The Dart is a laptop charger that aims to save some serious space and weight for those of us that have to haul around enormous charging equipment, and the product is already fully-funded on Kickstarter.
The Dart is the world’s smallest, lightest laptop adapter. At a powerful 65W it is a perfect complement to today’s thin, lightweight, portable laptops. It fits in a pocket and is designed with a USB port and single outlet profile to make it easy for you to stay charged up when you’re on the road.
How did they do it? Early bird pricing certainly comes into play here, with 1,000 backers saving $10 off the $89 price point by being first in line. Another 500 got in early for a Macbook version of the charger, saving $20 off the $168 Mac version.
Menlo Park-based FINsix was founded in 2010 by a team of MIT graduate students and set out with the goal of transforming electronics using technology patented by MIT researchers. Called VHF (very high frequency), it enables the company to offer the same charging characteristics as larger chargers in a much smaller package.
It is well known in power electronics that increasing switching frequency is key to reducing size, weight, and cost. However, it is critical (and very hard) to switch faster while maintaining high efficiency. This is because modern power converters repeatedly deliver small packets of energy to the electronic device in cycles called switching cycles. Switching isn’t a perfect process and during every cycle some energy is wasted in the form of heat. At FINsix, our technology allows us to waste far less energy with each cycle. Thus, we can cycle up to 1000x faster without wasting any more energy than a conventional power converter.
Delivery to Kickstarter backers is expected to begin in November of this year.
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