5 Big Ideas for Making Fusion Power a Reality
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Startups, universities, and major companies are vying to commercialize a nuclear fusion reactor

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Fusion Vortex: General Fusion’s magnetized target reactor injects pulses of plasma into a sphere filled with swirling molten lead and lithium.
The joke has been around almost as long as the dream: Nuclear fusion energy is 30 years away…and always will be. But now, more than 80 years after Australian physicist Mark Oliphant first observed deuterium atoms fusing and releasing dollops of energy, it may finally be time to update the punch line.

Over the past several years, more than two dozen research groups—impressively staffed and well-funded startups, university programs, and corporate projects—have achieved eye-opening advances in controlled nuclear fusion. They’re building fusion reactors based on radically different designs that challenge the two mainstream approaches, which use either a huge, doughnut-shaped magnetic vessel called a tokamak or enormously powerful lasers.

What’s more, some of these groups are predicting significant fusion milestones within the next five years, including reaching the breakeven point at which the energy produced surpasses the energy used to spark the reaction. That’s shockingly soon, considering that the mainstream projects pursuing the conventional tokamak and laser-based approaches have been laboring for decades and spent billions of dollars without achieving breakeven.


In Cambridge, Mass., MIT-affiliated researchers at Commonwealth Fusion Systems say their latest reactor design is on track to exceed breakeven by 2025. In the United Kingdom, a University of Oxford spin-off called First Light Fusion claims it will demonstrate breakeven in 2024. And in Southern California, the startup TAE Technologies has issued a breathtakingly ambitious five-year timeline for commercialization of its fusion reactor.

Irrational exuberance? Maybe. Fusion research is among the most costly of endeavors, depending on high inflows of cash just to pay a lab’s electricity bills. In the pursuit of funding, the temptation to overstate future achievements is strong. And past expectations of impending breakthroughs have repeatedly been dashed. What’s changed now is that advances in high-speed computing, materials science, and modeling and simulation are helping to topple once-recalcitrant technical hurdles, and significant amounts of money are flowing into the field.

Some of the new fusion projects are putting the newest generation of supercomputers to work to better understand and tweak the behavior of the ultrahigh-temperature plasma in which hydrogen nuclei fuse to form helium. Others have reopened promising lines of inquiry that were shelved decades ago. Still others are exploiting new superconductors or hybridizing the mainstream concepts.

Despite their powerful tools and creative approaches, many of these new ventures will fail. But if just one succeeds in building a reactor capable of producing electricity economically, it could fundamentally transform the course of human civilization. In a fusion reaction, a single gram of the hydrogen isotopes that are most commonly used could theoretically yield the same energy as 11 metric tons of coal, with helium as the only lasting by-product.

As climate change accelerates and demand for electricity soars, nuclear fusion promises a zero-carbon, low-waste baseload source of power, one that is relatively clean and comes with no risk of meltdowns or weaponization. This tantalizing possibility has kept the fusion dream alive for decades. Could one of these scrappy startups finally succeed in making fusion a practical reality?

1. Magnetic-Confinement Fusion (MCF)
Illustration: Chris Philpot
The Big Idea: Powerful electromagnetic fields confine and heat plasma inside a doughnut-shaped reactor called a tokamak, a Russian acronym for “toroidal chamber with axial magnetic field.” Since the 1960s, more than 200 functional tokamaks have been built, and the plasma physics fundamentals are well established. The most ambitious of these is the US $25 billion ITER, now under construction in southern France.

Reality Check: Scientists are a long way from achieving a self-sustaining reaction, and from preventing neutron activation from destroying the reactor’s walls.

Projects to Watch: Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Tokamak Energy

Not so long ago, the outlook for fusion power was pretty bleak, with two of the biggest projects seemingly stalled. In 2016, the U.S. Department of Energy admitted that its US $3.5 billion National Ignition Facility (NIF) had failed to meet its goal of using lasers to “ignite” a self-sustaining fusion reaction. A DOE report suggested [PDF] that NIF’s research should shift from investigating laser-sparked ignition to determining whether such ignition is even possible.

The same year, the U.S. and several other governments began debating whether to pull their support from the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). First proposed in 1985 and now under construction in southern France, ITER is the world’s biggest fusion experiment. It is a type of tokamak, which uses magnetic forces to confine and isolate the ferociously hot, energetic plasma needed to initiate and sustain fusion. But the project has been plagued by delays and cost overruns that have quintupled its original $5 billion price tag and pushed its projected completion date to 2035. (And even if it makes that date, it could be decades after that before commercial plants based on the design are in operation.) The setbacks and enormous expense of NIF and ITER had the effect of draining not just money but also enthusiasm from the field.

Even as the government-backed megaprojects foundered, alternative fusion-energy research began to gain momentum. The hope of those pursuing these new efforts is that their novel and smaller-scale approaches can accelerate past the decades-long incremental slog. Investors are finally taking notice and pouring money into the field. Over the past five years, private capitalists have injected about $1.5 billion into small-scale fusion-energy companies. Among those who have made significant bets on fusion are Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, and venture capitalist Peter Thiel. A few major corporations, including Lockheed Martin, have launched their own small-fusion projects.

Jesse Treu, a Ph.D. physicist who spent much of his career investing in biotech and med-tech startups, says he realized in 2016 that “wonderful things were starting to happen in fusion energy, but funding wasn’t catching up. It’s clear that private equity and venture capital are part of the solution to develop this technology, which is clearly the best energy answer for the planet.” He cofounded the Stellar Energy Foundation to connect fusion researchers with funding sources and to provide support and advocacy.

And public money has started to follow private: U.S. Department of Energy grant makers, who for decades funneled most nondefense fusion allocations to ITER, are now channeling some funding to projects at the fringes of mainstream research. The federal budget includes a $107 million increase for fusion projects in fiscal year 2020, including a research partnership program that allows small companies to conduct major experiments at the DOE’s national laboratories.

The U.S. government’s renewed interest stems in part from a perceived need to keep up with China, which recently restarted its fusion-energy program after a three-year moratorium. The Chinese government plans to switch on a new fusion reactor in Sichuan province this year. Meanwhile, the Chinese energy company ENN Energy Holdings has been investing in research programs abroad and is building a duplicate of Princeton Fusion Systems’ compact reactor in central China, with help from top U.S. scientists.

“Now that it’s looking like China will gobble up every idea the U.S. has failed to fund,” says Matthew J. Moynihan, a nuclear engineer and fusion consultant to investors, “that’s serving as a wake-up for the U.S. government.”

2. Inertial-Confinement Fusion (ICF)
Illustration: Chris Philpot
The Big Idea: Powerful pulsed laser or ion beams (or other methods) compress a small fuel pellet to extremely high densities, and the resulting shock wave heats the plasma before it has time to dissipate.

Reality Check: Forces exerted on the fuel pellet result in laser-plasma instabilities that produce high-energy electrons, which heat and scatter much of the fuel before it can fuse. In addition, the high cost and complexity of the laser drivers may make traditional approaches to ICF unsuitable for energy production.

Projects to Watch: First Light Fusion, General Atomics

For all this activity and investment, fusion power remains as tough a problem as ever.

Unlike nuclear fission, in which a large, unstable nucleus is split into smaller elements, a fusion reaction occurs when the nuclei of a lightweight element, typically hydrogen, collide with enough force to fuse and form a heavier element. In the process, some of the mass is released and converted into energy, as laid out in Albert Einstein’s famous formula: E = mc2.

There’s an abundance of fusion energy in our universe—the sun and other stable stars are powered by thermonuclear fusion—but the task of triggering and controlling a self-sustaining fusion reaction and harnessing its power is arguably the most difficult engineering challenge humans have ever attempted.

To fuse hydrogen nuclei, earthbound reactor designers need to find ways to overcome the positively charged ions’ mutual repulsion—the Coulomb force—and get them close enough to bind via what’s known as the strong nuclear force. Most methods involve temperatures that are so high—several orders of magnitude hotter than the sun’s core temperature of 15 million °C—that matter can exist only in the plasma state, in which electrons break free of their atomic nuclei and circulate freely in gaslike clouds.

But a high-energy-density plasma is notoriously unstable and difficult to control. It wriggles and writhes and attempts to break free, migrating to the edges of the field that contains it, where it quickly cools and dissipates. Most of the challenges surrounding fusion energy center around plasma: how to heat it, how to contain it, how to shape it and control it. The two mainstream approaches are magnetic confinement and inertial confinement. Magnetic-confinement reactors such as ITER attempt to hold the plasma steady within a tokamak, by means of powerful magnetic fields. Inertial-confinement approaches, such as NIF’s, generally use lasers to compress and implode the plasma so quickly that it’s held in place long enough for the reaction to get going.

Key Fusion Energy Milestones
1920 British astronomer Arthur Eddington theorizes that the sun and other stars are powered by the fusion of hydrogen atoms.

1934 Australian physicist Mark Oliphant observes atoms fusing and emitting energy in his University of Cambridge laboratory.

1958 Los Alamos researchers demonstrate the first controlled thermonuclear fusion.

1958 The first tokamak, the Soviet Union’s T-1, begins operation.

1974 KMS Fusion, a private-sector company, fires an array of lasers at a deuterium-tritium pellet, achieving the first successful laser-induced fusion.

1985 Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan agree to a joint collaboration on fusion research, which leads to the ITER experiment.

1995 Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory’s tokamak achieves a record plasma temperature of 510 million °C.

1997 The Joint European Torus (JET) reactor in England outputs 16 megawatts of fusion power, still the world record.

2013 Construction begins on ITER, in southern France.

2013 National Ignition Facility (NIF) implosion yields more energy than the energy absorbed by the fuel.

2019 Construction of ITER is two-thirds complete. It is expected to produce 10 times the input energy.

Scientists have long thought that bigger is better when it comes to creating stable and energy-dense plasma fields. But with recent advances in supercomputing and complex modeling, researchers are unraveling more of the mysteries underlying plasma behavior and developing new tricks for handling it without huge, complex machinery.

Among the researchers at the forefront of this work is physicist C. Wendell Horton Jr. of the University of Texas Institute of Fusion Studies. He uses the university’s Stampede supercomputer to build simulations of plasma flow and turbulence inside magnetic-confinement reactors. “We’re making calculations that were impossible just a few years ago and modeling data about plasma in three dimensions and in time,” Horton says. “Now we can see what’s happening with much more nuance and detail than we would get with analytic theories and even the most advanced probes and diagnostic measurements. That’s giving us a more holistic picture of what’s needed to improve reactor design.”

Horton’s findings have informed the design of large-scale experiments such as ITER, as well as small-scale projects. “The problem with ITER is that no matter how well they get the plasma to behave, they haven’t figured out how to get the reaction to self-sustain,” he says. “It’s still going to burn out in a matter of minutes, and that’s obviously not solving the energy problem.” He and other researchers believe that some of the small-scale efforts are much closer to achieving a steady-state reaction that could generate baseload electricity.

Among the most mature of the fusion startups is California-based TAE Technologies (formerly Tri Alpha Energy), which launched in 1998.

The TAE reactor is designed to make use of what’s called a field-reversed configuration (FRC) to create a swirling ring of plasma that contains itself in its own magnetic field. (Princeton Fusion Systems’ design is also an FRC.) Instead of using deuterium and tritium—the hydrogen-isotope blend that fuels most fusion reactors—the TAE reactor injects beams of high-energy neutral hydrogen particles into hydrogen-boron fuel, forcing a reaction that produces alpha particles (ionized helium nuclei). Heat generated in the containment vessel caused by the deposit of soft X-ray energy will be converted into electricity using a conventional thermal conversion system, which heats water into steam to drive a turbine.

Hydrogen-boron fusion is aneutronic, meaning that the primary reaction does not produce damaging neutron radiation. The drawback is that burning the fuel requires extraordinary temperatures, as high as 3 billion °C. “When you’re that hot, the electrons are radiating like crazy,” says William Dorland, a physics professor at the University of Maryland. “They’re going to cool off the plasma faster than you can heat it.” Although FRC machines seem to be less prone to plasma instabilities than some other magnetic-confinement methods, no one has yet demonstrated an FRC reactor that can create a stable plasma.

TAE cofounder and CEO Michl Binderbauer says the company’s latest machine, dubbed Norman (in honor of company cofounder Norman Rostoker), is achieving “significant improvements in plasma containment and stability over the previous-generation machine.” What’s driving the improvements are advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, enabled by a cutting-edge algorithm developed by Google called Optometrist. TAE adapted the algorithm in partnership with Google to analyze the plasma-behavior data and home in on the combination of variables that will create the most ideal conditions for fusion. The researchers described it in a Nature paper published in 2017.

“We’re doing things we could have never done 10 years ago, and that’s driving faster and faster cycles of learning,” says Binderbauer.

3. Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF)
Illustration: Chris Philpot
The Big Idea: Sometimes called magneto-inertial fusion (MIF), this hybrid approach uses magnetic fields to confine a lower-density plasma (as in magnetic-confinement fusion), which is then heated and compressed using an inertial-confinement method such as lasers or pistons (as in inertial-confinement fusion).

Reality Check: Scientists have yet to increase the plasma density to a working level and keep it there long enough for a significant fraction of the fuel mass to fuse.

Projects to Watch: General Fusion, HyperJet Fusion, Magneto-Inertial Fusion Technologies

Advanced computing is also breathing new life into promising lines of inquiry that were abandoned years ago due to budget cuts or technical roadblocks. General Fusion, based near Vancouver, was founded by Canadian plasma physicist Michel Laberge. He quit a lucrative job developing laser printers to pursue an approach called magnetized target fusion (MTF). The company has attracted more than $200 million, including investments from Jeff Bezos and the governments of Canada and Malaysia.

General Fusion’s design combines features of magnetic-confinement and inertial-confinement fusion. It injects pulses of magnetically confined plasma fuel into a sphere filled with a vortex of molten lead and lithium. Pistons surrounding the reactor drive shock waves toward the center, compressing the fuel and forcing the particles into a fusion reaction. The resulting heat is absorbed in the liquid metal and used to produce steam to spin a turbine and generate electricity.

“You can think of it in some ways as the opposite of a tokamak,” says Laberge. “Tokamaks work with a big plasma field that’s [relatively] low density. We’re trying to make a mini-size plasma that’s extremely high density, by squashing it in with the shock waves. Because the field is so dense and small, we only need to keep it together for a millisecond for it to react.”

In the 1970s, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory experimented with a piston system to trigger nuclear fusion. Those experiments failed, due in large part to an inability to precisely control the timing of the shock waves. Laberge’s team has developed advanced algorithms and highly precise control systems to fine-tune the speed and timing of the shock waves and compression.

“In those experiments in the 1970s, the problem was symmetry,” says Laberge. “We’ve now achieved the accuracy and force we need, so that part’s solved.”

4. Field-Reversed Configuration (FRC)
Illustration: Chris Philpot
The Big Idea: An FRC reactor contains plasma in its own magnetic field by inducing a toroidal electric current inside a cylindrical plasma. Compared to the direction of an externally applied magnetic field, the axial field inside the reactor is reversed by eddy currents in the plasma. TAE Technologies’ reactor [pictured] uses plasma guns to accelerate two plasmas into each other and then heats them with particle beams.

Reality Check: Although FRC machines are less prone to instabilities than are some other magnetic-confinement methods, no lab has yet demonstrated a working FRC reactor that can create a sufficiently dense and stable plasma.

Projects to Watch: Helion Energy, Princeton Fusion Systems, TAE Technologies

Using liquid metal could solve another of fusion energy’s primary challenges: Neutron radiation erodes a reactor’s walls, which must be replaced frequently and disposed of as low-level radioactive waste. The liquid metal protects the solid outer wall from damage. There’s some irradiation of the liquid metal, but there’s no need to regularly replace it, and so the reactor doesn’t produce a steady stream of low-level waste.

General Fusion’s newest reactor, which generated plasma for the first time in late 2018, is the centerpiece of a facility that Laberge says will demonstrate an end-to-end capability to produce electricity from nuclear fusion. “Now that we’ve successfully created a stable, long-lived plasma, we can see that we have a viable path toward having the plasma generate more energy than it consumes,” he says. “In terms of commercialization, our timeline is now a matter of years, not decades.”

Virginia-based HyperJet Fusion Corp. has an approach similar to General Fusion’s, but instead of pistons, some 600 plasma guns fire jets of plasma into the reactor. The merging of the jets forms a plasma shell, or liner, which then implodes and ignites a magnetized target plasma. The system doesn’t need a heating system to bring the fuel to fusion temperatures, says HyperJet CEO and chief scientist F. Douglas Witherspoon. “The imploding plasma liner contains the target plasma and provides the energy to elevate the temperature to fusion conditions. And because we’re using a much higher-density plasma than a magnetic-confinement system would, it reduces the size of the fusing plasma from meter scale to centimeter scale.”

Witherspoon says the advantage of the HyperJet approach over tokamaks is that it doesn’t require expensive superconducting magnets to generate the enormous magnetic fields needed to confine the fusion-burning plasma.

Tokamaks themselves are also getting a reboot, thanks to the use of different superconducting materials that could make magnetic confinement more viable. MIT spin-off Commonwealth Fusion Systems is employing yttrium-barium-copper oxide (YBCO), a high-temperature superconductor, in the magnets on its Sparc reactor.

Commonwealth cofounder Martin Greenwald, who is also the deputy director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, calculates that the Sparc reactor’s YBCO magnets will be able to generate a field of about 21 teslas at their surface and 12 T at the center of the plasma, roughly doubling the field strength of tokamak magnets made of niobium-tin. Stronger magnetic fields produce a stronger confining force on the charged particles in the plasma, improving insulation and enabling a much smaller, cheaper, and potentially better performing fusion device.

“If you can double the magnetic field and cut the size of the device in half, with identical performance, that will be a game changer,” Greenwald says.

Indeed, one advantage of the newer, small-scale fusion projects is that they can concentrate on the novel aspects of their designs, while taking advantage of decades of hard-won knowledge about the fundamentals of fusion science. As Greenwald puts it, “We think we can get to commercial deployment of fusion power plants faster by accepting the conventional physics basis developed around the ITER experiment and focusing on our collaborations between physicists and magnet engineers who have been setting records for decades.”

5. Stellarator
Illustration: Chris Philpot
The Big Idea: The stellarator’s spiraling ribbon shape produces high-density plasma that’s symmetrical and more stable than a tokamak’s, allowing the reactor to run for long periods of time.

Reality Check: The stellarator’s challenging geometry makes it complicated to build and extremely sensitive to imperfect conditions.

Project to Watch: Wendelstein 7-X at Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics

Some promising startups, though, aren’t content to accept the conventional wisdom, and they’re tackling the underlying physics of fusion in new ways. One of the more radical approaches is that of First Light Fusion. The British company intends to produce fusion using an inertial-confinement reactor design inspired by a very noisy crustacean.

The pistol shrimp’s defining feature is its oversize pistol-like claw, which it uses to stun prey. After drawing back the “hammer” part of its claw, the shrimp snaps it against the opposite side of the claw, creating a rapid pressure change that produces vapor-filled voids in the water called cavitation bubbles. As these bubbles collapse, shock waves pulse through the water at 25 meters per second, enough to take out small marine animals.

“The shrimp just wants to use the pressure wave to stun its prey,” says Nicholas Hawker, First Light’s cofounder and CEO. “It doesn’t care that as the cavity implodes, the vapor inside is compressed so forcefully that it causes plasma to form—or that it has created the Earth’s only example of inertial-confinement fusion.” The plasma reaches temperatures of over 4,700 °C, and it creates a 218-decibel bang.

Hawker focused on the pistol shrimp’s extraordinary claw in his doctoral dissertation at the University of Oxford, and he began studying whether it might be possible to mimic and scale up the shrimp’s physiology to spark a fusion reaction that could produce electricity.

After raising £25 million (about $33 million) and teaming up with international engineering group Mott MacDonald, First Light is building an ICF reactor in which the “claw” consists of a metal disk-shaped projectile and a cube with a cavity filled with deuterium-tritium fuel. The projectile’s impact creates shock waves, which produce cavitation bubbles in the fuel. As the bubbles collapse, the fuel within them is compressed long enough and forcefully enough to fuse.

Hawker says First Light hopes to initiate its first fusion reaction this year and to demonstrate net energy gain by 2024. But he acknowledges that those achievements won’t be enough. “Fusion energy doesn’t just need to be scientifically feasible,” he says. “It needs to be commercially viable.”

No one believes it will be easy, but the extraordinary challenge of fusion energy—not to mention the pressing need—is part of the attraction for the many scientists and engineers who’ve recently been drawn to the field. And increasingly, they have the resources to finance their work.

“This notion that you hear about fusion being another 30 or 40 or 50 years away is wrong,” says TAE’s Binderbauer, whose company has raised more than $600 million. “We’re going to see commercialization of this technology in time frames of a half decade.”

Veteran fusion researchers such as Dorland and Horton tend to have a more tempered outlook. They worry that grand promises that fall short may undercut public and investor support, as has happened in the past. Any claims of commercialization within the decade “are just not true,” says Dorland. “We’re still a lot more than one breakthrough away from having a pathway to fusion power.”

What few will argue with, though, is the dire need for nuclear fusion in the near future.

“I think it’s not going too far to say that fusion is having its Kitty Hawk moment,” says MIT’s Greenwald. “We don’t have a 747 jet, but we’re flying.”

This article appears in the February 2020 print issue as “5 Big Ideas for Fusion Power.”

About the Author
Tom Clynes is a freelance writer and photojournalist who covers science and environmental issues. His 2015 book The Boy Who Played With Fusion (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) tells the unlikely tale of a 14-year-old who became the youngest person to build a working fusion reactor.

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The Best Alternators to Keep Your Car Running Smoothly
Production cars began using alternators in the 1960s. As part of the electrical system, alternators made it possible for cars to use higher voltage, and led the way to the modern car charging system. The road to progress has not been without its speed bumps and potholes, however. The alternator must be considered as a possible cause whenever electrical problems arise in a car. The device is not particularly complex or fragile, but it does seem to be a frequent candidate for failure and replacement far ahead of other components under the hood.

If you need to replace your alternator, you may not believe that you’ve got much of a choice. But in fact, there are different alternators to choose from. As you can imagine however, alternators are not universal products and many of them are vehicle specific. So when you check out our recommendations, make sure to find the correct one for your vehicle.

For more information on the best alternators, refer to our table of contents.

Table of contents
1. Editor’s Pick: Powermaster Alternators
2. Rare Electrical Alternators
3. Eagle Alternators
4. A-Team Performance Alternators
5. DB Electrical Alternators
What is an alternator, and what does it do?
Can I fix my alternator if it’s broken, instead of replacing it?
Why did my alternator stop doing its job?
How can I tell that my alternator is failing?
1. Editor’s Pick: Powermaster Alternators

If you’re thinking about adding any electrical accessories to your vehicle, you are going to want to consider upgrading your alternator from stock to a high-amp unit. There are plenty of places online to find a calculator to help you figure out your system’s draw, and it’s smart to have more amperage than you need—the system will draw only what it needs, so there’s no such thing as too much capacity.

This Powermaster high-amp alternator is good for 220 amps of output, and is designed to fit GM truck engines—you’ll need to figure out if it’s a match for your application. If not, make sure to browse through all of Powermaster’s offerings, as there’s a good chance the manufacturer has something that fits your vehicle. The company specializes in performance alternators for a wide range of vehicles, so if you’re looking for a high-amp alternator, start here.

This particular alternator offers superior output at idle and dual internals fans for better cooling. Users report solid build quality and impressive performance, especially when used with high power aftermarket audio systems and supplementary lighting setups with large current draws.

Pros/High quality, high-amp output, made in the U.S, new replacement part, not refurbished
Cons/Substantially more expensive than stock, may be a tight fit in some applications
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2. Rare Electrical Alternators

Rare Electrical specializes in building replacement parts for popular models, and adding value with high build quality and boosted output. In addition to providing alternators, the company also manufactures and distributes starters, electric motors, water pumps, and even turbochargers and door mirrors. This 180-amp alternator is a perfect example of one of the brand’s offerings, designed to work with the 2005 to 2007 Ford F-Series 6.0-liter diesel engines, a very popular fitment in the Super Duty lineup. So again, if this isn’t your particular vehicle, take a look at other alternators Rare Electrical offers to find one made for your car.

The stock Bosch alternator that came with the Super Duty was an anemic 110-amp unit, scarcely powerful enough for a work truck. This alternative high-amp alternator helps to maintain a battery charge in trucks fitted with high-draw accessories, like air compressors, accessory lighting, and other work systems. The company performs computer testing on its alternators to assure quality and reliability, and includes a one-year warranty on all new alternators.

Pros/More amperage than stock, high build quality, one-year warranty, affordable price
Cons/Internal regulator is non-replaceable, for single alternator setups only
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3. Eagle Alternators

If you need a really beefy alternator for your GM pickup, this 253-amp option should be on your list. A substantial upgrade over stock, this recommendation makes all kinds of electrical accessorizing to your vehicle possible, from adding work truck elements to help make your day more productive, to adding amplification to make your evening commute home louder, to adding under-chassis lights to make your night on the town cooler.

This particular alternator from Eagle High comes with a four-pin voltage regulator and a high-speed pulley for maximum output. You’ll find that the unit is a bit larger than stock, but can still be squeezed in on most GM trucks and SUVs. If you decide to go with this high-amp alternator, the company recommends upgrading battery charge cables to 4- or 2-gauge wire to handle the substantial current that will be passing through. One nice thing about Eagle High’s offering is that it comes with a test sheet, so you know you’re getting the performance you paid for.

Pros/High-amperage output, big upgrade from stock, reasonable price, included high-speed pulley allows for maximum output
Cons/Fitment may be tight depending on application, does not include cable upgrades, which are recommended
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4. A-Team Performance Alternators

When you open your hood to show off your engine bay, your alternator is one of the first things that your friends will see, as it is mounted right at the front. If you’re like me, you hate plastic engine shrouds that conceal a beautiful, clean engine installation, but you don’t want to mess with a lot of flashy chrome, either. This A-Team Performance alternator is not only a high-amp option with an output of 220 amps, it is also really cool-looking in anodized black, and a great match for a stealth LS engine in a GM truck or SUV.

It is designed to be plug-and-play with the OEM connection (4-pin connector), and is perfect for vehicles with a lot of accessories. You may find that the pulley on this alternator is slightly larger than stock, which could make reinstalling your serpentine belt a bit of a struggle, but manageable. And if you’re not a fan of the black finish and prefer shiny chrome to match the rest of your engine bay, there’s an option for that finish as well. As Mr. T of the A-Team might have said, “I pity the fool that don’t use a high-amp alternator.”

Pros/Looks great in black finish, high amp output, wide range of fitment, reasonable price, also available in chrome
Cons/Large pulley may make installation tougher
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5. DB Electrical Alternators

DB Electrical makes high-quality, aftermarket replacement alternators that meet or beat OEM specs. This recommendation is a great example, because it is designed to work with the 2002 to 2005 Ford F-150 with the 5.4-liter Vortec V8 engine—not coincidentally the most popular engine choice on the top-selling vehicle in the United States during those years.

It’s a 110-amp alternator that weighs under 13 pounds and measures 5.71 inches by 4.91 inches by 5.05 inches, a direct swap for stock. If features a six-groove serpentine pulley for minimal slip, and an internal regulator. It uses high-temperature epoxy and grease for superior heat resistance, and top-quality bearings and heavy-duty rectifiers to extend service life. It comes with a one-year warranty, and DB Electrical’s guarantee of perfect fitment, along with final test results and performance curves if available. So if you don’t need a high-amp alternator and prefer a direct OEM replacement, this company’s alternators are the way to go.

Pros/Affordable alternative to OEM unit, new, not refurbished, good warranty
Cons/Amp output matches stock, not a high-amp option
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What is an alternator, and what does it do?

Photo credit: BirdShutterB / Shutterstock.com

An alternator is an engine component that is part of the electrical system. It produces alternating current (AC) power by the process of electromagnetism, which is generated by the relationship of the stator and rotor inside its housing. The electricity is sent to the battery, where it is used to run the electrical systems on the car. The alternator is generally mounted to the front of the engine. Its internal components are rotated by a shaft attached to a drive pulley that turns thanks to a belt connected to the engine’s crankshaft.

Can I fix my alternator if it’s broken, instead of replacing it?
In general, it’s easier to replace an alternator than to attempt to repair it. That said, there are alternator repair kits available for $30 and under. If you’re handy enough to replace your own alternator, you might be handy enough to effect a repair. Since a new alternator can run from $100 to $500, depending on make and model, it might be worth a try.

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Why did my alternator stop doing its job?
The main cause of alternator trouble is bearing failure. When the needle bearings that let the rotor spin freely break down, the rotor no longer spins efficiently, and may even freeze up. Once this happens, your alternator is pretty much toast, and needs to be replaced.

How can I tell that my alternator is failing?
Your car will give you a hint, with dimming dashboard lights and hard starting. If you have a voltage meter on your instrument panel (some cars still do), low voltage (below 14 volts) can be an indicator of impending doom. Your car may be difficult to start, and if you drive with a failing alternator, you might put yourself in a bad, unsafe situation on the road. Your electrical system will slow down and stop functioning, and the battery will soon go dead. Without a working alternator, your car cannot run for long. Before jumping to the conclusion that you’ve got a bad alternator, have your battery tested and check out the belts and wires under your hood to make sure that everything is in good repair.

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https://hackaday.com/2020/01/16/car-alternators-make-great-electric-motors-heres-how/

CAR ALTERNATORS MAKE GREAT ELECTRIC MOTORS; HERE’S HOW

The humble automotive alternator hides an interesting secret. Known as the part that converts power from internal combustion into the electricity needed to run everything else, they can also themselves be used as an electric motor.

The schematic of a simple automotive alternator, from US patent 3329841A filed in 1963 for Robert Bosch GmbH.
These devices almost always take the form of a 3-phase alternator with the magnetic component supplied by an electromagnet on the rotor, and come with a rectifier and regulator pack to convert the higher AC voltage to 12V for the car electrical systems. Internally they have three connections to the stator coils which appear to be universally wired in a delta configuration, and a pair of connections to a set of brushes supplying the rotor coils through a set of slip rings. They have a surprisingly high capacity, and estimates put their capabilities as motors in the several horsepower. Best of all they are readily available second-hand and also surprisingly cheap, the Ford Focus unit shown here came from an eBay car breaker and cost only £15 (about $20).

We already hear you shouting “Why?!” at your magical internet device as you read this. Let’s jump into that.

THESE PEOPLE THINK BUILDING THEIR OWN ELECTRIC VEHICLES IS FUN!
One of the interesting facets of watching the UK Hacky Racer series grow from a bunch of friends making silly electric vehicles to something approaching a formal race series has been seeing the evolution of the art of building a Hacky Racer. As the slightly grubbier cousin of the US Power Racing series it has benefited somewhat from inheriting some of their evolutionary experience, but that hasn’t stopped the Hacky Racers coming up with their own vehicle developments. They’ve moved from salvaged mobility and golf buggy motors to Chinese electric bicycle and tricycle motors, and now the more adventurous constructors are starting to look further afield for motive power. One promising source for an inexpensive decently-powered motor comes in the form of the car alternator.

Our Ford Focus alternator
Searching for car alternator conversions reveals a variety of pages, HOWTOs, and guides, many of which can be extremely confusing and overcomplex. In particular there are suggestions concerning the three stator connections, with advice to break out the individual windings and apply special wiring configurations to them. Based upon the experience of converting quite a few alternators this appears surprising, as all the various models we’ve converted have had the same ready-to-go delta configuration that needed no rewiring at all. Perhaps it’s time to present a Hackaday guide with a real alternator, and explode any remaining myths while we’re at it.

So, fired up by the prospect of a cheap brushless motor by the passage above, you’ve got a Ford Focus alternator on the bench before you. How does one go about converting it?

WANTON DESTRUCTION OF AN INNOCENT CAR PART

Removing the regulator/brush assembly
On the back of a modern alternator is universally a plastic dust cover secured by a set of bolts. These devices are designed to be refurbished so (perhaps surprisingly for a modern automotive component) they are usually very easy indeed to dismantle. If you take off the dust cover you’ll see the regulator, rectifiers, and brushes, sometimes integrated into a single unit, but more usually as in the case of the Focus alternator with the regulator and brushes as a separate assembly to the rectifier.

There is often a copious quantity of silicone sealant which needs to be cut away, but any nuts or bolts that secure the regulator should be able to be undone, and with care not to damage the brushes themselves it can be lifted clear in one piece. Then the rectifier unit can be removed, a process in which it is sometimes simpler to attack it with side cutters rather than try to remove it in one piece.

The rear plate of the alternator with the regulator and rectifier removed, showing the stator winding connections.
You should be able to identify the three bundles of thick enameled copper wires coming from the stator coils, and detach the rectifier straps from them. In some alternators they’re soldered, but some other particularly annoying designs they’re spot-welded. At the end of the dismantling process you should have a bare alternator with three sets of stator wires protruding and a bare shaft with two slip rings, whatever remains of the rectifier pack, and the regulator/brush pack.

The next step is to remove the regulator circuitry while preserving the shape of the regulator/brush assembly, and to locate and preserve the brush connections where they meet the regulator. Yet again there will be copious quantities of silicone potting compound to hack away, but eventually the regulator should be exposed. These are universally some form of hybrid circuit on a ceramic or metal substrate, with connections emerging from the moulded plastic surrounding them being soldered to pads on their edges. It should be relatively straightforward to identify the pair of connections for the brushes, carefully unsolder them, and push out the regulator circuit.

The completed motor.
Finally, you should have a bare alternator, a brush pack with a missing regulator circuit, and the plastic dust cover. Simply solder three suitably large-gauge wires to the three sets of stator wires and cover them in heat-shrink, solder a pair of lighter wires to the brush connections, and reassemble the brush pack to the alternator. You may need to put some form of strain relief on the wires to the brushes. The rectifier pack doesn’t need reassembling, so on some models you may need to make a spacer to replace it in supporting one side of the brush pack.

Holes can be made in the dust cover for all the various wires, and the dust cover fitted with all the wires poking through. At this point you’ve converted your alternator, and all that remains is to drive it with something. Fortunately that is a surprisingly simple process with off-the-shelf parts.

DRIVING YOUR NEW MOTOR

Motor and controller, on the bench.
A so-called brushless DC motor is simply an AC motor with a bundle of electronics that turns a DC supply into an AC one to run it. They have the advantage over brushed DC motors in reliability, efficiency, and ease of speed control, but at the expense of more complexity.

The good news for people converting automotive alternators into electric motors is that a whole range of brushless motor controllers can be had for not a lot of money, in the form of electronic speed controllers (ESC) intended for those Chinese electric bicycles and tricycles. They take a battery DC supply and produce a three-phase AC suitable to drive a delta-connected motor, and they work well with converted alternators.

ESCs have two modes, one for motors with Hall-effect feedback sensors, and one for motors without such as our alternator. Usually a wire link needs to be made to enable this, consult the instructions for your controller. We’ve found that an alternator drives well as a motor from a 36V or a 48V supply, and as long as a controller with enough power is used then they do so reliably. A quick AliExpress search for “brushless motor controller 1500W” turns up plenty of choice.

Given a controller, there is one more requirement for our alternator to become a motor, it must have a DC supply to its rotor winding. It needs to have about 2 or 3A flowing through it, for which a current-limited PSU module performs the task admirably. Having to use that power makes the motor a bit less efficient than a permanent magnet one, but the cost of a scrap alternator is hard to beat.

The motor featured in our pictures is destined to be one of a pair providing traction in a new car for an assault on this year’s races. Personal experience with SMIDSY the Robot Wars robot would lead me to give them forced-air cooling, but unlike the electric tricycle motors these do seem to cope well with getting hot. An alternator motor might not be the one-stop solution to whatever your small-scale traction needs could be, but even so it’s worth being aware that they are an option without unexpected wiring rituals. If you convert one for a project, please make sure to write it up and send it to our tips line


PRESENTATIONS
What is a Pitch Deck? Examples, Tips and Templates
Written by: Mahnoor Sheikh
A pitch deck is a brief presentation that gives potential investors or clients an overview of your business plan, products, services and growth traction.

As an entrepreneur, you probably know this: your company or idea needs financing.

Oftentimes, this financing will come from external sources—i.e. people who aren’t friends or family. This means that you’ll need to communicate your ideas to potential financiers in a way that gets them excited about investing in your business.

In other words, you’ll need a pitch deck.

Table of Contents
What is a Pitch Deck?

What’s Included in a Pitch Deck Presentation?

The Dos and Don’ts of Pitch Decks

How to Create a Pitch Deck in 3 Easy Steps

Looking for Presentation Software?

What is a Pitch Deck?
A pitch deck, also known as a start-up or investor pitch deck, is a presentation that helps potential investors learn more about your business.

As strange as it sounds, the primary goal of a pitch desk is not to secure funding—it’s to make it to the next meeting.

Securing funding is a multi-step process. A good, informative pitch deck is the first rung on the ladder. You’ll want to present investors with an idea that intrigues them and gets them to engage with you.

A pitch deck presentation usually consists of several slides that help you tell a compelling story about your business. You can put one together using a generic software like PowerPoint, or use a modern tool like Visme to create an out-of-the-box presentation.

What’s Included in a Pitch Deck Presentation?
It’s tempting to dump information onto investors. As a founder, every part of your business is important to you. But the best pitch decks are ones that are short and easy to follow.

A good rule of thumb is to include no more than 19 slides in a pitch deck.

There are many different opinions about what a pitch deck must absolutely contain. But when we looked at some successful startup pitch decks out there, we noticed 10 key slides included in most of the presentations.



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Let’s take a look at each of these slides in detail.

1 Introduction
The first slide of your pitch deck is also the most important one. It’s your chance to make a great first impression, so make sure you don’t let this opportunity go.

Keep the introduction slide short and sweet—tell people who you are and why you’re here.

You can also use this slide to communicate the value proposition of your business. Try to articulate it in a single phrase or sentence, like:

“We make video games for doctors.”

“We make Happy Meals for adults.”

Or

“We’re Sephora for pets.”

You get the point.

A good value proposition will make your audience sit up straight and want to listen to the rest of your presentation.

2 Problem
If your business idea doesn’t solve an actual problem, what are you doing?

You should identify a problem your target audience faces, a gap that the market is currently not addressing.

A good problem slide will identify two or three problems that your product will tackle, without being long-winding. Keep the text focused, so that investors will have an easy time following.

Airbnb’s ‘problem slide’ from their original pitch desk is a great example.


Image Source

In this slide, Airbnb clearly points out three key problems that their business aims to solve. They’ve kept it short, yet added just enough explanation to relate to their idea and target audience.

3 Solution
In this slide, identify a concise and clear solution that investors can easily follow.

Airbnb’s solution slide highlights how they aim to solve each of three problems they pointed out earlier in big and bold letters.


Image Source

Avoid making grand statements like “we are the only ones doing this.” Most people in the room will probably know multiple companies trying to address the problem you’ve identified.

Another good strategy is to offer multiple possible solutions to the problem presented, and then move on to the one you have chosen and why. This shows investors your dedication and research.

Instead of uniqueness, focus your presentation on your research, drive, commitment and capability in solving the problem.

But make sure you don’t put all of that on your slide. Keep it simple and to the point, and let these guidelines shape your entire presentation.

Airbnb Pitch Deck Template
Here’s a pitch deck template inspired by Airbnb that you can customize for your own startup.

Customize now!



Customize this pitch deck template to make it your own!
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4 Market Size and Opportunity
The market will determine if you get your funding or not. If you are operating in a small market, investors might find that the potential ROI is too small or too risky to fund you.

Using sources from your research, a solid market slide will graph out past market growth and future potential market growth so that investors can easily see what the potential of your product is.

A good example of a market slide is from Mint’s pitch deck.


Image Source

Notice how the slide clearly shows the market size and identifies the opportunity in measurable numbers.

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5 Product
This is the part where you show off the actual product or service your business is selling.

If it’s a physical product, add professional photos of your product from different angles. You can also include exploded or cutaway views that highlight the materials and features of your product.

If your product is an app, online tool or service, consider adding screenshots that show off its most unique features.

TouristEye’s pitch deck included a series of screenshots that showed examples of travel itineraries and collections that users would be able to create and search.


Image Source

To take things further, you can also do a physical demo of your product in the middle of your presentation. Or embed a video or link into your slide to do a virtual demo.

TouristEye Pitch Deck Template
Here’s a pitch deck template inspired by TouristEye that you can customize for your own startup.

Customize now!



Customize this pitch deck template to make it your own!
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6 Traction
This slide should be all about the growth of your business—the numbers of sales you’ve made, the major goals you’ve achieved till now and the next steps.

Most startups include a hockey stick growth chart in the traction slide of their pitch deck.

This slide in Buffer’s pitch deck is a great example of how you can show off your current achievements to investors.


Image Source

The traction slide is important as it reduces risk in the eyes of the investors. They want to see proof that your business idea or solution has what it takes to be profitable.

Buffer Pitch Deck Template
Here’s a pitch deck template inspired by Buffer that you can customize for your own startup.

Customize now!



Customize this pitch deck template to make it your own!
Add your own text, images, logo and more
Add interactive buttons and animations
Customize anything to fit your brand image and content needs

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7 Team
This slide will include your core team members. The investor is interested in the drive of these people and what makes them unique enough to see this project to its success.

Under each core team member, consider including bullets, descriptions or titles that show why they are central to your mission.

Here’s an example of a team slide from Piccsy’s pitch deck.


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Keep the members here limited to your core team. Advisors need not be included.

8 Competition
Use this slide to show who your competition is, and why you are different from them.

Airbnb has a great slide in this regard.


Image Source

Notice how they use affordability and ease of access as the driving force setting their business apart from other travel or listing companies.

Buzzfeed also does great by showing how they offer more than what their competition can. They use their plan to reach across the aisle and offer the services of multiple competitors as their selling point.


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Buzzfeed Pitch Deck Template
Here’s a pitch deck template inspired by Buzzfeed that you can customize for your own startup.

Customize now!



Customize this pitch deck template to make it your own!
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9 Financials
The financials slide in your pitch deck is one that investors spend the most time looking over.

It should contain your company’s projected growth over the next three to five years, along with details about your business model and finances.

Enlive’s pitch deck does a good job at showcasing their income statement projection in this slide.


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The use of colors and a bar chart makes the financials easier to understand and definitely look more interesting than a boring spreadsheet full of numbers.

A lot of this information is not set in stone. No one can accurately predict where you’ll be in the next three years, but investors expect to see you outline your plan and show that you have the financial knowledge to reach it.

You can also explain your economic plan here. This includes your operating structure and distribution channels as well as your plan to make money.

10 Investment and Use of Funds
Before you wrap up, don’t forget to tell investors what you need from them.

But instead of just asking for a certain amount of funding, also let them know what you plan to do with the money.

When you justify your ask, it helps build trust and lets investors take you seriously.

Here’s a no-nonsense investment slide from Intercom’s original pitch deck as an example.


Image Source

Remember to be strategic here. Let your investors know the amount you are asking for, but keep it real. You don’t want to lose out on a big investment simply by aiming too high. Cover your bases.

Intercom Pitch Deck Template
Here’s a pitch deck template inspired by Intercom that you can customize for your own startup.

Customize now!



Customize this pitch deck template to make it your own!
Edit and Download Now

The Dos and Don’ts of Pitch Decks
Now that you’re clear on what a pitch deck is and what a good one contains, let’s take a look at some common dos and don’ts for creating and giving powerful pitch presentations.

When Designing
DO use bullet points on slides.
Remember that this is a presentation with a short time span.

Don’t overwhelm your audience with a lot of text. Explain the things you want to explain in detail but don’t cram them onto your slides.

DON’T stuff your slides with text.
As you can see from the examples above, it’s best to have bullets, not paragraphs, on slides.

Furthermore, use large font sizes, lots of visuals and a readable color scheme. This will help you put together an engaging and informative presentation.

DO include your contact details.
Make sure you include your contact information at the end of your presentation to let your audience know who to reach out to for queries.

Here is the contact slide from Facebook’s 2004 pitch deck.


Image Source

This slide also allows your business to have a ‘face’ and encourages investors to look this person up.

DON’T add too many team members.
In your Team slide, stick to core members. Too many executives can overwhelm; your investors want to know who is piloting the ship.

When Presenting
DO tell a story.
Make sure you present your audience with an engaging narrative that allows them to feel why your business is tackling the problem it is and how this will affect them.

DON’T focus on only the stats.
Without a cohesive narrative and a bigger picture dealing with the why of your business and what it will bring to your customers, all your stats sound dry and boring.

Make sure a purposeful narrative runs throughout your presentation, not just at the beginning. The stats are important, especially financial stats, but they aren’t the only important thing.

DO elaborate and minimize as you see fit.
What is on the slides is important, but so is how you present it.

As you’re speaking, gauge your audience, their interests in the particulars of your business, and what they most care about. Then, tailor your presentation to their needs.

DON’T just read from the slides.
Tailor your presentation to keep your audience engaged and never just recite what is written on your slides.

Remember, investors can read. The reason this is a presentation and not an email is so you can engage with them.

How to Create a Pitch Deck in 3 Easy Steps
Creating a startup pitch deck doesn’t need to be difficult. If you’re short on time, you can use a design tool like Visme to put one together in literally just a few minutes.

No more starting from scratch and creating slides one by one. You can simply use ready-made templates and replace the placeholder content with your own.

Here’s how it works.

Step 1: Choose a template.
To get started, sign in to your Visme dashboard and choose a pitch deck template that fits well with your content and type of business.

There are hundreds of presentation templates in Visme’s library, and they’re all fully customizable.



Customize your favorite pitch deck template!
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You can also mix and match slides of a similar style using our presentation themes.

Step 2: Customize.
When you find a pitch deck template you like, click on Edit to start customizing it inside the Visme editor.

You can change anything and everything to fit your content needs. The editor is easy-to-use with drag-and-drop functionality. You can use it even without any prior design experience.


Change colors, fonts and images. Swap icons for relevant ones using our free icon library. Add and customize data visualizations to make boring numbers more interesting. Insert animations and links, embed videos and more.

You can also add, remove or rearrange slides as you see fit.

The entire customization process will barely take you an hour if you just replace the placeholder content with your own.

Step 3: Download or share.
When you’re done customizing your perfect pitch deck, you have the option to either download it to your computer, or share it online using a link.


You can download your pitch deck in image or PDF format, or as a PowerPoint file.

Generate a link to share it privately with specific people, like in an email. You can also publish your presentation on the web so it can show up in search results on Google.


You can also embed the pitch presentation on your company website using a responsive code.

Looking for Presentation Software?
A powerful pitch deck can help you secure the funding you need to make your business idea a reality. This article will give you the confidence you need to design and present a killer pitch deck.

If you want to learn more about pitch decks and giving great presentations, check out some of the resources below.

17 Pitch Deck Templates Inspired By Real-Life Startups and Businesses
15 Expert Tips for Giving a Powerful Business Presentation
Presentation Success Formula: How to Start Strong and End Powerfully
You can also watch this video on how to structure your presentation to keep your audience hooked till the very end.


If you’re looking for an easy-to-use, professional presentation software to help you make a powerful pitch deck, Visme can be just what you’re looking for.

You can browse through fully designed pitch deck templates that are inspired by real-life pitch decks of successful companies, such as Airbnb, Buffer and more.

Each template is customizable, so you can easily plug in your own content, graphics and brand assets, and download it in PowerPoint or PDF format, or publish it online.

Ready to create your very own pitch deck? Sign up on Visme for a free account and take it for a test drive!

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About the Author
Mahnoor Sheikh is the content marketing manager at Visme. She has years of experience in content strategy and execution, SEO copywriting and graphic design. She is also the founder of MASH Content and is passionate about tea, kittens and traveling with her husband. Get in touch with her on LinkedIn.

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MagSafe: Everything About Apple’s New iPhone 12 Charging Technology
..
With the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro models introduced in October 2020, Apple reinvented "MagSafe," a name once used for the breakaway magnetic charging cables designed for the MacBook. The repurposed ‌MagSafe‌ name still pertains to magnet-based accessories, but this time, designed for iPhones rather than Macs.

All of the ‌iPhone 12‌ models have a ring of magnets built into the back around the wireless charging coil that adhere to ‌MagSafe‌ based accessories like cases and chargers, and this guide outlines everything you need to know about ‌MagSafe‌.

How MagSafe Works
‌MagSafe‌ uses a ring of magnets in the ‌iPhone 12‌ models to connect to accessories that also have magnets built inside. So, for example, Apple’s ‌MagSafe‌ Charger snaps right on to the back of an iPhone, much like a magnet snaps onto a refrigerator.

Cases are the same way, snapping onto the magnet ring built into the ‌iPhone‌. The design of the magnet ring allows the ‌iPhone 12‌ models to be compatible with a whole range of accessories that rely on magnets, from chargers to mounts to cases.

The Magnet Ring Inside iPhones
‌iPhone 12‌ models have a ring of 18 rectangular magnets arranged in a circular shape located underneath the wireless charging coil in each device, which is what allows the ‌MagSafe‌ magic to happen.

Older iPhones had the same wireless charging coil, but no magnets underneath to allow for magnetic connections.

MagSafe Charger
The ‌MagSafe‌ Charger looks something like a larger Apple Watch Charging Puck with an aluminum body and a soft white material at the top of the charger. The charger snaps onto an ‌iPhone 12‌ with magnets inside, perfectly aligning the charging coil in the ‌MagSafe‌ Charger with the charging coil in the ‌iPhone‌.

Repair site iFixit took apart a ‌MagSafe‌ Charger and did an x-ray to show us the charger’s internal design. As with the ‌iPhone‌, there are a series of magnets inside that are compatible with the magnets in the ‌iPhone‌ that surround an internal charging coil and a circuit board that manages the charging process.

Apple has also designed the MagSafe Duo Charger, which combines a ‌MagSafe‌ charger with an Apple Watch charging puck. The charger is foldable, making it ideal for travel, and costs $129.

The ‌MagSafe‌ Duo Charger is not able to charge an ‌iPhone 12‌ at the full 15W. With Apple’s 20W charger, the ‌MagSafe‌ Duo chargers at a maximum of 11W, and with a 27W or higher USB-C power adapter, it charges at up to 14W. The ‌MagSafe‌ Duo does not come with a power adapter and a charger must be purchased separately. Note that the 29W charger from Apple is not compatible, but the 30W version is.

12W Charging for iPhone 12 mini
For most of the ‌iPhone 12‌ models, the ‌MagSafe‌ charger is able to charge at a maximum of 15W, but for the smallest ‌iPhone‌, the iPhone 12 mini, charging maxes out at 12W. The same goes for the ‌MagSafe‌ Duo. Charging speeds can also be affected by the temperature of the ‌iPhone‌.

Getting 15W Charging Speeds
Achieving 15W (or 12W on ‌iPhone 12 mini‌) charging speeds requires Apple’s 20W power adapter or another appropriate 20W+ PD 3.0 charger. Testing with Apple’s prior-generation 18W iPad charger and a 96W MacBook Pro charger proved that those power adapters do not allow the ‌MagSafe‌ Charger to reach the full 15 watts.

The same goes for many existing third-party power adapters, which also do not have the proper charging profile. New chargers from third-party companies may, however, include support for the ‌MagSafe‌ Charger, and testing indicates that to provide the 15W charging speed, a ‌MagSafe‌ Charger needs to support Power Delivery 3.0 at 9V/2.22A or 9V/2.56A, according to Apple. The ‌iPhone 12 mini‌ can hit maximum charging speeds with a 9V/2.03A power adapter.

You’re guaranteed to get 15W with Apple’s $19 20W power adapter (this power adapter also comes with the 2020 iPad Air models), but you may also be able to use a third-party charger as long as it meets those specifications.

How to Make Sure Your Apple MagSafe Charger is Genuine
MagSafe Charging vs. Traditional Charging
With the ‌MagSafe‌ Charger, it takes about an hour to charge an ‌iPhone 12‌ from zero to 50 percent, which is double the time that it takes to charge using a USB-C to Lightning cable and a 20W+ USB-C power adapter.

Charging with the ‌MagSafe‌ Charger is faster than charging with a Qi-based charger, which maxes out at 7.5W, but for the fastest charging you’re still going to want to use a wired charging connection with a Lightning to USB-C cable.
When the ‌iPhone‌ is warm, charging speeds can be throttled down, and Apple warns that if the ‌iPhone‌ gets too warm, charging will be limited above 80 percent. Apple recommends moving your ‌iPhone‌ and charger to a cooler location if it feels overly warm.

Charging Speeds With Lightning Accessories
When Lightning-based accessories like EarPods are connected to an ‌iPhone 12‌ model, charging with ‌MagSafe‌ is limited to 7.5W, which is something to be aware of.

MagSafe Charging Animation
When you place a ‌MagSafe‌ Charger on a compatible ‌iPhone‌, the ‌iPhone‌’s display will feature a ‌MagSafe‌ charging animation with a MagSafe-like shape on the screen along with a readout of the current ‌iPhone‌ charge.

Using the MagSafe Charger With Older iPhones
Using the ‌MagSafe‌ Charger with older iPhones is possible, but not recommended because charging is slower than with the 7.5W Qi-based chargers. Charging appears to be capped at right around 5W with the ‌MagSafe‌ Charger when paired with older devices, and in testing, the ‌MagSafe‌ charger has proven to be slower than using a plain old Qi charger.

MagSafe vs. USB-C
Testing suggests the ‌MagSafe‌ Charger charges the ‌iPhone 12‌ less than half as fast than a wired 20W USB-C charger. With the 20W charger, a dead ‌iPhone‌ was able to charge to 50 percent in 28 minutes, and the same 50 percent charge took an hour over ‌MagSafe‌.

MagSafe Cases and Accessories
Apple has designed cases, wallet attachments, and a ‌MagSafe‌ Charger to use with the ‌MagSafe‌ iPhones, and third-party case and accessory makers are also creating MagSafe-compatible products. We have a guide highlighting some of the available MagSafe accessories that you can purchase.

MagSafe Don’ts
Avoid putting single use cards like hotel cards against the magnet in the ‌iPhone‌ or the ‌MagSafe‌ Charger
Don’t put credit cards, security badges, passports, or key fobs between the ‌iPhone‌ and ‌MagSafe‌ Charger because magnetic strips and RFID chips can be damaged
Don’t charge with the ‌MagSafe‌ Wallet attachment on the ‌iPhone‌ (cases can remain on)
MagSafe Charger Warnings
When using the ‌MagSafe‌ Charger, Apple warns that it can leave an imprint on the Leather Cases designed for the ‌iPhone 12‌ models, which is something to be aware of. It can also leave a mark on Silicone cases based on reports from MacRumors readers, and it’s possible that this will affect third-party cases made from soft materials as well.

Apple recommends that those worried about the ring that can be caused by ‌MagSafe‌ choose Silicone or Clear cases instead of the Leather versions.

MagSafe and Pacemakers
Like all iPhones, the ‌iPhone 12‌ models with their ‌MagSafe‌ technology can cause interference with medical devices like pacemakers and defibrillators. Apple recommends keeping ‌iPhone 12‌ models and all ‌MagSafe‌ accessories a safe distance away from implanted medical devices.

A safe distance is considered more than 6 inches / 15 cm apart or more than 12 inches / 30 cm apart if wirelessly charging. Though there are more magnets in the ‌iPhone 12‌ models, Apple says that they are "not expected to pose a greater risk of magnetic interference to medical devices than prior ‌iPhone‌ models."

Cleaning the MagSafe Charger
Apple recommends cleaning the ‌MagSafe‌ charger with a soft, lint-free cloth. Abrasive cleaning cloths need to be avoided, as do cleaning agents. Apple recommends against excessive wiping, which could cause damage, and says that bleaches and aerosol sprays shouldn’t be used.

‌MagSafe‌ Chargers can be disinfected with a 70 percent isopropyl alcohol wipe or a Clorox Disinfecting Wipe, as long as no moisture gets in any openings.

Guide Feedback
Have questions about ‌MagSafe‌ or want to offer feedback on this guide? Send us an email here.

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