{"id":133035,"date":"2021-12-24T23:24:16","date_gmt":"2021-12-25T07:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/12\/tetris-handheld-powered-by-tritium-cell-eventually"},"modified":"2021-12-24T23:24:16","modified_gmt":"2021-12-25T07:24:16","slug":"tetris-handheld-powered-by-tritium-cell-eventually","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/12\/tetris-handheld-powered-by-tritium-cell-eventually","title":{"rendered":"Tetris Handheld Powered By Tritium Cell, Eventually"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/tetris-handheld-powered-by-tritium-cell-eventually.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The idea of a tritium power cell is pretty straightforward: stick enough of the tiny glowing tubes to a photovoltaic panel and your DIY \u201cnuclear battery\u201d will generate energy for the next decade or so. Only problem is that the power produced, measured in a few microwatts, isn\u2019t enough to do much with. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=6byi-RFrgtU\" target=\"_blank\">But as [Ian Charnas] demonstrates in his latest video<\/a>, you can eke some real-world use out of such a cell by storing up its power over a long enough period.<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6byi-RFrgtU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2016\/12\/01\/make-your-own-nuclear-battery\/\">As with previous projects we\u2019ve seen<\/a>, [Ian] builds his cell by sandwiching an array of keychain-sized tritium tubes between two solar panels. Isolated from any outside light, power produced by the panels is the result of the weak green glow given off by the tube\u2019s phosphorus coating as it gets bombarded with electrons. The panels are then used to charge a bank of thin-film solid state batteries, which are notable for their exceptionally low self-discharge rate.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-right: 20px\"><a class=\\'blog-photo\\' href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/nucleargame_detail.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"display:none;\" data-attachment-id=\"486722\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2021\/07\/14\/tetris-handheld-powered-by-tritium-cell-eventually\/nucleargame_detail\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/nucleargame_detail.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"969,620\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{\u201caperture\u201d:\u201d0\u201d,\u201d credit\u201d:\u201d\u201c,\u201d camera\u201d:\u201d\u201c,\u201d caption\u201d:\u201d\u201c,\u201d created_timestamp\u201d:\u201d0\u201d,\u201d copyright\u201d:\u201d\u201c,\u201d focal_length\u201d:\u201d0\u201d,\u201d iso\u201d:\u201d0\u201d,\u201d shutter_speed\u201d:\u201d0\u201d,\u201d title\u201d:\u201d\u201c,\u201d orientation\u201d:\u201d0\u201d}\" data-image-title=\"nucleargame_detail\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/tetris-handheld-powered-by-tritium-cell-eventually2.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/nucleargame_detail.jpg?w=800\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/tetris-handheld-powered-by-tritium-cell-eventually2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"256\" ><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Some quick math told [Ian] that a week of charging should build up enough of a charge to power a knock-off handheld <em>Tetris<\/em> game for about 10 minutes. Unfortunately, after waiting the prescribed amount of time, he got only a few seconds of runtime out of his hacked together power source.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The idea of a tritium power cell is pretty straightforward: stick enough of the tiny glowing tubes to a photovoltaic panel and your DIY \u201cnuclear battery\u201d will generate energy for the next decade or so. Only problem is that the power produced, measured in a few microwatts, isn\u2019t enough to do much with. But as [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,2229,873,1633,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cybercrime-malcode","category-mathematics","category-nuclear-energy","category-solar-power","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}