GaiaLux Ecolight: A Light for the Developing World

Imagine you are one of the billion people on this planet who live with intermittent power. You may live in Baghdad, or more likely you live in one of the many Squatter Cities where power is bootlegged or in short supply.

When your lights go out, which is every night, you get out your trusty kerosene lamps and light your home with the most inefficient light source known to man. If you are like most of your neighbors you will spend $60.00 - $75.00 per year to keep your home from going dark.

The GaiaLux light is a new design I’ve entered in the NASA Create the Future Design Contest. It is a simple, inexpensive, sustainable alternative to kerosene lamps. The key components are a recycled cell phone charger, a set of rechargeable batteries, and very efficient LED lights. When power is available, it charges the batteries; when light is needed the batteries can provide up to 40 hours of continuous use. What is really cool is that most cell phone chargers draw very little current when they are done charging batteries. (We have measured this.)

The benefits of this simple invention are several: First, the GaiaLux light reuses some of the 125 million cell phone chargers we throw away each year; second, it saves lots of CO2 emissions, (up to 50 million metric tons per year); third it reduces toxic emissions in people's homes, so people are healthier; and fourth, the return on investment is fantastic. The GaiaLux light pays for itself in just a few months. After that people save money for more important things, like putting food on the table and buying clothes for the kids.

Please visit the NASA Create the Future Design Contest. Entries are judged in part by the number of people who click through and read them. The contest site has some really great entries as well as some pretty “out there” ideas for making the world a better place.

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Joule Thief
written by gmoke, November 14, 2007

Combine this with a previous Ecogeek entry, the Joule Thief, and you've really got something.

There's also the Bogolight, an LED flashlight/reading light that charges AA batteries. You pay $25 and they send a second to the developing world. See http://www.bogolight.com for further details.

And you might want to take a look at my own concept of the Minimal Solar Light

Minimum Solar Light
written by gmoke, November 14, 2007

Evidently, you don't allow embedded video so here's the youtube URL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m56Lu2o9Wfc

Joule thief
written by Joel, November 15, 2007

The Joule Thief is all about running high-voltage LEDs on low-voltage sources.

Step-up transformers, such as flyback transformers, waste some energy in order to put out a higher-quality energy source, in much the same way that heat engines do.

A pulsed power source may be an improvement, but the lithium-ion batteries in this light are perfectly capable of providing the 3V that high-efficiency LEDs require. It's probably better just to use the voltage that's already available, and compress the current into quick bursts. It may even be possible to do so using the circuitry of the charger itself, if they're clever enough.

Awesome
written by PT, November 15, 2007

This is awesome!! new LED lighting solutions are always great!

design that makes a difference
written by makewealthhistory, November 15, 2007

This is great. It's always good to see cutting edge ideas applied to the world's poorest people.

How can I get these?
written by Rebecca Burch, November 15, 2007

Please contact me if there is anyway I can take a batch of these to Nandom, Upper West Region, Ghana. I am going to live there in January and, due to severe floods in September, there is a large area being rebuilt. I would happily agree to write/video a review of the lights.

Please email me for more information, or with a contact of somebody who would be able to make this decision.

Thank you!
Bex

Or just waste trillion$, with the war ec
written by zupakomputer, November 15, 2007

Well we all know why Iraq is without power....kinda ironic given that the folks that hate America do so because it's the main source of things like trash, litter packaging, and polluting companies that use cheap labour, and factory-farming for many of their goods - and now other countries feel that is a good way to go with their economies also.

Driving LEDs efficiently
written by Farhad Abdolian, November 19, 2007

This is an interesting idea, but to be a good efficient design, you need more than a serial resistor to connect to the battery. This "standard" design, will loose almost half the battery power over the resistor, something that is very precious in areas with low access to electricity.

A small design like the ones using the following device:

Will increase the battery life by a minimum of 40%.

I am working on a design to make it available for public to drive multiple white LEDs from a cell phone battery, I will send it here when it is done.

Cheers,
/Farhad