Has anyone converted their bike trainer to a generator? I thought that would be a good idea to possibly hook up your TV or radio to it so if you don’t pedal hard enough, your TV or radio would turn off which would hopefully make you pedal harder.
http://www.scienceshareware.com/build-your-own-generator-bike-trainer-stand.htm
Apparently Ed Begley Jr. has done this as part of his show on sustainable living.
I’ve been meaning to for the last couple of years but I have a list of home projects longer than my arm.
Someday perhaps, before the grid goes down I hope.
I think I’m going to put it on my to do list too. I just am a little worried to invest the time and money in it if no one has tried it. I’m hoping someone has tried it successfully. I’m also curious on if the trainer will still work the same way, with resistance, etc.
I’ve been wondering if there is a way to harness and save the power generated on my trainer. If I ride two hours at 200 -250 watts (or something, I’m clueless about how much power I produce) it would be neat to save that energy and use it for the fridge, computer, lights etc. I shoud look at my energy bill and see how much energy I use monthly. I wonder if a few hours on the trainer might produce enough energy to offset my energy bill. That would be cool. But I am not a scientist, and have no idea if this idea is even realistic.
Last month, my 3BR apartment used 407 Kilowatt hours, costing me ~$40 bucks. That’s about 10 cents per kilowatt hour.
If you ride your trainer for an hour at 250watts, it will take you four hours to make ten cents.
A standard refrigerator uses about 5kilowatt hours a day. You’d have to ride for 20 hours to power it.
It’s pretty easy to do.
Here you go:
http://theepicenter.com/tow082099.html
Replace the lawn mower motor with your trainer, substituting the drive belt for the resistance unit of the trainer.
There are other ways to do it, but this one is very do-it-yourself friendly, and pretty inexpensive (and *should *work :0).
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I wonder if a few hours on the trainer might produce enough energy to offset my energy bill.
hmmmm… yeah… let us know how that goes…
“Can I get you an energy bar? How about a water?”
This reminds me of one of my favorite commercials.
Lance powers espn…
HA! I’ve never seen that commercial but yea, something like that 
Looks way more complicated than the link I provided. But it looks like it produces more power too…
… too funny… if you follow the links on your link (which I hadn’t actually read,) you get:
"…I say that the simple industrial strength / practical method to getting 12 Volts DC from a bike generator is to use a car Alternator as your generator. "
In other words, if you really want to make something that will actually work, use an alternator…
:0)
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Has anyone converted their bike trainer to a generator? I thought that would be a good idea to possibly hook up your TV or radio to it so if you don’t pedal hard enough, your TV or radio would turn off which would hopefully make you pedal harder.
http://www.scienceshareware.com/...ke-trainer-stand.htm
Funny but Sergio Jr wanted to do this some time ago. He says his little brother watches too much TV and training little. He proposed that his brother should only be allowed to watch cartoons with power produced while training.
Sergio
You should have the professor build you one. Then try to trick Gilligan into doing all of the actual pedaling.
I remember a guy doing this with his rollers in the 70’s. He rigged up a small generator to a small fan to blow on him as he rode. It worked for a few minutes until some part (rubber bushing?) of his cobbled-up project failed.
It’s probably best to avoid conversion from mechanical to electrical energy and back when possible.
For example, I’m not sure a cyclist could generate enough electricity to power a washing machine but if the bike or trainer was mechanically coupled to the agitator and drove it directly, it might be possible.
When I was a kid they had a demo like that at the science center. They hooked up an exercise bike to a TV and you had to pedal to watch. It wasn’t too hard to power the TV, but they didn’t have anything good on (cartoons) so I stopped after a minute or two. My folks were watching the TV (some sort of video explaining how it worked) and were kind of annoyed when I stopped because I didn’t care for the show.
Are you saying, more like this project where the belt is attached to the rim and the generator directly?
http://www.scienceshareware.com/bike-generator-using-a-car-alternator.htm
No, the generator (alternator) is bypassed entirely.
The interconversion between mechanical and electrical energy isn’t that efficient and it happens twice if you use an alternator to generate electricity which then powers and electric motor.
For the same reason, hybrid cars are more efficient if you don’t use the electric motor.*
Ok, thanks I think. Definitely beyond my knowledge. I’m going to have to follow the directions word for word to see if it will work. I have an old small TV that if it blew up I wouldn’t mind. I’ll try to document my voyage, no matter if it works or not.
I saw something like this not too long ago. It had gotten an award for green design (all the parts were recycled). I cant seem to find it now. But I did find this. Perhaps the same link someone else posted above.
http://www.scienceshareware.com/build-your-own-generator-bike-trainer-stand.htm