I have been reading a book called "how to live without electricity and like it, by anita evangelista.. I actually really enjoyed the book...And while I dont think I could ever live totally without electricity, I would like to think and hope that I can make a few changes to make my electricity bill lower, and to be able to put a system into play that would be workable during emergencies... For instance... Texas had some freezing days, and apparently the electric companies were not prepared for them...So Texas residents had rolling blackout... some folks were without power for hours on end, some lost power for a day.... some lost power on and off through out the three days.... I wasnt prepared enough for that... If we lost power for over any amount of time, we would have been in a fix trying to keep little ones warm and fed. I would like to be more prepared.
So in this book, they bring up human/animal power. I got the picture in my head of the squirrels in the car running on that round circle thing to make the car go.... But according to this lady, prisons use to use man power to make electricity...they somehow hooked up tredmills and stair climber type machines and make the prisoners walk on them and it somehow generated electricity..... I did see on planetgreen, a program that had a bicycle somehow hooked up to a battery and they were able to get electricity from riding a stationary bike....for every so many minutes of bicycling, you get so many minutes of toaster time ect.... the bike charged up the battery.....So MadSci.... can you figure out how to make a tredmill or a stair climber into a electricity making machine??? (im not rich, but I sure would be willing to pay for this type of info!!) If you can give me a very descriptive type(as if you are explaining to a child type) directions...tell me how to do it type thing, I would love to try it.... i have to be on those machines anyway....maybe I can make it so that I have to do the tredmill or the step machine for an hour so that I can run my computer for an hour....talk about incentive.... or hey, kid wants to play the video games.... half hour bike riding or stair climbing first....wouldnt that be awesome!!! Any info you could give me would be great...thank you very much.
__________________ God is and all is well
~John Greenleaf Whittier~
Yes it is quite possible!
Turning an exercise bike into an electric generator is not all that difficult, others have already done it. Sometime back a saw a picture of a trailer mounted contraption with seats for ten people and each seat had a set of bike peddles. It was taken around to music concerts and if all ten people peddle hard enough and long enough then the electricity they generated would run the musicians sound equipment and everyone could hear them.
To do this basically you would need the following:
An exercise bike
An electric generator. (in this case small DC {battery operated} motor.)
A pulley to mount to the motor/generator shaft.
A belt to fit the pulley and go around the wheel of the exercise bike.
A means to mount the motor/generator to keep it inline with the bike.
A small 12 volt battery (car type or similar)
A small 12 volt TV, one deigned for use in a car or camper preferably.
A regular TV could be used instead but you would then need a power converted to produce your normal house current that it needs.
Assembling all this wouldn�t be all that difficult.
thank you sir. Would the same principle work for doing it with a tredmill or a stair climber? I dont think the stair climbers that they have nowadays would work because I dont see any poles going round and round... Am I wrong on my thinking???
Will this basically charge the battery, and then i can use the battery to operate what I need if I get a converter right???
A tread mill would work but I believe an exercise bike might be easier to use. The motion of a stair climber would first need to be converted to a rotary motion to spin a generator. This is doable but probably a bit more exotic then what you�re looking for.
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Will this basically charge the battery, and then i can use the battery to operate what I need if I get a converter right???
Yes. A system like this would definitely work, however realistically you are only going to be able to run small appliances, a lamp or two, a fan, small TV, etc. But not a microwave oven, or toasters, etc.
Yes. A system like this would definitely work, however realistically you are only going to be able to run small appliances, a lamp or two, a fan, small TV, etc
The idea of being able to run a small fan is ideal...If during the summer my a/c goes out, and temps go above 80 degrees, my foster daughter has a tendency to go into seizures...this would help to prevent that....thank you again sir
Been kind of busy the last few days but I had a chance to go through my box of assorted motors and found one that would probably make a good generator. So if you really want to try this little project you can have it.
Don�t know if you have an exercise cycle, but was looking at the one my wife has, and it would not be all the difficult to mount this in place of the brake wheel that is currently there.
yes, I really want to try this project... Find out what it would cost to mail it or ups I guess ... I live in brazoria texas, if that helps.... I can either mail you cash or a check or do a paypal if you have a paypal. I really want and feel I need to make some energy changes. while a part of it is curiosity of "can I do with less" a part of it is, what if.. What if i did lose electricity for a few days.. My foster daughter cant eat food without it being pureed, in the summer she needs some type of cooling system. So if I can find alternatives to electricity (without going to propane) I think I would feel safer and be better off.... Not to mention the fact that maybe it would give me more incentive to exercise!!!
In this book (how to live without electricity) they said that mother earth news had an article in a couple of their earlier magazines (issue67 and 68) that shows how to make this. I found issue 67 on ebay and won the auction.. came in a protective cover (from 1981) was afraid to open it...afraid to ruin the magazine...but I did see the article, havent read it through yet, and still have to try and get the next issue... but Im looking forward to the challenge...
As motors go this is not a very big motor about 2 �� diameter and 4� long and maybe 2 pounds. Now seeing as how I have boxes full of motors of various sizes and shapes you can have this one for free as I have more here then I will ever use.
I dont have an exercise cycle, but one wont be hard to find.. they are given away constantly on freecycle down here.. thank you for your help, I sure do appreciate it!!!
The reason I asked if you have an exercise cycle is the motor/generator will need to be mounted to it in some manor. So depending on what the exercise cycle looks like I will make some kind of bracket to mount it.
Therefore when you find the cycle of your dreams take a picture of it so I can see what it looks like and I will come up with a way to mount the motor.
Im sorry for taking so long to get back to you madsci, but apparently people arent getting rid of exercise bikes as fast as they use to...maybe they are all gone, now, I dont know.... I did find a regular old fashioned one speed bike, that I might end up trying to use, if I can figure out how to brace it so it wont fall....
But, a friend of mine recently got this recumbent bike, and I was wondering if it would work the same way. If I got this bike, would I be able to hook it up to the setup I need to make this work.... thanks for the info and the help.. Im still not giving up on the idea
A regular old bike would work but as you noted you would need to come up with some means to hold it upright. I think that the recumbent would be ideal. One, the recumbent comes with it own feet so you don�t need to figure out how to make it stand up. Two, its sit down design with a back rest is way more comfortable to ride. The way its flywheel and its braking work would have to be similar to a regular exercise bike, thus adapting a generator to should not be a problem.
Digressing a bit here is a brief history of the recumbent bike.
Back in the 1920 & 30�s bike racing was quite popular and a French guy wanted to build a faster bike and he came up with the recumbent design. Because of its stretched wheel base he was able to ride in a laid down position. This cut down on wind resistance which allowed him to go faster.
On a regular bike the maximum force that a rider can apply to the peddles is his body weight when he is standing up and peddling. But rider on a recumbent being seated in a seat with a back rest is able to apply a force greater then his body weight to the peddles. Also this seated laid back riding position is more comfortable and less tiring for a long ride.
As a result whenever he brought his bike to a race, whether it was a sprint or endurance, he would win.
This obviously made him very happy, however his competitors where not quite as happy. It quickly became apparent that there was nothing they could do to their expensive conventional bikes that would make them competitive again. They needed to do something and throwing away their expensive bikes, even for an improved design, was not an option. Thus the only thing to do was to ban the recumbent from official racing and this was done by setting a maximum wheel base such that it forced the rider to sit above the wheels.
The result of this is that there have been no major design changes to bicycle in the last 100 years. Excluding the recumbent of course.
I was thinking the recumbant bike would be easier on me all the way around, especially the tush!!! Bikes are hard on that particular area.... Ok, that sounds like it needs to be the plan then.... I would be more willing to use a machine that I can actually use without hurting...would a recumbant be easier on the knees also? Will let you know when I order it!
By the way, thats great info... it figures they would change the rules, it seems our world is more if you cant beat it, kick it out!
MadSci, can you make a new toy????
and this was done by setting a maximum wheel base such that it forced the rider to sit above the wheels. 
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