Bike to Wall Outlet Generator

Are you aware that that the average person can at best sustain about 75 watts of power output with moderate exertion and that most appliances take several to tens of times that much power to operate?

Yeah, but with a little training as the pros have a lot more is possible. They haul their butts along for 6 hours at around 275 watts and the sprinters still have enough left to do 2000 watt bursts. In the mountains, the climbers jump to 400 watts for quite a sustained time period.

Take a look at your average population and tell me how many of them do you see around you that have the physical conditioning of a pro cyclist.

At a 75 watt output I am not talking peak burst capacity's of high level athletes I am talking about the continuous load capability of your average elevator taking parks as close to the front to door of the grocery store as possible people, you know your average fat assed middle aged person.

Fat assed is not the problem you believe it is. I am 250 pounds / 5'-10". Fat assed? Probably. I still get out on my bike and do at least 2 metric centuries (66 miles) every year in around 4 hours and have done 110 miles in about 5.5 hours. I believe I could hold a bit better than 75 watts for an hour or so, and I sure am not a pro cyclist. (my age is about double the prime cycling age) Once pedaling becomes in-grained (about 4 to 7 years) holding a good output becomes relatively easy. Practice is all it takes. If he wants to generate elctricity with a bike, then in about 4 years of trying he ought to be able to hold a cadence of 90rpm for at least 4 hours.

It seems that 80 to 150 watts is a nominal value that people can sustain.

"Fat assed is not the problem you believe it is." http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/eating-ourselves-to-death-britains-fat-epidemic1639761.html

http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/health/obesity-health.html

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2002210198_fat17.html

I am a6' 3" 250# muscular built farm boy and I like to watch people and I can honestly tell you that there are far more who make feel better about my heath and appearance than worse about it.

"Once pedaling becomes in-grained (about 4 to 7 years) holding a good output becomes relatively easy. Practice is all it takes. If he wants to generate elctricity with a bike, then in about 4 years of trying he ought to be able to hold a cadence of 90rpm for at least 4 hours."

So spending 4 - 7 years to get to the point of being able to run his 100 watt TV or a box fan for more than a few tens of minutes seems like a reasonable bit of conditioning and training time to you?

The health benefits far outway any enrgy generating concerns here - so - yes. Absolutely! However to avoid tedious boredom I would suggest he does his actual peddaling on a bike on a road or a trail. (I can't tolerate stationary trainers - I have ridden in snow at 5 degrees F in pitch dark to avoid this boredom)

Don't forget that all that pedaling will get him in better shape.

Don't even think about it.

Or, hook it up mechanically, schematic-be-damned, and see how long you can peddle it when it's freewheeling.

Get back to us if you still want to run your blender, and we'll tell you how to hook it up.

Check these links.

http://www.los-gatos.ca.us/davidbu/pedgen.html

http://scienceshareware.com/bicycle-generator-faq.htm

This really says it all.

I'm collecting OTs so I'll have some street cred around here.

Hey, at least this guy isn't paying someone money to ride a stationary bicycle.

I'm not saying I'm in great shape, but those health clubs freak me out....................everybody looking at their own reflections while racing to nowhere.

No Thanks.

"everybody looking at their own reflections while racing to nowhere."

And when they leave, they'll all be parked right by the door.

As one who actually "teaches" indoor cycling, I personally can't stand riding a bike that goes nowhere... unless I'm getting paid to do it, to music that I like, trying to help people find their inner athlete, surrounded by scenery that is overall not so bad. Then, it's not bad at all.

(And yes, you do need to teach some people how to ride a bike that goes nowhere. There's not much to it but it's something. All those things that we all learned as kids with bikes, some people never did.)

Guy's we should all know better by now but we clearly don't. Designing what this AP precisely asks will only show that what he has asked for is not what what he wants or that what he wants cannot be done with what he has. In either scenario, we will be blamed for not executing these whims because the fault always lies with us.

I do hate to be so cynical but far to often it seems that people expect us to perform miracles for them. We can do more than many understand but we cannot perform miracles.

That is a very good point you bring up-that no matter what people ask, they will never be content. However, all I'm asking for is a little bit of help.

The most important thing I need to know is how to make a distribution transformer. They line the road, so I believe they do exist.

Many forums are clogged with people who state that certain things are impossible or repeat the same information in different words or do not read what the person has asked-a simple suggestion that you do not THINK something will occur is fine..

Besides, I find it quite contradictory for you to speak philisophically and then say it is impossible.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.- Socrates

btw, nice signature

I thank you for the compliment on my tag line.

You probably did not intend to prove my point with your reply and compliment but you did none the less. Your original posting appears to be a request for changing a bicycle into a human powered source of three phase power generation. Everyone else here has answered the feasibility of your apparent request. Now it appears that you wish to instead use this bicycle to instead fabricate a three phase distribution transformer instead of powering a three phase distribution transformer. Well there you go, what you asked for is not what you wanted to know. You have proven my point.

Now a distribution transformer you see on poles lining the road is an apparently easy device to fabricate. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUO3o5JTGhQ This link to a You-Tube video shows one company's technique for making some of these transformers. But this is just an overview of the process. Many of the critical details are not presented in this video. The two most critical details are that there are fabrication standards that you must comply with to fabricate a suitable transformer and that only authorized individuals will be permitted to connect an approved transformer to the grid. You will not obtain either of these requirements here. The road to obtaining these requirements come from proper schooling.

When you go to make your illegal connection to the utility grid with your homemade distribution transformer please have someone near by with a video camera recording you and with instruction so on how to post it to U-tube and send us a heads up about it as well!

We all want to see how this adventure turns out!

hahaha good one, but I'm actually hooking it up to a three phase motor, which is why i need the transformer (see decription). Three phase electricity runs through the distribution wires here in Canada. Every house or block has their own distribution transformer to convert it to single phase. So if I had one of those transformers, I could hook it up to the three phase motor and use it for my appliances.

I have been watching, with nothing useful to contribute. (See, I can be quiet )

After this comment, I admit I am completely lost. Did you not tell redfred (in response to his #10) you were NOT using a 3Φ transformer?

Actually this all goes back to my initial response (#4). We just have to get another hat.

Care to elaborate on that considerably further?

At this point I and most everyone else here who works with electrical power in the form of single phase and three phase no longer have any clue as to what you are talking about let alone what you are trying to get as an end result.

If its running three phase motors on single phase thats a simple one and its well documented here on CR4. If its some sort of over unity or poorly conceived AE device that just gets picked to pieces by everyone who cares to have a poke at it.

I hope I've simplified it enough:

So then what was all the talk about distribution transformers and what not?

Just connect any 2 of the three wires to the live and common lines and start peddling it hard enough to make it spin faster than its normal speed.

When you are over spinning an induction motor it works like a very simple grid tied generator. For maximum efficiency I would recommend doing this to it first.

http://www.electro-tech-online.com/re-projects/100563-3-phase-converter-schematic-miller-system.html

It will balance the three phases of the motor and make them work together.

Still you wont get enough average power out of yourself to ever show up on your monthly power bills.

Thank you very much for your post. I greatly appreciate it. Where did you find the formulas you used to determine these things. For example:

"Obviously if other voltages, frequencies, and power rating systems are used the numbers will change as well. The fact that they still follow proportionally is what's important. 50Hz needs 6/5th's the capacitance. 400 volts needs 230/400th's the capacitance and KW's needs 1000/746 the capacitance. The voltage reference values for tuning follow similarly as well. "

Thing is, my motor is different since "every motor brand, model, and speed has a different inductance and average efficiency you may need to change the two capacitors values up or down for peak power and efficiency when matching the actual motor to its load." I have the specs and I can calculate accordingly:

RPM: 1725 (28.75Hz)

Potential Difference: 110V

Current: 5.0A (therefore Power is 550W)

HP: 1/4

Cycles(?): 60

Also, I believe your diagram showed a neutral wire in the middle of the trigonal planar shape, which I assume is the motor. Now, I know I said earlier that I had 3 leads instead of 4. However, I looked at it carefully and through the spider web of wires, there are, in fact, 4 wires. I need to figure out which of the leads are which. So should I open up the motor and figure out where they go to? or can you figure out which is which? Below is the diagram of my motor leads.

alright, I'll do just that.

I actually derived my own formula.

For c1 & c2,

Charge x Voltage/1.5 = x

10μ x 120V/1.5 = x

x = 800μ

Therefore: Charge x Voltage/1.5 = 800μ

Since it is a 110V motor, Charge x 110V/1.5 = 800μ

Charge ≈ 11μF

The motor has 1/4HP so capacitor 1 & 2 should be 2.72 (7272...non-terminating)μF.

However, I'll probably end up using a 2.5μF capacitor because I don't think I can buy one of the exact value.

For C3: 15μF x 120V = x

x = 1.8milli

Charge x 110V = 1.8milli

Charge = 16.4 F

My wattage is 0.55KW, so my c3 value will be 9μF.

Ok. I know how to do this.

I just hope I haven't enabled a Darwin award.

Don't worry. He'll never get his bike up that pole to try it anyway.

"yay! I got what I needed! thank you everyone who contributed to this thread. thread closed"

We have been used and then tossed aside.

well actually, I gave up and decided I would consult one of my friends who is an electrical engineer. haven't seen him yet tho so i'm still looking at the thread because I still have some hope as I know this is not impossible and I have learned a lot from this thread. I think if I can get a schematic it'll work out well because I'm willing to put in the time and effort to be able to do this and YES I will post the results on youtube WHEN I'm done. One big problem I've had with finding relevant schematics is that some three phase motors do not have a neutral wire. I have considered doing the easy fix to simply connect to wires together or unplug one of them. However, you lose efficiency and I know that's not how it's done when it comes into our houses.