Hey you Guys; we had a discussion last week about a 12 volt bike system,for charging batteries or with a inverter to run 110 volt devices.

Has anyone been able to come up with plans or ideas as to how to achieve this project ?

And would a 10 speed bike work or a 15 speed be better. I know a serpentine belt might work inside the wheel w/o the tube and tire, as long as the alternator has the same serpentine pulley .

Let's keep this helpful duscussion going, for eveyone to possibly make for their own use.

Furie...

-- Furie (furieart@dnet.net), April 22, 1999

Answers

This was discussed last year. IIRC the consensus was you'd be better off saving your energy for tending the garden because the amount of power you could harness from the bike would be very small.

-- a (a@a.a), April 23, 1999.

Furie a bicycle can be used with the motors taken fom a kid's toy electric car (the kind that they drive around in) each motor is a 6v generator if they are series togeather. The alternator from a car is only a marginal generator designed to keep the voltage up in the car's Battery system. It;the alternator runs fast and for usually long times. Thusly it doesn't have to be efficent. If you use this set up you will have to place diaode in the plus side line to keep the charging batteries from turning your converted generators back into motors. However there is another method that I like better. And that is a static charger. It has has long been know amoung ham operators and power linemen.That a long line of wire insulated from any groundwill build up a charge of electricty from the wind blowing across the wire. This voltage can build into the tousands of volts and is quite lethal if shorted out by the human body. The size of the wire makes no difference, it can be bell wire or for that matter a long lenth of barbed wire. The further from the ground seems to help it build up voltage faster. A lenth of wire,say 200 feet long wold be suffient to re-charge a deep cycle batter in a day or two. Longer lenths will shorten that time. And at about a thosand feet you start approuching lethal levels of voltage. The proceedure to use this free voltage is simple. First string out the lenth of insulated wire you want through the tree. You don't have to run it in a straight line. It is the lenth of wire exposed to the blowing wind that counts. Next take a car's spark plug and attach it to the end of the wire closest to your battery set up. Now take a wire from the ground side of the spark plug (that threaded part which is screwed into the car's head). to one side of a car's coil. The taking off from the post on the coil that is normally used to power the distributor's points, you fasten it to your plus side of the battery. If you have a batter bank,just hook each negative post to each negative post and you parallel the system. Now tae a wire from the negative post to a good earth ground and fasten it surely. Next and last thing is to come off the earth ground, and now take a wire, with a 1-kv capsitor in line..Which I understand are found in old T.V. chasis Back up to the top side of the spark plug and fasten it wih the wire coming from the trees to the plug. You now are the proud owner of a static charger. As the charge builds up. and reaches a certain point. A spark will jump across the spark plug's gap. Which in turn goes to the coil, which now is acting as a step down transformer. And a pulsed squirt of eectricty will hit the battery(s) charging it up. The colder,wetter and windyer it gets the faster the build up of charged electricty in your line. The idea is not mine, but another man who was kind enough to make me aware of it. I set one up about a month ago,and at one poit during a thunder storm, I thought that the spark plug was goig to explode. It was sparking so fastand furiously. Hope this will give you some ideas The Dutchman

-- Dutchman (Electric@shock.owee), April 23, 1999.

Hey furie! It's been a busy week. I finished the solar chimney dehydrator and did some cloudy day temp testing and am very optomistic that with a fiddle here and a dabble there it will work great, even here in the Northwest. Gotta have some sun soon.

Also started a Web page so I can stop using textarea. It's great, but limiting since I wanted to share my drawings so others could use and/or improve on the dehydrator. Just one more hurdle and I'll be on my linkin' way. Picked up a good book by "Mary Bell", on food prep with a dehydrator, today at Borders.

Also went to a couple of nurseries and decided on Territorial Seed Co. Millenium Victory Garden: A collection of 47 varieties of non-hybrid, high yeild,(seedy) veggies especially grown for this "territory". I may wait till next spring to plant since there is sooo much left to do and ???time.

To respond to your thread, I missed the bike-to-12volt discussion but you may have solved a problem I have been wrestling with. I've been pressing the greymatter to come up with a minimicro hydro plant. The biggest piece missing has been an economical, and transportable gear reduction unit. I've played with the idea of stripping the transmission out of a car to accomplish this, but it would be too heavy and awkward. As soon as I read your post the old light came on and I began dreamin' up a mindscape using the frame and gearing from a 10+ speed bicycle. I'll let ya know where I'm at with it in a couple of days. It usually takes at least that long to assemble it virtually in the ol cranial workshop. Well I better make room for someone else on here, God I hope its not those jerks that were on that LOOTERS thing below. They are the second half of the need to prepare. Just makes me more sure I'm sing the right thing.

-- spun@lright (mikeymac@uswest.net), April 23, 1999.

Check out the CD-ROMs from Homepower.com. They have a number of these 'assemblies' including one that uses 8 - 10 people for a group effort.

I think a web search will turn up some other's plans, too.

-- x (sandpine@juno.com), April 23, 1999.

furie

i'm frustrated with this forum sometimes. since they've already discussed it, those of us still looking for info are just sol, i guess.

my e-mail is correct, if you come up with any sites with good specs and info, please let me know. using infoseek i've searched appropriate technology and pedal power, and only found one or two useful sites. let me know if you're interested in swapping info.

-- Cowardly Lion (cl0001@hotmail.com), April 23, 1999.

I think that 'static' charger is a version of the "Lord Kelvin Thunder Machine" which I have seen plans for recently but had no way to convert the high voltage into a usable low voltage. The solution of using a spark gap to pulse the spark coil is a very good one in my book anyway. It is the charged particles (water drops, dust) which induce the voltage as they fly past the wire driven by the wind. They lose a bit of kinetic energy in the processes which is where you get the voltage built up from. Some folks have propsed building these as commercial power plants by spraying water into small droplets as the wind carries them through the mesh of the collector grid.

A few thoughts;

1) You probably would do well to put a full wave rectifier between the coil output and the battery. The 'ac' terminals going to the coil and the +/- terminals going to the battery. This would capture more of the power coming off of the coil.

2) Use wire netting such as cattle fencing. String it between two substantial trees. Use porcelian insulators to isolate the grid from the trees. The greater area will definitely increase the charge accumulated which will pulse the circuit more often and increase the amount of charging which is getting done.

3) Last suggestion is use two spark plugs. One with a gap set to pulse the coil and another one with a gap slightly larger and connected to earth ground in order to divert lightning. (Also have a quick disconnect and grounding available to shunt the thing to ground and isolate your battery should lightning striked come calling to you)

Its a neat rig and I'd like to build one soon. Free energy sounds good to me.

-- David (C.D@I.N), April 23, 1999.

HEY THANKS GUYS !!!! Some great ideas out there, I haven't thought of the static charger idea. I need to reread my Tesla Books to see what else is availible.

I have 5 acres to play with and on top of a mtn with lots of wind when needed.

Again Thanks for all who suggested ideas, hey spun ,keep going you'll have as many projects as I will....

Furie...

-- Furie (furieart@dnet.net), April 23, 1999.