Awesome Exercise Bike To Generator Hack

[@stevetobias4890]

Use some hot glue around the edge of the magnets to hold them better. Also try putting a rim around a third of the flywheel to add more coils. You can also hook every second coil in series to have two lines of higher voltage or even better hook them in parallel to increase current. The two lines would then allow you to use full wave rectification. This flywheel could also be hooked up to a wind mill or a water wheel or anything really. This was an excellent video Rob. I wish you lived in Australia so I could send you stuff, but unfortunately I cannot afford the shipping to the UK. Love this channel there really should be more people like you out there, your a one in a million mate.

[@Red9GearHeads]

I have often wondered if a person could build a successful exercise business around the idea of the customer helping generate green energy while they exercise on their bike. I would assume that an hour long spin class with 20 of these bikes could generate a fairly usable amount of energy. I love the videos! Your work is often satisfying some of my own curiosities. Thank you so much

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

awesome mate - glad to hear it - cheers

[@matakaw4287]

Awesome video as always. If you have a spare moment there's a great video by James Biggar (That's his channel name), where he builds a wind turbine totally from scratch and achieves 3000 watts. His builds are beautifully constructed and worth a look at. Thanks again, mate, cheers.

[@etherlonX]

Looks like something that could be done to the roofline rotating ventilator. Great result! Thank for sharing, cheers.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

exactly my thinking mate - you could see this as a trial run for the roof ventilator

[@chipheadnet]

Brilliant! Now you just need to go to the junk yard and find 2 more bikes to harvest the magnets.

[@your_utube]

Power galore! What an improvement over the friction version. Ben at Applied Science channel even used magnets to melt metals. I was thinking of a reverse version of this. Maybe you can try this Robert. In this version you stick pieces of metal on the outer rim of the flywheel. Then you put a piece of soft core metal in the electromagnet and on the opposite side of that, pile up the magnets you have. So you will have (1) magnets, (2) Coil (with soft iron core inside coil) and (3) pices of iron on the outer rim of the flywheel. This means that you do not need more coils, but you can change to different coils to experiment with number of turns and thickness of wire, plus you do not need many magnets, plus the iron pieces cut in a band saw are much more affordable, available and easy to make. That would be an amazing experiment to compare approaches, results and cost.

[@onedayagogo]

very good test run. one thing I noticed, with this configuration, the magnets will be acting on the steel frame of the bike, so they might be better on the sides of the flywheel, maybe placed on both sides to keep it balanced, etc. and get double the power or something. so many options with this set up. it's great 👍👍

[@wibblywobblyidiotvision]

A far more efficient way to use this would be to rip out the flywheel and hook up a small alternator and its regulator / rectifier in the place. You'll need to futz with the gearing, of course, alternators need quite a lot of RPM. About all you'll ever get out of this is 100W or so at peak, even the guys doing the Tour de France only produce about 400W and a regular cyclist is lucky to do 150W sustained, chuck in 50% losses for the alternator and your potential output is around 75W. Don't get me wrong, that's still quite a lot, and certainly worthwhile, if only as an object lesson as to the cost of energy* Rolling your own alternator, which is effectively what you're doing, is unlikely to net you much in the way of efficiency; that said, with a sufficiently large number of magnets you can make a low RPM alternator built around the flywheel (which, as it stands, is only still spinning because you're not extracting any real power from it). If you can find a scrapped, /modern/, washing machine you might be able to salvage the motor from it. Newer machines have multipole 3 phase pancake motors and should be pretty good as generators. * Friend of mine runs a refuge (climbers hut) in the Alps, way off grid and a 2 hour, 800m climb, hike from the hearest road - his power supply is a very limited solar setup. He gets a lot of people coming up with the standard question "can I charge my mobile phone / drone / gopro / gps / all of the above?". Until this season, the answer has been "go jump", but it is now "go pedal". He's set up an old road bike driving an alternator which powers (via regulator / rectumfrier) up to 5x2A USB ports (50W max). It's a wonderful thing. No bttery, of course - you want to charge, you get to pedal. No freeloading.

[@wibblywobblyidiotvision]

@Smattless Did you notice the word "sustained" in there? Sure, the sprinters produce a massive amount of power, and it's impressive that they can do so after 4 or 5 hours in the saddle, but they can only do that production for a very limited time, in the order of 30 seconds or so. Even assuming a lossless system, you'd need 8 Peter Sagans to boil your kettle. I ride /a lot/, mtb rather than road, and regularly do days of 2000m vertical or more. I can't sustain much more than 200W *measured at the crank* for any length of time that would be usable in terms of power generation.

[@lordtyroxx]

I always thought this way would be more efficient than going through the efficiency losses of strapping a cable/chain to an alternator. And the heavier/larger the flywheel, the more it would act as a buffer when a real load gets put on- acting as a sort of large capacitor in the chain. That being said, I'm just a cyclist and I know barely anything about efficiency when it comes to this stuff.

[@THEGABNER]

Truth

[@robinvince616]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but were you just taking your voltage reading with no load and then afterwards taking your current reading straight across the coil? In that case, you can't just multiply the 26V by 80mA and say that's your power. The voltage and current must both be present AT THE SAME TIME. When you were reading your mA the loading due to your current meter will have reduced your voltage down to just fractions of a volt. You need to connect a suitable resistor as a dummy load. Then you can measure the voltage across it and calculate the current and power. Quite likely, the real power being generated will be a tiny fraction of what you thought.

[@Graham_Wideman]

Exactly. What he produced here was 20 or 25V at zero current, or 10's or even 100's of milliiamps at zero voltage; in both cases zero power. While I like Robert's enthusiasm, innovations and "can-do" spirit in these projects, this is the one thing he does over and over again which completely undercuts the credibility regarding generating power. While it's great to demonstrate basic concepts like moving a magnet past a coil produces a current, it's not very useful to cultivate completely unrealistic expectations about amount of power (or energy) produced by what scale of hardware, or what scale of input power.

[@tebbi67]

Great Work absolut precisly sitting coil and a unexpected high voltage.Thx for the video!!!!!

[@designerzen]

How many more collection coils could you add?

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

30 in total I would think

[@designerzen]

@@ThinkingandTinkering Incredible! Would the coils have an effect on each other or would power output increase by a factor of about 30 too?

[@cptrikester2671]

Very cool. Much quieter this way, too. If the magnets were mounted on the sides, the rim would contain the centripetal forces. Wonder how much power could be produced with a full array of magnets / coils. I hope you get enough coils.

[@michaelschauperl172]

That's so cool. It looks so easy to convert it. I wish I had friends interested in such projects to do it together. Allthough I think I would half of the time sitting on the first finished bike cycling. ;)

[@philipvernejules9926]

.....excellent , that's probably what most of us wanted to see and it fell nicely in your lap discovering the magnets. You can certainly explore a couple more variations , do you think . Say another coil connected in parallel, relays used as coils from your parts car outside, small transformers as coils from microwave circuit boards or other . .trying alternate north south placement versus same pole placement arrangement and on and on...It's a good hobby horse certainly .

[@breezer1788]

Who’d a thunk... Excellent and funny. Thank you Robert.

[@Teknopottu]

Can't wait for those extra coils. Inspirating stuff.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I am hoping a few folks will donate - seriously

[@ansonvattakunnel5297]

I would donate a coil, but shipping charges from south Africa to UK are high and we still have lockdown restrictions. Sorry mate, I would have loved to seen it though

[@Teknopottu]

@@ThinkingandTinkering Just got yourself a new member and a small donation for tea or coffee to work with those coils. Please, keep inspiring us.

[@WayneTheSeine]

kids, "I want to play on the tablet." Dad..."Git to crankin" Awesome.

[@MAGnetICus_Attractus]

You need a MESS(mass energy storage system) I was going to use a shifting bike then a few 50 pound plates On the shaft. Engage the generator once the flywheel is up to speed. A 26" diameter rim to a 2" shaft, the end of the shaft has a 4" wheel to turn the smaller generator pulley. Basically make it so one turn of the pedals equals many turns on the flywheel. I used a GM alternator, a stationary bike treadmill, a giant bike, a belt from a lawnmower and a battery.

[@chipheadnet]

Got me wondering about a similar conversion with a treadmill. Train my dog to run on it :)

[@conductiveinkalternative918]

I do the same thing. Use what I have available or design simpler devices. Love it! That's what my conductive ink alternative is all about.

[@pulesjet]

Hub motor , Telling ya. That was magic. Yes, More Coils . DIY Coils about 9 would do you fine. Configure 3 phase.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

for sure

[@azlandpilotcar4450]

If you've patience enough, you removed enough fine strand wire emi shield from the large plasma tv to wind your own coils.

[@endadalton]

Fantastic, the flywheel how it works so effortlessly gives so many options.

[@mteca5093]

GREAT STUFF ... you could also test with the magnet in an ALL north facing the coil configuration... also N S N S configuration.... you will be suprised at the output differential... you could also put 60 coils on the sides of the flywheel.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I will test it mate

[@fascistphilosophy5649]

I am looking at parts to the system I need online, including DC output regulator and electrolysis device, but I don't understand how to get the H out-put into a small generator/turbine to turn into electricity? I guess I can figure out how to get a flame going, but to get the flame to combust into a turbine? and then, I can charge a battery with it and measure the outflow with another device right?

[@ryanlebeck259]

You could take an old computer power supply to pieces and build your own step up transformer system for your bike(in addition to any new coils included) to increase wattage. Still great stuff!

[@McRootbeer]

Cool, do you think you could replace the coil of wire with a coil of paper with your conductive ink painted on it? If it worked it could help reduce the cost of homemade generators or make it easier to change the performance (1 thick line of ink vs multiple thinner lines).

[@hissst69]

Very nice, I was thinking you could do an alternator, but you are getting up there in the power just like that, Also, a washing machine motor (free) would be fairly similar I would think to surrounding the whole flywheel with magnets and coils as its already a bunch of coils and magnets ready made and very free and available in any city worldwide -would have to be pulled by band around flywheel to washing machine hub and in that way taking advantage of the flywheels stored energy again.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

Cool idea

[@MrTubeuser12]

Interesting, using the roof-line ventilator is basically the same concept that I mentioned in one of your earlier videos about vertical wind turbines, although my idea was to build the turbine from scratch, using the ventilator would certainly save some work. nice result. just an idea, if you can engineer it, fit the coils to the rotating part rather than the magnets, that should keep the mass down on the rotating part which should result in better performance in lighter winds. great video as always, thanks for sharing. just an after thought, having less mass on the rotator would cause it to slow down quicker, so less energy produced overall maybe ? kind of a trade off.

[@gabrieldefreitascoelhocarr9556]

Do you have any plans to put iron core in the coils?

[@fraydnot]

Did you get all your coils? I have been trying to get some together. Could you use microwave magnets?

[@colleenforrest7936]

Okay, I thought you were going to use it to turn the Wimshurst instead of a hand crank, but this is awesomer 😃. Our Science Center had a demo where you had to petal a generator to keep a light running. They used the small bike motor with little success, as you demoed yesterday. No one thought to try this

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I am thinking this would be great if linked to a wind turbine - just need more coils and magnets

[@dast6915]

When I have finished all the other jobs I have to do first, then I can get the exercise bike I have converted into a generator. Could you please explain how to match the coil windings to get max power output

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

that needs a video it's too long to write as a post so - I'll get to it - cheers

[@DavidMoraisDiablosao]

This assembly reminds me of Bedini's engine. You should try to add some coil to have more power and maybe a coil with the Bedini assembly to have more rotation;)

[@jeffreyrood8755]

Great output for what little bit of work and materials in it. Now if you can just convince to pedal enough for you to go off grid lol. Just kidding! Makes me wish I had not sold my elliptical that had a massive flywheel. I'll be watching for something now. Great work.

[@xspotbox4400]

Respect Sir, any bicycle can work as a generator, again you demonstrated how simple those devices really are in principle. And also how much energy is wasted just because well paid engineers, with all kinds of technologies in their disposal. just don't want to bother with such trivial concepts.

[@captainprototype187]

At 4:00 Robert says tha you can stick a dummy load between the magnet and the coil as a sort of rectifier to dc. Why is that?

[@addestensfors8425]

That' strange, last week I got me a bike and was planing to do exactly what you are doing. I have one question, what would be the optimal coil/coils to use n this case?

[@craigglewis]

It's a sad world when we can not get the resources to make a better world. I'm working on the $$$ side. Getting some Gold for us. Got up to 2.9g/t in the tailings and going for more sampling in the next two weeks. until then I have 24 more microwaves to get LOL. I was going to say get Luke on the bike LOL Great Vid and Laugh.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

lol - cheers mate

[@Kiyarose3999]

How about glueing magnets onto the side of the flywheel near the rim, and fix a couple of coils over the flywheel and magnets, like a break calliper surrounds the edge of a break disc.

[@ThisRandomUsername]

Those magnets look like they're spaced roughly the same distance apart as the microwave transformer is wide. Maybe you'd be able to use the transformer core to direct the flux from one magnet to the other and use a bigger coil? Either way, that's a great result!

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

it's an idea - I will try it and see

[@deslomeslager]

Hi Robert, why not use one of those microwave transformers you have? You just cut of the top beam, leaving you with an U shape of metal with the coils still in there, and now run the magnets over one top of the U shape. It will produce really a lot of Volts and Amps. This will possibly stress the superglue when you take a lot of power from it. You can see on my channel I am using an e-bike (not even converted ! ! ! the 24V motor is a generator and a strong one too) and I am able to produce a tremendous amount of power this way. A trained racing cyclist will outperform me in stamina of course. To charge up my mobile phone I need to charge up 6 supercaps up to their max (+/- 17 Volt, 500F each), this takes me about 3 minutes when doing a 'cardio run' or 5 minutes 'easy on going'. More people should be forced to charge their phone this way (to have fitter people I mean)

[@enriquesuarez5406]

Hi Robert, That's amazing. Will it run a washing machine?

[@herbetone]

Very enjoyable, great video.

[@NwoDispatcher]

What's with those blinds?

[@gusmartin6053]

You should test it on a resistive load in order to get a true reading of watts. Just measure the voltage drop across the resistor and calculate the current. Im sure you're aware that open circuit voltage multiplied by short circuit amps gives a very inaccurate result.

[@balfit]

Gus Martin actually measuring the open circuit voltage and the short circuit current (at the same sustainable speed) lets you calculate the optimal load to be used for maximum power output. At least this is how they used to do it back in the old days as I learned. I am not contradicting you, just given how to size that resistive load best. :-)

[@gusmartin6053]

@@balfit Thank you for the reply. I didnt know that these measurements could be used to calculate optimal load. That would be really useful, even if it only gives an approximate starting point.

[@glennwebster1675]

Finally, a reason to exercise

[@johnnorris1983]

With No wind or sun . A deep pond is dug.(or suspended). Shielded from electric earth a pendulum is placed over this and the pond 1/4 filled with argon. Doped to float polystyrene bead is let loose on the argon surface. A bank of capacitor's collect most of the static . What is the optimum depth of pond for a 12 hour pendulum decay to get to a usable '1/3' original cadence ?

[@Web3Dre]

Thanks for sharing. That was pretty cool :)

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

Glad you liked it!

[@Kiyarose3999]

WOW, from that ONE tiny, thin copper wire coil, and the fly wheel momenntum energy! I hope one of the rich people where I live chucks one out, lol.They need to convert the exercise Bikes in the Gyms, then the exercise would power the Gym! but that’s too sensible!.

[@chrisstevens2]

It's always best to use a "FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER!" :)

[@IslandHermit]

30 coils won't give 30 times the power, at least not under load. When under load each coil will produce drag on the flywheel making it more difficult to pedal and Matt's power output is more-or-less fixed.

[@rogerbarton497]

That's more like it! Why not wind your own coils? Make them rectangular in shape so that the magnetic field doesn't overlap the windings. With a small coil and a large magnet you will induce current in opposite sides of the coil at the same time for a period as the magnet passes over the coil, these currents will oppose one another, reducing the output. Also it looks like you may have an open magnetic circuit, is there a way you could put an iron core inside the coil and then a bridge piece to complete the magnetic path back to the magnet? I wish I could draw a picture in a comment!

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I have to buy the wire

[@rogerbarton497]

@@ThinkingandTinkering That scuppers that then :( Microwave transformer primary wire or washing machine pump wire might be OK

[@AirConditioned]

If a big company put some serious money into this design and mass produced it, it would save the world.

[@olivierroy1301]

I think I red somewhere that the human power is around 500 watts for short periods of time and it can be around 350 watts steadily. Impressive.

[@simonsmith2802]

You could always pull a transformer apart and use the secondary side of it you don't have to use asynchronous motor coil

[@ShadowRifft]

🤣😂!! MOARRR POWAH!!!😁!! NICE!!😌👌🔥⚡

[@guyward1743]

Excellent job

[@shanealexander9952]

I'm sitting on the edge of my chair, People give away free magnetic resistance exercise bikes like it's a bad habit they want to get rid of. I in fact have 2 and IF I could just harness my sister to one in a power outage situation, Well Then..... I don't know about coils but lawnmowers have them to make the spark ( also and especially riding mowers and push mowers with a battery start) and what about that microwave. or just a spool of wire.

[@steverichmond7142]

I think this was done to heat a dorm by students in Sweden some years ago. Does anybody remember this?

[@AtlasReburdened]

I'm not sure that would have been very effective. The average adult male can only sustain a load of 60-120W for an hour or so before needing hours to recoup. So you'd need well over a hundred men working in shifts on ten bikes to power even a standard 1000W heater. Charging small electronics with stuff like bike generators is fine, but we made engines for a very good reason.

[@captainkirk1]

62 watts nice what will that power im dumb with electricity

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

your computer for one - quite a few things actually

[@tasa4904]

Many cell phones fast charge with just 5W. BLDC table fans can run on low at 3-5W. On high they'll take about 40 - 60W. Portable freezers with an efficient DC Compressor run on 45W - 60W

[@Web3Dre]

A decent LED light uses 1 to 3w. So it should be good for lighting up a small room or a shack

[@NwoDispatcher]

@@Web3Dre for how long...

[@Web3Dre]

@@NwoDispatcher approximately 8 to 10 hours after 30 min of cycling. With a 3w led.

[@colouroboros9993]

really awesome!

[@nickhadziannis8451]

Peddle faster if you want more watts.. lazy good for nothings. Loads of fun....

[@clickbaitnumberone1403]

amazing

[@rangars1]

Sensible isn’t it 😃

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

for sure