Building a Generator

[@Gh0sb0ss]

This actually gives people a very easy way of physically feeling how much power it takes to run different types of circuits, I think it would be a cool idea for a science fair or something

[@thebirchwoodtree]

reminds me of a science museum that had a device with a hand crank and would let you try and power old lightbulbs vs new led bulbs and see how it's easier to power led bulbs

[@KingJellyfishII]

pretty sure they have something like this in the glasgow science museum

[@kiburebuc]

​​​@@thebirchwoodtreeSame at the Los Angeles Science Center, but it's a stationary bike there. There are, iirc, 5 incandescent light bulbs and 5 LED bulbs of the same light output that you can switch between powering.

[@DiverseGreen-Anon]

@@thebirchwoodtree I saw this the first time when I was a kid and visited the "Abrafaxe Extavium" in germany. They had a bike with a generator and besides different light bulbs (incandescent, "Neon" (energy saving), LED etc.) they also had a toaster... After pushing the lever down the bike felt like it instantly slammed the brakes as it is actually quite a lot of energy to only keep the magnet engaged, nevermind feeding the heating coils with "only" ~600w xD. They had a lot of devices plugged into that bike for kids and parents to try out. I only remember these and a fan though

[@ehhhhhhhhhh]

Many exercise bikes include this as a feature. They have watt readouts and you can feel how much a particular wattage is with your legs.

[@renson2160]

It's amazing how 4 chapters worth of topics of physics electronics have been covered in a single generator building video

[@haidara77]

Welcome to real life man!

[@EvGamerBETA]

This feels very satisfying, that you can build something that would convert raw mechanical power into something that could interface with complex electronics. It's like holding a manifestation of the civilization at your desk

[@LuxAuroraWinery]

Now all we need is a power inverter and some batteries and we just powered a neighborhood .❤ I wonder if I could get the 3D plans to this!

[@over7532]

It's in the description! 👍

[@zescoot2590]

Seeing something like this in action really makes understanding electricity way easier than just some formulas

[@ArktinenPeikko]

My daughter was just asking a few days ago about how electricity is made. This should be clear enough way to show and tell. Might even print a project for us to build out of this. Thanks for providing the link to the files.

[@Acamperfull]

Once the supercaps are charged you can use them to start a car with a flat battery. This way you can (hand) crank start a modern car engine!

[@bob2859]

This is hilarious. I did the math and it looks like 100F is about right. That dragster bank is 100F, but I'm not sure about its voltage rating or ESR. There's also the old Electroboom video "Cranking a Car with Super Capacitors (Supercap)"

[@jasonharrison25]

I have a bank of 6x 3000f supercapacitors in place of my car battery in my TDI. Starts very well if fully charged. I have a 5w solar panel on the roof and charge controller to keep it topped off if I'm not driving it. 6x in series is 500f. I don't recommend anything less after using it for about 10 years now. They will only give you one or two tries before the voltage is too low to start the engine. Another benefit is they charge up in seconds. So 10 seconds or so it's charged enough to reset the engine. Would be excellent for delivery vehicle, postal service, etc that have a lot of stops and starts. The few times I've had to jump it or put a charger on it to charge it back up took only q few minutes to be fully charged. A jump is only 10 seconds like when the engine is running. The cheaper jumper cables get hot with the amount of current running through them. I've also been able to jump start other larger vehicles and pickups with my car and a good set of cables. People are always scratching their head confused when they see it

[@Let_the_nonsense_blaze.]

Thought of the same thing. Also, I've got a few old tractors where handcranck+supercap could be a very usable solution.

[@Parker-di7ef]

@@jasonharrison25I’d love to see a video on this! I never heard of anyone doing that!

[@luppano]

Or charge the phone. Crank hard a few minutes, and let the capacitors charge the phone for longer at lower power.

[@_Matyro_]

You should move to active rectifier instead of passive diode one. At these low voltages, you lose most of your power in the diodes at the moment. For ultra low drop diodes you will lose 0.2V per Diode which is around 10% for your voltages, for classic diodes (which you seem to be using) its 0.7V per diode resulting in quite a bit of wasted energy.

[@nathansmith7153]

FERD diodes are about the same as a synchronous rectifier

[@bgdwiepp]

Sm74611

[@oliverer3]

​​@@manitoba-op4jxThen you're back to needing brushes. Not to mention that they're quite inefficient.

[@fishyerik]

Oh, how surprised I would be if it turned out Tom wasn't aware about diode voltage dropout already. As the loss depends on the voltage he can also reduce losses by creating a higher voltage, and step it down afterwards, if necessary. Higher voltage and lower amps at a given power reduce losses in wires too.

[@BillyNoMates1974]

4 Schotky Diodes would do the same job in a ractifier layout. the same 0.2v drop across each diode. their only downside is that they are hard to get hold of in higher amperage but can be done. Plus add a bank of Zener Diodes in parallel to handle the current when regulating back down to the higher limit voltage. say a bank of 12.1V zeners at 5 watts each

[@jana171]

Absolutely LOVE this project Tim ! Attach a propellor, and you have a windmill, add a battery, and you go offgrid camping with full 12V electricity available. Measure available Kw output and explain calculations for windings, batteries, magnets and such, and there's a scientific story to be told too. This could take you in every direction you'd please 🙂

[@pauls5745]

Sure you can. The only difficulties are in storing enough until next charging. excellent project!

[@flexairz]

That's why wind power has failed massively. It's intermittent and not demand driven. Nice for small projects but not for large scale applications.

[@jana171]

@@flexairz 🤡

[@jarateman6427]

@@flexairz Water works tho u just need flowing water. Instead of the handcrank u could add on a waterwheel.

[@KitsuneKimmy]

@@jarateman6427 True, but it takes quite a bit of water to store energy using gravity. Unfortunately, the amount of cranking on a generator like this that would be needed for practical use would wear your arm out pretty fast! Might be better to hook it up to an exercise bike, though you would still get pretty tired.

[@nerddwarf]

"Don't know if I could spin it for an hour and 13 minutes" Just 3D print a small water-wheel, attach it to the handcrank, and mount the generator by a river.

[@Ryuko15]

It would be great to have a bicycle to generate electricity for a gym

[@barookQ8]

3D printing a hydroelectric dam

[@deskmat9874]

@@Ryuko15 I thought some gym machines actually turn themselves on by you beginning to use it, and then it converts that energy you used and powers on the display for the machine

[@brett_norris]

@@deskmat9874 I have an exercise bike at home that does exactly that!

[@TotalDec]

I've always wanted one of these pushes by fan blades. Set it outside during a high wind time, and have charged batteries for free.

[@ashurean]

I'm a big fan of the pedal-type generators. Those are something I could see actually being useful in an emergency. They're a bit bigger, but if you lose power, it's easier to charge up a battery bank with your legs.

[@simiken1234]

Its super cool how electrical resistance turns to physical resistance with this thing. Would be a great learning tool for kids!

[@markoap91]

It's not really electrical resistance turning into physical resistance, it's electrical power turning into physical resistance. The more power draw you have the harder it is to turn. But I agree it would be a great learning tool for kids. This is actually true for any generator and is a part of the law of conservation of energy and not only kids but most people are not aware that generators are harder to turn the more power draw you have from them.

[@megaman1997ful]

@@markoap91 what is the reason for the power draw causing more resistance?

[@Kycilak]

@@megaman1997ful Because you cannot create energy out of nothing. The speed of turning the generator gives the voltage, but you may draw different current at the same voltage, meaning it has to be possible to generate different amounts of power using the same crank speed. The only things, that affect the power generated, is the speed and the force (alternatively the torque and angular velocity), and with constant speed, the only thing that may change is the force. Hence higher power draw causes the need for more force. As per the mechanics this is caused because the current flowing through the generator coils produces magnetic fields that oppose the change caused by the rotation of the magnets in rotor. When no power is drawn, no current flows, and there is no resistance (ideally). When the power draw increases, the current rises and the magnetic fields opposing rotation are stronger, hence one has to crank against more resistance.

[@megaman1997ful]

@@Kycilak Thankyou for the detailed response! thats completely cleared up the confusion for me :D

[@markoap91]

@@megaman1997ful @Kycilak covered everything quite well. Nothing I can add to that.

[@paulmelois]

I have an old Singer sewing machine stand that I've always wanted to repurpose as a manual charging desk; now I've got all the R&D already done thanks to you! Awesome job, thanks a lot

[@matthewrodriguez6327]

That’s what o was thinking 👍🏼

[@sgtbrown4273]

Yes, I agree, you need a passive diode and definitely hook a super capacitor to it. Charge it for a few minutes and then it will charge your phone. That way you don't have to keep cranking continuously. Awesome project is always.😊

[@dragoscoco2173]

Well considering a standard phone battery has enough energy to lift a 2tone car 1 meter off the ground, you will need to crank that a while.

[@Dollarwine]

​@@dragoscoco2173so you're saying all I need is several dozen pulleys...

[@dragoscoco2173]

@@Dollarwine With great leverage comes great amount of pull. Energy=Force x distance. The more you skimp out on the use of force the more distance you need to travel to produce said energy. 2tonnes lifting at 1m height. Or 100kg at 20m. Or 2 kg at 1km. Take your pick.

[@TheJohnreeves]

@@dragoscoco2173 That's not much energy. A car jack can easily lift the car in a few seconds. It's a car jack with a much higher "gear ratio". He's limited by the 1 amp output of the USB board he was using which is why it will take the amount of time his phone said it would take (a little over an hour). Maybe with a high power USB board so it can fast charge, but even that would probably take 20 minutes or more. I can lift a car in 20 minutes easy with the right leverage. Use a bicycle to power it instead and I can output enough energy to charge the phone in a couple minutes (but the phone would still need 20 or whatever it ends up being).

[@dragoscoco2173]

@@TheJohnreeves I totally agree that is not much for a human to pull off. It is roughly the equivalent energy of me climbing a 6th of 7th story building with my own weight. I could do it in 2 minutes casually. Yet that crank system is not geared or levered for such a feat in 2 minutes. What I tried to imply is just the amount of hand cranking necessary for a standard size phone charging.

[@camelmer02]

You have been the only person to ever successfully explain a rectifier to me. Thank you

[@TimpBizkit]

Like a dual action flap valve box bellows for electricity.

[@JackAllpikeMusic]

I'd love to see a series of iteration upon this just like your planes - where you try and design better and better generators, finding what works best/worst and create the most powerful hand powered generator you can while keeping it reasonably easy to use and maintain.

[@BernardSandler]

This was fascinating. When it comes down to it, a generator/motor isn't that complicated. Always good to see that demonstrated.

[@AlexusMaximusDE]

I mean yeah.. these days we have access to materials and methods of manufacturing for home users which far exceed the capabilities and materials early specialists had access to.

[@NandR]

My favorite daydream is going back to like 1200 AD and creating a generator. They had metallurgy. Copper and iron and magnets. Energy storage would be harder but running power from a water mill wouldn't be impossible. But using that power would be limited. Lights would be basically impossible to make. Motors would be relatively easy. Using it for heating could work.

[@AlexusMaximusDE]

@@NandR If you can build a generator, you can figure out how to make a motor and some gears. If you can make a motor and some gears, you can make a lathe. If you can make a lathe, you can make a vacuum pump. If you can make a vacuum pump you can do a low friction flywheel and lightbulbs. If you can do that, you can be burned for witchcraft.

[@dragoscoco2173]

@@AlexusMaximusDE The Energy equation implies that the early specialists could build this easily just heavier. We had at some point in time hand cranked army phones.

[@AlexusMaximusDE]

@@dragoscoco2173 So you are saying they could have built a much worse version with much more effort because they had access to worse materials and technologies. Cool.

[@jerremm]

Potential upgrades, have a steel plate on either end of the rotor so the magnets have a low reluctance path and you'd have more magnetic flux. (or the same with less magnets) Also a freewheeling clutch thing for if you stop cranking and the rotor can spin freely.

[@ransombot]

Taking transformer plates and shoving them in the center of the coils would probably be better, for less over all weight. Like doubling the output power better. Would also be interesting to see ferrofluid in the center. More used in speakers as a lube for the driver & a flux enhancer but it should work there too.

[@BronzSoldier]

What happens if you put coils on both sides of the plates that holds the magnets? I mean the parts where the magnets are should be open on the both sides and then you put coils on both sides of it. What would happen?

[@ransombot]

You have the problem of transferring power when you do that. Tend to ark and cause corrosion having you wires stationary makes it much easier. Unless you are just talking about making a stacking generator. He hints at that in the video when he talks about the series parallel configuration. You'd get more amp/volts depending on the configuration. The ends though waste magnetic field if it's not directed back in with some ferromagnetic material, or a Halbach array Generally want your ends to redirect the field back in where you are capturing the work. That said it's harder to deign and heavier so where weight is an issue you don't always or to the same degree. Worth noting that the coils when this happens generate heat, copper / aluminum are diamagnetic and appose the field around generating the power. More work More heat more coils even more heat. You'd run a good risk of a PLA generator melting without regulating that extra current or adding in thermal correction with airflow or convection. Not so bad with a hand crank but a wind or motor driven one would Definity suffer a meltdown. Much like an induction heater.

[@markusw9455]

The low reluctance path needs to be laminated otherwise he will get huge eddy currents. Perpendicular to the direction of magnetic flux, a bit like arches. Maybe he will get away on bother outer sides with only a flat plate, since the field of the magnets is much more dominant compared to the induced field of the stator. Main benefit will be if he can provide a low reluctance path for the stator coils (filling coil with lamination). Big benefit with the axial machine is, theses paths are already short by design (different as in radial flux machines)

[@jaydeep-p]

Hand cranks get hard after some time but a foot pedal like those on sewing machines is significantly easier to turn for a long time.

[@GeomancerHT]

Hamsters jay, hamsters!

[@markifi]

there's so much power in the legs. 100-200 watts easy, for hours, even more power for a lot of people

[@laflador_7691]

attach it to your bike and you will be able to charge your phone during travels

[@greasher926]

I was thinking the same thing, you could easily retrofit a spinning wheel (for spinning thread).

[@googooboyy]

Why hasn't anyone created bikes with these generators for home-use? That way people can get cardiovascular exercises and charge batteries up too! Forget Peloton! Welcome, Electron!

[@GroovyGears69]

I'm going to give it a try!

[@olcuqap1789]

they do

[@ProfessionalGasLighting]

You don’t generate a lot of electricity unfortunately, even at the high end of efficiency and at the high end of human ability… there are KZbinrs that have done this and have shown the amperage… alternatively, if you have any fan, you can spin it and measure the outlet cord with a multimeter and you will get a very tiny amount of electricity. Most a/c motors are also a/c generators because of the law of enthalpy or something like that

[@richhagenchicago]

People have built them. There were a few on the Fieldlines forum a number of years back.

[@RehaanPlayz0306]

There’s something like that in my city named ‘SmartBike’. They are bikes you can rent for 1 whole day and they have battery packs that are charged by your pedalling.

[@panther105]

This is brilliant. From some experience with hand cranked tools, having a little more weight to offset the crank handle can help smoothen the power input from your hands and help with the overall balance of the whole apparatus.

[@chipcode5538]

I think you can increase the efficiency by changing the coil design. As far as I know the part off the coil that is perpendicular to the changing magnetic field contributes the most to the output. The rest is just added resistance. Also you can increase the power of the magnetic field by adding a backing metal or hallbach configuration of the magnets.

[@simonlinser8286]

Look at hard drive motor, coils shaped like wedges with rounded corners. Why? What you just said about the impedance reluctance resistance etc

[@markusw9455]

This type of motor works well, it is called an axial motor. Backplate would be nice, but only if laminated perpendicular to flux direction. This would mean like an arch of bricks between each coil. Winding layout should be 3 coils for each pair of magnet (easiest, classical synchronous machine). And the interconnection should be diffenent. It sure works with all coils in line. But he gets big circular currents driven by voltage differences due to the coils seeing different fields - also depending on winding direction of the coils (clockwise, ccw).

[@joshua3291]

Cool video Tom, maybe you could make a stationary bike where the wheel charges through the same method, would be a lot less tiring than hand cranking

[@SapioiT]

Next thing to do would be to get a bicycle, add a stand on both sides so you can pedal with the back wheel in the air, and then connect it to the pedals. Or maybe even make a custom bicycle pedal assembly to be able to charge a phone while cycling, regardless of whether stationary or not.

[@danthanhhuynhpham685]

Im thinking more of using the motion of a rocking chair to run it So you can rest and charge at the same time

[@skullmax3595]

@@danthanhhuynhpham685 itd be impractical and i think if you wanna rest, a windmill type of energy generator would be best. The bicycle idea would work better ig.

[@slurricrasher9923]

@@danthanhhuynhpham685 A simple setup similar to this that could attach to either a spinning wheel like a bike or a dual pedal rocker for a chair would be one of the best camping accessory inventions ever.

[@WOLFPACKED]

oh i just made a comment about the kickr core - a bike smart trainer system that i think could be modded for this purpose exactly

[@GroovyGears69]

I am currently printing out the parts and have the extra hardware hopefully coming in this weekend. Thank you Tom for your wonderful content. Ill post an update when i finish mine and share my results

[@khaledadams4329]

That is so interesting to hear you say how much physical resistance it creates with a load. I want to try printing one of these now. Thanks for sharing!

[@Maarrk]

Cool project, if I may add a safety concern is that you'd really prefer to use *female* XT60 connector on your generator. As is, the pins can be shorted easily by anything conductive, and that's why power sources should have female terminals - look at your batteries with the same XT60 plug, or even electrical sockets in the wall. Probably not an issue for this one, but it's a good habit to have 👍

[@TimStation]

Yes, that's correct. However, I wired it this way because it doesn't matter if the generator short circuits (the crank resistance just goes up). But if I charge a battery or capacitor, I don't want the wrong connector on them as that short would be far worse.

[@Duamerthrax]

@@TimStation There's also 15 Amp Anderson Powerpole Connectors, which are genderless and protected on both ends. Regardless, you're right that the battery bank end is the one you need to worry about.

[@jayw900]

Not actually a concern in this use case.

[@jonathanodude6660]

shorting a hand cranked generator...??

[@Raccy-theftine-offical]

I'm no electricity nerd so I have no idea what you mean by female-

[@Bein_Ian]

After watching many electroboom videos I never could understand what a full bridge rectifier was, but your video made it seem so simple. I love electronics but can't wrap my head around them a lot. Thanks for the video!

[@jtruant]

Favorite content creator on KZbin. I’m a total electronics novice and feel like I come away with a much better intuition from your videos than I would from other types of learning. Definitely want to print this one!

[@ilanlee3025]

No idea why this was recommended to me but very happy it was. Best video I have ever seen explaining and showing the conversion and storage of electricity. Subscribed!

[@qerku_5640]

Your explanation of a full bridge rectifier is the first one that I was able to understand! Thanks

[@michroz]

Another idea for improvement is to put 2 thick steel discs on the outside of your magnetic rotors. I believe this would increase the magnetic field by containing it within the steel discs. Also this could somewhat increase the fly-wheel effect. Maybe the coils also could be wound around (or in-between) the steel cores to even better direct and improve the magnetic field.

[@bosstowndynamics5488]

High performance axial flux motors generally use either 2 sets of coils, one on each side of the magnet rotor, or 2 sets of magnets, either side of the coil stator, to maximise flux through the coils per unit weight. Obviously this doesn't need to be as optimised weight wise but I suspect a twin magnet setup would be better for increased flux density over trying to direct the field with steel

[@B0A2]

Would love to see future iterations of this project perhaps on a bike

[@skrymerU]

That was fun. Would have been interesting to see how many amps it could generate and calculate the power.

[@GewelReal]

maybe 20W

[@TimStation]

This video was meant to be a short build/info video for an upcoming video on my main channel. However, it's gained far more interest than I expected, so I'll be making a follow-up soon!

[@specialneedsmolester1957]

@@TimStationmake it into a mini wind turbine

[@corpuschristihq4370]

@@TimStation Could you also please explain more in detail how you connect coils, diodes, capacitors, and mini digital voltometer? Any electronic schematic would be greatly appreciate.

[@aloismapanzure]

​@@TimStation Hi Tim, do you help with 3D printing prototypes?

[@artpam]

So interesting to see how you apply what you've learned in the past to new projects. Thanks for the 3D files, this will be a fun (and useful) project.

[@UnKnown-hf4mi]

If this thing was made to be as efficient as possible… I would totally buy one from this guy.

[@SmartZero-f8e]

this guy doesn´t have the necessary equipment to do it.

[@mennims]

Hey Tim, been watching you for over half a decade. Your generator came out beautifully. It looks amazing, seems to operate smoothly and work eficiently enough for it to have some practical use. It's great to see you do more electronics as well! Something I struggled with in electronics was understanding voltage and current and it's relation to watts and using the "correct" terms that other electrically experienced people will understand. I'd like to share a concept that works for me. Power = RPM x Torque Power = Voltage x Current I see RPM as Voltage, current as torque. When I look at the charged storage in your generator I imagine a metal flywheel spinning relatively slowly (low voltage) but with a lot of mass (available current). When that flywheel is charged, your brain may not think "what do I do with all this speed" (or volts), you may think of it in terms of power instead.

[@strawman9410]

Use the capacitor bank to a step down converter to charge a phone etc then once you charge the bank you won't need to keep cranking the handle. Mine powers LEDs for upto 45 minutes after 10 minutes of cranking. Thanks for sharing. Yours gives more power output than mine. 👍🇬🇧

[@londonnight937]

Tom, the only real way to know how much your generator produces is to get a maximum power point tracker and a suitable load for it. The load impedance must match perfectly the impedance of your generator, at which point you measure the power dissipated on the load, and that's your generator rating, for a certain RPM of the generator. Would be cool if in the next video you would do that, because I'm quite curious how much a hand cranked generator will make.

[@veryInteresting_]

If I had to guess it would be in single digit watts

[@targetdreamer257]

Brilliant! It is a compact and elegant piece of equipment. That being said just a few minor design tweaks and you’re golden. 1. Broaden the base of it. That way screw holes can be integrated into it so as to be mountable. 2A. Alter the cranking part. Like having it so two hands can be use. 2B. Or Keep the two crank design so the hand cranks can be swapped out for foot pedals. 2C. You could even change it up so it can be rigged up so the stator can be cranked by a gravity battery. Suspend some weight in the air and connect that weight to the generator by s long cable.

[@AKATEATime]

The increase in resistance to turning it with a load is exactly how regenerative braking works.

[@elliot6758]

hey tom! i built something like this just the other day, using a nema34 stepper motor. stepper motors are great for low rpm high voltage generators as that is how they're designed to operate

[@yungu1776]

A nice piece of work! It would be great if you show us the actual usable peak current output off this generator.

[@marsrover001]

Hand crank rail gun time? It only makes sense. The fallout 3 fans require it.

[@ancientstraits9288]

I REALLY want to make this for some reason. One part of me feels like there's no point, because of the electricity we readily have, but the other part of me thinks that this could help me be more self-sufficient and off-the-grid, or something. Anyways, 2-3 hours to charge a phone is actually extremely impressive. And if you made a generator from a bicycle, you could probably charge it even faster!

[@fabiant.2485]

I think the most ergonomically convenient version of this would be to power it with a foot pedal. Plus maybe a built in flywheel to even out the effort required to keep it spinning. That way you could operate it while sitting and have your hands free for other tasks.

[@adamjc86]

Fantastic stuff Tim, this kind of tangible, real world, but simple project seems like a great way to get people into electronics

[@CoreyKearney]

I would add a clutch and flywheel to smooth out the cranking effort. And some Caps so you can crank around 15v to store that up. Cutting the cranking time by 2/3.

[@thatguychris5654]

They should have one of these in every school's science class. When kids understand how much effort it takes to power something, they might appreciate how energy dense fossil fuels are.

[@hooverity]

This is actually pretty sick. You should make the hand crank detachable and make a lil water wheel to generate power

[@Mr.ky89]

The air core hand crank generator is very wonderful. Thank you for sharing with the audience

[@blacklight683]

0 electricity blender

[@p1ayM0NKEY]

Now do a portable bicycle generator

[@beefsupreme67]

"please"

[@mayday8443]

Imagine an electric bike you could charge by pedaling it 🤯

[@beefsupreme67]

@@mayday8443 that's already a thing

[@lawrence1md]

You should have put coils on both sides of the magnet array

[@FieldBoy111]

What would that do

[@lawrence1md]

@@FieldBoy111 it would either double the current or double the voltage depending on how you electrically connect them

[@elementkx]

This is awesome. You should sell a kit for people to watch this vid and make one themselves. I would love to make this with my kids.

[@DiyEcoProjects]

10:38 HI TIM ~ i recommend charging power blocks first, then your phone off a power block. That way you can avoid the jagged signal which is likely to kill your phone. All the best

[@RandomBogey]

8:34 there’s a calibration pot/screw on the back of the blue led volt meter to dial in the voltage readout

[@Sembazuru]

For what he is doing the readout is probably "close enough". But, yeah. Most decent voltage readouts like that have a small calibration pot for when it matters.

[@jonathanfernando-k3b]

If u think about this type of self electrical generation its hella genius, cause ur eliminating a whole lot of lossy steps for power generation cause ur literally converting what u eat and drink into electrical energy.And the other big bonus is that it is enviromentally beneficial no pesky co emissions to worry about

[@stevenschnepp576]

If all you're powering is an LED light, sure!

[@gshingles]

Very nice design. I don't know if you've seen Robert Murray Smith's channel, but he uses serpentine coils which seem like a lot less work to make, to me. :)

[@paradiselost9946]

serpentine coils. ahhhh, stupidity at its finest! go look into "jacobs law". a serpentine coil, by its very nature of construction, limits the amount of power that can be delivered to a load, and instead forms a load itself, and WASTES power as heat in its own resistance. go back to the demonstration of eddy currents, lenz law... dropping a magnet in a pipe. start THINKING about it. what if you cut the pipe? what if its a coil? what if theres a resistor across the cut you made? across the coil? what happens to the magnet? to the lenz reactions aka eddy currents? what is current, what is voltage, anyway? when you start to get an idea of that, you might see these videos for what they really are. trash. they all do the same thing and fail to show anything at all of any merit, and they all just go over the same basic BS... no more. yknow whats sad? that youtube proliferates all these half baked ideas based on miseducation and lack of knowledge on basic fundamental principles... this video was another demonstration of how not to do things, half understood principles, with no attempt to apply well over a century of acquired human knowledge and experience. "just wave magnets (of unknown strength? with no thought of reluctance or the most efficient magnetic circuit?) past some wires (of no given size, length, resistance) wound into coils (of no known inductance or turns) and generate electricity! wow! its magic! and and and... its axial flux!!!! and i used a full bridge rectifier, and made yet another explanation of how a rectifier works... like there arent enough already... and i made sure i had an animation or two..." whatever. i guess im just a troll... :D

[@Ed.R]

I think has channel is best avoided, its full of BS as he's only into KZbin for the views and money.

[@strawman9410]

An even easier build and more powerful is Robert Murray Smith thunderbolt generator. Think he got 150V out of it. Really impressive. Just went round the bolts in a big circle. Easier than his serpentine. With offset magnets to reduce the drag.

[@paradiselost9946]

@@strawman9410 150v into what LOAD? what resistance? how many amps? how many WATTS? and how much power did it take to SPIN? how EFFICIENT was it? did he talk about that? did he mention that? did he test that? 150V means nothing. theres a potential difference of 150v or so from my head to my feet, atmospheric electricity. doesnt do much, does it?

[@strawman9410]

@@paradiselost9946 go check his upload called THUNDERBOLT all the information you want

[@philochristos]

If you attached that to a stationary bike, you could charge your stuff a lot easier and get a workout at the same time.

[@maikolverasson1735]

I had nothing to do with electronics so far in my life, so this was super fun to watch!

[@viermidebutura]

One thing i noticed among all DIY generators videos is no matter how nicely looking the generator is made it always fails in the magnetic circuit part thus the generator will always run with an abysmal efficiency

[@godfreypoon5148]

Yeah. Nobody ever seems to have the foggiest about magnetics design.

[@mylittleparody2277]

Well then, please do enlight us and teach how to make more efficient generators.

[@godfreypoon5148]

@@mylittleparody2277 get rekt, people pay me for things like that

[@mylittleparody2277]

@@godfreypoon5148 Then stop yelling at free content if you are not willing to give freely yourself...

[@hallenb328]

You didn't show the schematic for your series+parallel arrangement of the coils. The output of each coil will be AC, but at different phases from one another. If you have several out of phase coils in parallel, a lot of wasted current will be running between each coil and the mathematical sum of the voltages will go to the "output" of the group. You will generate (example) 10 kW of power but only be able to make use of 3kW. This will heat up the coils more than you probably expect and you'll have to derate the current capacity of the wires. A way to fix this is if you have a fullwave bridge on each coil, and you can combine the bridge output in series and/or parallel to your liking to get a more efficient generator. [There are other ways too.]

[@edwardp7725]

Everytime I think im smart I open up youtube and get humbled

[@samirsragegaming1353]

Fr man

[@oylesine285]

This platform breaking my hopes. Feeling so dump.

[@Rockstarbird21]

Hey Mr. Tom. I hope you are doing good. I'm from India. I love your videos and the way you explain. I have been watching your videos from past 2 years. My journey to this amazing channel was when I searched for ebike build videos. Since then I have followed you Since I changed my account I list my subscribe list. But then thanks to yt I remembered your channel back. I was actually planning to buy a car alternator for this project but then you came in and saved thousands of rupees. Thank you so much. Please keep up the great work😊😊😊.

[@TheRedRobin96]

I know it's not producing a lot of power but I feel like something like this should be in every household.

[@duduengeletronica]

Legal. Seria interessante para esse mesmo projeto, comparar a eficiência para diferentes quantidades de fases, tais como 3, 5, 7 e... 11 fases. Será que tri-fásico continua a ser o mínimo para um sistema eficiente?

[@ToddyPoddy-fy5dc]

Do you have a hamster

[@beaneater6932]

i ate mine 🙂

[@thatonneguy]

I feel like the maker community is going down a very predictable path, and I'm finally starting to catch up. About 10 minutes before this vid popped up for me, I was wondering if this exact thing would be possible. Every time I think "I wonder if this is possible", I discover it was already done quite some time ago. I'm only 6 days late for this one, and it's the first time I've seen your channel. If I'm correct.... are we really about to be printing clean energy with 3d printers? I'm stoked.

[@jarateman6427]

If course its possible people have made gens like this for years by using bikes + and alternators. Its all the same. Turn it using wind,water,hamsters etc

[@Fifury161]

How incredibly generous of you! Looks like a really nice design, thanks for sharing.

[@Timothymukansi]

I immediately thought of coupling this on a bicycle wheel and powering rear and front lights (and maybe some LEDs on the spokes too for aesthetics). Well done on the POC

[@CarlosChavez-gs1ld]

Hi Tim. I left you a message here several hours ago- and it disappeared. As a 55 year old Physicist, Scientist and Engineer who who has spent much of his life teaching and mentoring groups and individuals in various technical matters, it is sad to see someone run away from an opportunity to learn something helpful to their endeavors. As mentioned previously, you have done a great job on various mechanical aspects of this generator. Well done. I have built similar generators and your voltage measurements are very (like factor of 10 or more) low for such a device. This is a result of two primary factors- 1) Low flux density due to large air gaps, relatively thin magnets, and no focusing of the field lines. 2) Incorrect geometry of the coils related to the magnetic field lines generated by the magnets. When you mention HOW voltage is generated, you imply a "Reverse Lorentz Force Law" is at play- you show how the poles of the magnets align with each side of the coil, and that as those coil sides pass through the magnetic poles, a voltage is produced. That is not how an axial generator works, and the proof is in your generator. The poles of the magnet are reversed for each side of the coil, and SO IS THE DIRECTION OF THE CURRENT FLOW in the coil. If the Physics were as you say, your generator would generate little to no voltage as each magnet pair would be working against the other to produce voltage. The Lorentz Force Law is not something that works in reverse. If it were, essentially all motors would work great as generators- but in practice, the average motor makes a lousy generator. Voltage/Current/Power in a generator is created via Faraday's Law of Induction- it is the rate of change of the magnetic flux through the CENTER of the coil that counts..... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday%27s_law_of_induction

[@Spedley_2142]

Would be interesting to see if you can engineer it for using leg muscles instead of hand. Hooking it to your shoe and hanging it from your belt would allow you to use the far larger muscles in your leg. Charging at battery bank at 12V and 5A could be done in a few minutes but would give a whole days mobile phone charge.

[@biervampir6]

Hi Tom, how about a bicycle pedal powered generator that supports USB-C PD? I could imagine charging a large Powerbank or maybe a laptop directly while sitting on a chair and using your legs. Could be a nice gadget for camping or survival stuff or so.

[@Ed.R]

Pedal powered generators are cool I've made a few in the past. If you connect it to a 12V battery it's easy to find regulators and chargers to power all sorts.

[@Hunterfivestars]

Looks like my own club going to build this generator

[@kevnar]

This guy will still be watching TV in the apocalypse. It will be fuzz, but it will be powered.

[@InAJamAgain]

FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER

[@rodnyg7952]

yes, it's a hand crank generator. They've been around since the late 1950's. Not practical at all for charging a smartphone

[@SmartZero-f8e]

I can push out easily ~60 W with handcranking. I can charge 3 phones/hour with 60 watts via USB. so it IS practical to have tech like that. Especially since hand-crankers are cheap. they cost only 100$, but are really quite powerful. Imagine you would have no house. You could power nearly everyhing that way. Price is: the pedal-generators are expensive. So with this lowend 5W/10W-Handcranker here you can really have "fun", charging just one phone/hour. It wouldn´t even be fully charged in one hour. But on my handcrankers you can charge so much more and on my pedal-generator you can even charge 4 TABLETS/hour. This assumes a 36Wh-battery used in each tablet. 4 tablets equals 160Wh. 10% power-loss (160W/hour - 10% = 144Wh left netto after USB-conversion = 4 x 36Wh for each tablet 36Wh). My Pedal-Generator can do PD and enables superfast-charging via 12V-Cigarette-Ligher Plug. 10% USB-loss is only because i use a GAN-capable Superfast-charging Cigarette plug.

[@rodnyg7952]

@@SmartZero-f8e you make no sense. The most anyone can generate from hand-cranking would be 5 to15 watts. That means for every hour of continuous hand cranking you can run your laptop for about 6 to 10 minutes, or smartphone for about 16 min. You'd have to continuously crank most of your life away in order to regularly use any tech. So, silly person, you'd better get cranking, lol

[@SmartZero-f8e]

No. Most hand-crankers today can handle 30-40 Watts. Not 10-15 Watts like you claimed. You get this only with 12V output though, as with USB-output 50% of watts is lost because of voltage-conversion. That´s a user-problem though if he wants to charge via USB. I don´t use USB-charging in most cases so i don´t have this problem. My handcrankers can even handle ~50 W max. Though with these old motors the resistance is very high, so you can only reach 40W on these realistically with human hands. I use a pedal-cranking device where i use HANDS instead of feet. I get easily 60-80W here via hands, since my hands have really gotten very powerful in the las 6 monhs. But my pedal-generator can handle up 200W. And realistic are 120W for me currenly/hour.

[@rodnyg7952]

@@SmartZero-f8e ....you're a dingbat

[@rodnyg7952]

@@SmartZero-f8e you babble a lot

[@AttilioG]

Parabéns !! Um excelente vídeo e altamente didático. Obrigado pela postagem !!! Mas o que aconteceria se acoplado à uma bike !?

[@sullychow4123]

Super cool, hope you make more videos expanding on this. Foot pedals etc.

[@ankiesiii]

Ive been on youtube since 2005, and this was probably coolest video ive ever seen.

[@AtkataffTheAlpha]

As someone who likes to fidget, this is pretty neat but also has a function that i can use to power or charge something. Also how simple generators really are.

[@jameskeelinggaming2319]

I think you might be the only person who’s made something useful with 3D printing tech. I love this and I want to build one.

[@derklempner]

I like this build. As for not wanting to crank the generator for more than a few minutes at a time, you could solve that by converting it into a pedal crank and use your legs/feet instead.

[@phazephlux3260]

I built this and it works amazingly after a little bit of tweaking. It outputs 38 V at max.And about fourteen volts at an average spin

[@tulsatrash]

I wonder if a pedal powered generator could let you run a modem and gaming laptop. New definition of sweaty gamer.

[@SmartZero-f8e]

Yes it does. 120W in total is possible @ 12V!

[@LFTRnow]

You should also try selling this generator as a learning kit. From there people can learn about generators, and if inclined, start with what you have and modify it. Probably good channel merch, particularly for those without 3-D printers or related skills.

[@matthewsemenuk8953]

Very cool. I wanted to build something like this as a kid and turn local muskrat dam into a hydro electric one.

[@NakedSageAstrology]

You're amazing thank you! I want to print this so my son and I can learn how different sized coils, gear ratios, wire gauge, magnet placement and number of magnets affect the output.

[@grahamcartwright3632]

I can hear Medhi saying "FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER!" in my head

[@jayabratabiswas01]

Thanks Tom for sharing a beautiful project... 👍👍

[@yhsbu]

I did something like this about 20 years ago and found out just how hard it is to make a good generator. I spent something like a week or two machining parts and so on just to find out that even the cheapest $60 alternator I could get at the auto parts store could totally obliterate the output power of my generator. Its funny that my real conclusions had nothing to do with making a generator but more about how good we have it. The fact that we can buy really nice cheap equipment that has decades of development behind it. Basically buying knowledge and practical use for cents on the dollar when compared to the resources originally needed to head up development.

[@AerialWaviator]

This "Hank Kranken Generator" is neat project with a simple easy to understand design. Just in time for winter, should the electric go out. ;) A leg powered crank could allow producing greater amount of power, or allow longer sessions as leg muscles are more stronger than arm or wrist muscles.

[@akhilbudhal6848]

As a South African, this + a hamster is gonna help a lot. Thank you

[@apollo7557]

It would be sick to have a much higher gear reduction, and connect it to a bike sprocket! I imagine this would be very handy in a power outage lol

[@RWBHere]

Nice one, Tim! Next up, you could waterproof it, add it to a bicycle, give the phone a higher current charger and recharge the battery from flat during a 1 hour cycling session, using your legs instead of your arms.

[@Rose-yx6jq]

Now if you atrach this to a steam engine you've got a very simple power station.

[@andiback]

Great video, just use a Delon bridge circuit at the output. That circuit doubles the alternating voltage and rectifies it to DC in one turn for your purpose with only 2 diodes and 2 capacitors. Giving you a higher output range and also enough voltage when cranking with slow speed, afterwards stepping down to 5V USB e.g. as you show.

[@JoeMakes]

This was great! Surprised it's not on the main channel, but looking forward to that video

[@TimStation]

Thanks mate! Hopefully will have it out soon!

[@anrchannel6341]

Totally awesome. Alot of kids can learn how generator works.

[@heikoschwertner1050]

Thanks, from Switzerland for this video. Clear and easy to understand. I try to build this modell with my 3D printer.