Beanzawave – the Microwave oven powered by your computer
By Dave Parrack
Food cooked in a microwave oven may not always be the most nutritious or most appetizing, but it is quick and convenient, two benefits required in this day and age when most of us grab meals on the go. So how about a tiny microwave that can be powered by your computer, via the USB port? Surely that’s the ultimate gadget for those people too busy to eat a civilized lunch.
The ultra-compact, portable microwave is currently called the Beanzawave, because it has been developed for Heinz, whose famous tagline is ‘Beanz meanz Heinz’. The company asked microwave expert Gordon Andrews and industrial design authority Stephen Frazer to develop the microwave in order to promote its Snap Pots.
According to The Daily Mail, the prototype of the mini-microwave is 7.4 inches tall by 6.2 inches wide by 5.9 inches deep. It can be powered through the USB port of any PC or laptop, the latter of which means the device is completely portable and can be operated on holiday or even while traveling by train.
The Beanzawave works by utilizing mobile phone radio frequencies to create heat enough to cook food products all the way through. The signals are tuned until they are capable of producing the required energy to do so. Although this kind of makes me wonder if those scares about mobile phones cooking our brains aren’t quite so far-fetched.
The Beanzawave is currently only available in prototype form due to the costs of the components required to build on such a small scale. However, the microwave oven could be built properly and will be developed further if consumer feedback is positive. The only problem being that it may come with an initially high price tag of around £100 ($160).
The mini-microwave has been developed for a particular purpose: to enable office workers who are tied to their desks to still enjoy a meal, but there are numerous other ways this could prove useful. Keeping coffee warm would be an obvious one, as would helping disabled people to be able to use a microwave oven when a traditional one may be too big or too hard to use. Or how about students, who may need to carry on revising well into the night?
It’s also believed that the power could eventually come from lithium ion batteries, meaning the joys of microwave cooking could soon become available to anglers, hikers, sportsmen, and people who go camping. It’s a truly genius bit of kit that I’d definitely back. I just wish it didn’t have commercial branding all over it and was being used to promote a product.
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June 9th, 2009
Hold on a minute….
Watts = volts x amps
In Australia, power is delivered to a standard power point at 240 volts, typically rated to 10 amps for a standard household power circuit. That’s a potential of 2400 watts available on that circuit.
These days a typical kitchen microwave has a power ouput of 100 watts or more, and will take almost two minutes to boil a cup of cold water.
A typical USB port will output = 5 volts at 500 milliamps (half of one amp). Therefore 5v x 500ma = 2.5 watts.
Assuming that a device might take multiple USB outputs to get more power, that is still going to be limited by the number of ports available. My brand new desktop computer has 8 ports, hence a total of 20 watts.
Even if one has that many ports, it’s still barely enough to maintain a temperature, let alone heat something from stone cold.
June 9th, 2009
typo alert!!!
a standard litchen microwave should be deliver about 1000 watts, not 100…
June 9th, 2009
…litchen….
Obviously, my manual dexterity is somewhat lacking today!
June 10th, 2009
Assume
P_el(USB)=2.5W
m(meal)=300g
T=50K
c_m=4J/(g*K)
Q(Energie to Heat)=c_m*m*T
Q=6000J
t(time to Heat)=Q/P_el(USB)=400min!!!