You know the story, you grab your handy dandy electric screwdriver off the tool bench to rack or un-rack a piece of gear only to find the batteries dead. You can't leave it in the charger since that would cause the batteries to develop a memory leaving you high and dry again. New battery packs cost as much as buying a whole new electric screwdriver and then there's the issue about finding someplace that will take the old packs for recycling. (or taking time out of your busy schedule to take it over to someone that will take it for recycling) Or just the guilty conscience knowing that you're using a device that is possibly putting more toxic heavy metals into the environment.

Now there is an answer that while it isn't fancy, sure I'd love a clutch and a few other things, but in all reality having the ability to fully charge this beast in 90seconds makes up for whatever features it's currently lacking. So let's dig into a little background on why this is so different.

A Battery (according to the History Channel's Modern Marvels program on batteries) contains energy through a chemical reaction. While a capacitor stores energy as a field between two charged plates. Quite a few scientists have gone the capacitor route for remote sensors, especially those in hostile environments. Anyone that's driven in the great white north knows that car batteries don't work very well when things get really cold, however, capacitors work just dandy. I've used a small 1 farad capacitor to store upwards of 10 hours of operational juice for some very small embedded computers (Basic Stamp) to monitor weather in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

So it was only a matter of time before someone actually applied capacitance energy storage to small electric screwdrivers. After all, most of the time you only have to drive a couple screws, and if you need to drive a lot more, just dump it in the charger and get a cuppa. 90 seconds later you have a fully charged unit ready to drive more screws.

Now my bitches: the unit is a bit flimsy and doesn't have a shaft lock for those times when the motor just doesn't have enough torque to turn that stuck screw. I'd also really like a clutch so that I lessen the chance of stripping the screw heads mounting that heavy server.

So while I first heard about this from the folks at Popular Mechanics I just had to bring this to the attention of the enterprise IT world. This is the perfect screwdriver to leave ready to go in your data center. It's a green technology, it's convenient, and darn if it doesn't work as advertised. Now if Coleman would only get moving and get them into the stores in time for the holiday season, it would be great. I got screwed for a massive amount of shipping on a fairly light unit. My receiving folks got VERY confused since it arrived from Kentucky from some tobacco company.

Here's a YouTube video on the technology….and yes, it really does get fully charged in just 90 seconds.

Posted by Brian Chee on November 15, 2007 10:48 AM