC build even keeps your coffee hot forever
If you thought wireless power delivery was handy for charging phones but not terribly practical for much else, prepare to have your mind blown. One of our favourite YouTube channels, DIY Perks, has just dropped a new video showcasing a new fully 3D wireless power delivery technology that looks, well, revolutionary.
Imagine a desktop that can power just about anything wirelessly. There's no need to align anything carefully with a charging pad. You don't even need to be resting on the surface, the power can be transmitted to devices positioned a foot or more above the desk surface. That's exactly what DIY Perk's truly wireless power desk is capable of.
The basic principles here are similar to existing wireless charging pads as typically used with smartphones. Those use a coil to generate a magnetic field that flips in polarity thousands of times a second.
If you place another coil nearby, an electric current is induced. The problem is that the secondary coil has to be positioned very close and be quite precisely aligned.
But this new 3D wireless power system can cover a very large area defined by the perimeter of a single length of wire. The 3D wireless power hardware in the video is provided by Etherdyne Technologies and a full evaluation kit as used by DIY Perks is available through their website, though the cost isn't clear.
The kit is claimed to be both FCC and CE certified and can deliver up to 100 W of power. The evaluation unit is composed of a control box, power supply, plus the field-generating wire and has been designed to be embedded within a desktop measuring around two feet by four feet.
The wire generates a magnetic field in the same way as a charging pad but flips polarity much more rapidly, millions of times per second. The technology also relies on being precisely tuned to resonate at this frequency.
The result is a "dome" of 3D wireless power above the desk surface. Exactly how far above the desk the power can be transmitted isn't stated, but going by the DIY Perks video, the power dome extends well over a foot above the desk surface, at minimum.
For this demo, DIY Perks built a PC based on a super-slim Frameworks laptop mainboard into the underneath of desk surface. Up top, there's everything from a keyboard and mouse, Bluetooth speakers, a microphone and even a monitor, all powered wirelessly.
The monitor also runs via a wireless HDMI video interface, enabling a truly wireless solution with a totally cable-free screen that can be slid around the surface. DIY Perks' final flourish is a wirelessly heated coffee mug that keeps fluids at a constant 70 degrees C. Nice.
At this point you may be wondering why you haven't heard of all this before and what the catch must be. Well, the first downside is power efficiency. DIY Perks doesn't go into great detail on this subject, but points out that the system isn't 100% efficient and consumes 10 W at idle.
Our understanding is that overall efficiency is probably in the 70 to 80% region at best. Then again, if you're powering it all with renewables like solar, some losses arguably aren't the end of the world. Overall power delivery is another obvious limitation. That 100 W figure, we believe, is a total for all devices being powered.
For sure, the largest power receiver coil in the kit delivers just 7 W. For a desktop solution like this, the main power draw is the PC itself which can run on wired power. DIY Perks says it has used a pair of receivers, so presumably that's two times 7 W.
For sure, it's not a large display and probably isn't very bright. A typical PC monitor probably isn't compatible with the evaluation kit as currently specced—and you can forget about a power-hungry OLED panel.
But then this is early days for 3D wireless power and more, well, powerful solutions may be possible. As for other concerns around safety, interference with other devices, health implications and so on, well, that's outside our expertise. But as a tech demo this is all very impressive.
Heck, just having what you might call a perpetual wireless keyboard and mouse would be nice, let alone a truly wireless monitor and a cup of coffee that never, ever gets cold.
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