We've watched YouTubers create a hell of rotten potatoes to play Doom, and we've also come across the world's largest lemon battery. Why do we have that obsession with using fruits and vegetables as an energy source? Personally, I'm not sure… but we always come back for more every time someone performs a similar experiment. Today it's the turn of James on his James Channel, who used a total of 14 lemons to power a Game Boy console… with a very particular help.
One of the big advantages that allowed the Game Boy to stand out from other handheld consoles was its excellent battery life. Depending on the game, the quality of the AA batteries, and secondary conditions like brightness and sound, some users reported sessions of 15 hours on average. But what is the limit of efficiency for a Game Boy? James from James Channel (you know, the creator of the “Nintendo PlayStation” alternative) decided to find out… using lemons.
Game Boy vs. lemons
First, he started with the most basic experiment: connecting lemons to light a small LED. Then he confirmed the power a Game Boy needs. The 0.7W printed on its shell is actually a peak maximum, and the real value is closer to 0.25W. The problem is that a lemon can produce 0.0001W… meaning that a Game Boy would demand around 2,500 lemons. Instead of invading his workspace with a load of lemons, James incorporated a bank of supercapacitors into the experiment. By connecting two groups of seven lemons in parallel, James began charging the capacitors… which took eight days and never fully completed. With a voltage of 2.405V in the supercapacitor bank, the console booted immediately… but the symptoms weren't long in coming. Every Game Boy loses contrast when the batteries fail, and the sound distorts more and more. The content on the screen disappeared at 1.08V, which means James managed to extract more than ten minutes of gameplay from the capacitors. Now, I imagine he could get better performance with a single supercapacitor charged to the max (if my math is right, 2.7V at 500 farads is 0.5 watt-hours, so… two hours?), and there's also room to optimize his lemon battery… but I think that's enough for now.
