>>627392I like the powerpot but have mixed feelings too
It's like cool, I can boil water and charge my phone over a regular camp fire. That's an improvement over the biolite already
But it doesn't take that long to boil water. Not long enough to charge a phone. Then I want to use that water for drinking or cooking but I can't until my phone's charged. It doesn't work nearly as well without the water to retain heat.
What I envision is something rod shaped, where you stick one end into the fire, and the other end is covered in radiator fins to dissipate heat. The peltier junction is between the two halves. The usb ports are in the far end.
If feasible designwise this would give you the benefits of turning your campfire into an electricity source without adding all the caveats of the powerpot and biolite which assume you'll also be doing other things, like boiling water for 5 hours or sitting there with your dink in your hand adding twigs to the biolite every 5 minutes and cleaning out the ashes