Y2K Inventions

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I've been giving this Y2K Inventions a little though and came up with an idea:

Parts:

Stationary bicycle or regular bicycle with a stand. Car alternator. 12 volt battery (possible car battery or better, something that handles "slow trickle" charging. voltage meter. voltate regulator to handle step down from 12V to 3V or similar.

The idea is to make the stationary bicycle into a personal appliance generator, to run DC powered appliances, or personal computers without AC power.

The thing I don't know is how difficult it would be to run a car alternator from from a bicycle. (The alternator may provide enough resistance that an "average" person might not be able to pedal the bike" )

Any thoughts?

-- Glen Austin (gdaustin@aol.com), January 08, 1999

Answers

Don't know about the alternator, but here's what one guy is doing

Pedal Powered Generator

-- D B Spence (dbspence@usa.net), January 08, 1999.


DB: that guy swims 13 miles a day!. My understanding is that the amount of energy the average person can produce this way is very limited. I think you would be better off investing in solar panels, and saving your manual energy for plowing the fields.

-- a (a@a.a), January 08, 1999.

There was a post that talked about this set up before. A guy had hooked this type of rig up to his TV. His kids had to peddle 15 minutes to watch a half hour show. Every house should have this set up, less TV, plus less fat asses.

-- Bill (bill@microsoft.com), January 09, 1999.

Couldn't help it. I used to imagine a solution to desk potato-ism might be a pedal-powered computer. :-)

Our body itself is a generator. But it would have to be stoked using the fuel we'd get from plowing those fields. Not my idea of "renewable energy" - much better to let the sun do some work.

Anyway, back to Y2K. :)

-- D B Spence (dbspence@usa.net), January 09, 1999.


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