Talk:Pavegen

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Unreliable data from "reliable sources"[edit]

The figures don't stack up. Reality is less than 1% of the claimed effectiveness.

Body weight = 70kg x 10gravity = 700 Newtons
5mm travel
3.5 Joules per step

  • "each step produces enough power to light an LED-powered street lamp for 30 seconds"

Philips Fortimo LED streetlights consume ~30 Watts
3.5 Joules will last about a tenth of a second.

The CNN Article

  • "250,000 footsteps -- that was enough to charge 10,000 mobile phones," said Kemball-Cook

So 25 footsteps per phone = 87.5 Joules.
A typical mobile phone battery is 3.6V 900mAh = 3.24 Wh = 3.24 x 60 minutes x 60 seconds = 11664 Joules

NB I'm assuming 100% efficiency - 10% would be good. I'm tempted to delete the whole article as marketing BS !
--195.137.93.171 (talk) 20:37, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please find a source for this, as it is WP:OR. In the mean-time I've tagged the article as too dependent on primary sources. Widefox; talk 00:25, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
While I agree that the science behind the technology seems masked in mystery, I think my recent edit, moments ago added the only primary source. As for original research, I think doing the math in the Talk page as a last resort is fine as long as it stays in the Talk page. Just find a source before adding it to the Article. However, since Wikipedia is mob-based, if enough people agree something should be added or removed in an article, then we have to follow the will of the majority. Not that there seems like much of a dispute right now. --Trakon (talk) 02:24, 25 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that this is clearly marketing BS. I also did some calculations, and the numbers don't add up. It's possible that when they say "LED street lamp", they mean one of those tiny pavement lights which is only about 60mW. If the tile was 50% efficient, then this would be about 30 seconds of light. Also, on another page they claim 6 joules per footstep! That would imply very heavy people and 100% efficiency. I smell BS.
I haven't done any maths, but it smells of bullshit from so far away I didn't need to, but it's good that somebody has done here. Now we just need a source from somewhere. Maybe some science magazine has reported it? And immediately pointed out it's nonsense? Or possibly some website? Nowhere with any sort of scientific credibility would let this one go free. It's nice that this talk page debunks it, but would be better if the main page could. People trust Wikipedia, and there's a danger when the main source is PR releases. There's also the "no free lunch" principle. I might guess that this thing would alter one's gait enough, that people would start to trip and break legs moving between it and normal paving. Even 0.5mm, I imagine, would be detectable, we have a lot of sensory stuff wired up to keep us upright on uneven ground.
It's sad that "original research" is banned, because the press are so ignorant and lazy these days. Speed to print, and bold claims, are what sells, not accuracy or integrity. It's sad that the public have zero understanding of science, despite spending years learning it as children, many passing exams in it, but still being as gullible and uncritical as ever. This whole racket seems to be about getting investor money, and not having to work for a living for a few years. The investor sources are all ones where you don't have to show results too early, any shonky and unquantified demo will do. Surprised it doesn't have a Kickstarter. Yet.
84.65.121.217 (talk) 20:58, 19 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely agree. The article also says "an average of 5 watts per footstep". 5 Watts is a unit of power, not energy. An article on a company shouldn't be based on the bullshit information on their own website. Mariusoei (talk) 20:15, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

CamelyCase or not?[edit]

The Article uses both. The official website only uses lowercase. Seems trivial, but I wondered. --Trakon (talk) 02:28, 25 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. Thank you, Rehman 11:37, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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Energy produced per footstep can't be measured in watts[edit]

It's impossible for a footstep to produce "five watts" of energy because "watts" isn't a unit of energy. It's a unit of power. Power is energy divided by time. If the footstep can run an LED streetlight for 30 seconds, then how much energy did the footstep produce? It would be the consumption rating of that LED (which IS measured in "watts" or some equivalent in another system) MULTIPLIED by 30 seconds. The result of this calculation cannot be ANY quantity of "watts". It has to be some quantity of watts (or other power-measurement) multiplied by some amount of time. Not only is this mistake below a high-school education, it's a mistake that Pavegen itself doesn't make on their website, which states that a footstep produces "2 to 4 watt SECONDS" some amount of units of power multiplied by some amount of units of time) of electrical energy.2604:2000:1383:8B0B:1C64:8308:33BC:E2D6 (talk) 10:21, 13 September 2020 (UTC)Christopher L. Simpson[reply]