New Product Discoveries - Marlow's Mini-Harvester and Analog Devices' Energy Harvesting Board

When redesigning a product, an engineer typically has one of two goals in mind: to add additional features or functionality to a product or to lower the overall cost of the design to reduce overhead. It used to be that you couldn’t accomplish both at once. With new technology, however, we are finding that you are (more often than not) able to do just that—lower cost while increasing functionality.

This time I have a couple of items that add an energy harvesting functionality to your design while still keeping an eye on that ever-important bottom line. The EverGen Mini-Harvester from Marlow Industries is not your typical heatsink. By attaching it to a hot surface, the action of blowing air to cool the device produces up to 150 mV (15mW); essentially creating a power supply from the dissipated heat. Unfortunately, 150 mV doesn’t give you a wide range of options when it comes to operating a device or component.

The DC2042A Energy Harvesting Board from Linear Technology (Analog Devices) aids you in exploiting the energy harvested from the EverGen devices. This board supports input not only from thermal devices like the EverGen but also from 4 to 20 mA current sources or solar or piezo inputs, and it generates a useful output voltage. This allows you to evaluate energy harvesting as a valuable feature in your design.

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