I'm very fond of clockwork devices, but all that winding up is a real pain, so I have devised the Clockwork "Battery".

It's just a small apparatus that stores about a hundred turns of a winding key on its own spring, releasing it when you plug it into the key hole of some other clockwork device that needs winding up.

For the really lazy there is a mains/battery version.
-- xenzag, Aug 01 2010

Already suggested Electric_20Clockwork_20Winder
[Clockwork Monkey, Aug 01 2010]

or the more robust version Torque_20Battery
[FlyingToaster, Aug 02 2010]

Gloriously pointless and HalfBaked.

[+]
-- 8th of 7, Aug 01 2010


Wonderful, I could use one of these

[+]

*just came across the same thing on here as I searched for something else on google (the electric version anyway).
-- Clockwork Monkey, Aug 01 2010


Not certain that those are the same thing, but close enough for me to take mine away later as redundant.
-- xenzag, Aug 02 2010


There are clockwork torches, clockwork radios, even clockwork clocks.

What I'd like to see is a general-purpose clockwork electric generator that sits within the form of the traditional battery sizes. That way, with a little winding up, I can power my remote controls, torches, clock-radios and other pieces of consumer electronics. You could place a bunch of these units into a charging unit, complete with a great-big old-fashioned butterfly key, and wind them all up at once. It's green, clean and powers your machine(s).
-- zen_tom, Aug 02 2010


I don't know if things powered by humans should be called 'green'. Maybe Brown.
-- daseva, Aug 02 2010


bun for the steampunkiness of it.
-- James Newton, Aug 02 2010


[zen tom] //clockwork clocks//.... SAY IT AIN'T SO!!!!
-- Cedar Park, Aug 02 2010



random, halfbakery