Mark Gabriel was forced to evacuate his home in 2005 while fleeing Hurricane Katrina. His cell phone battery was dead and there was no easy way for him to power it back up and keep lines of communication open. His radio, however, had a hand crank mechanism and had no problem staying charged. Gabriel’s ideas for CrankCase were born and now the team at AMPWARE is running and Indiegogo funding campaign to mass produce the cases.
CrankCase bills itself as “the world’s first phone case with a built-in generator.” Current tests show that one hundred seconds of crank time equate to five minutes of talk time, or up to an hour of standby time. A charging cable is integrated into the CrankCase housing and a USB cable can be used to charge other devices from the case.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/crankcase-power-your-devices-from-your-motion
AMPWARE is also offering the CrankBox, a universal crank powered generator that will charge through a USB cable and a 500 milliampere output. The rare earth magnet dynamo generator is the guts of the innovation for the crank case and Gabriel says this new generator design will make the difference between the CrankCase and current product.
CrankCase currently comes in black, and works with iPHone 5 and 6 phones. Color options and a wider array of phone choices are expected after this first run of production cases has been shipped. Shipping is expected to start in October 2015.
This is a great example of engineering as a problem solving tool. When a problem arises, especially for students, figuring out how to solve that problem and then how to transfer that solution to more people is an incredibly valuable skill to have. The CrankCase looks to be a great future product that has been through extensive prototyping iterations and testing.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/crankcase-power-your-devices-from-your-motion