4 ms·
Do you mean a wheel-generator attachment for a manpower bike, or an attachment to borrow energy from an electric bike? For a manpower bike, I think it would be
by David 17y ago
Do you mean a wheel-generator attachment for a manpower bike, or an attachment to borrow energy from an electric bike?
For a manpower bike, I think it would be terrifically underpowered or terrifically difficult. As mentioned in a link from Luc, http://www.ski-epic.com/amsterdam_bicycles/ http://www.ski-epic.com/amsterdam_bicycles/, even the little headlights you stick on and power with the tires make cycling _much_ harder and produce very little light.
Charging a laptop/cell off of that would be... a challenge. =P
Borrowing energy from the battery of an electric bike would be a different story, but not all that helpful. Potentially useful if you stop at a coffee shop or something on your commute, but other than that, I can't see what it would do for you.
- noodle 17y agomanpower. i agree it would be tough, but if we have devices that allow you to recharge your cellphone with a device that uses walking as a power source (http://www.livescience.com/technology/080207-people-power.html http://www.livescience.com/technology/080207-people-power.ht...), i think we can do something for a bike that could maybe produce a little more juice.
- khafra 17y agoDavid has it right (http://www.los-gatos.ca.us/davidbu/pedgen.html http://www.los-gatos.ca.us/davidbu/pedgen.html). You just can't generate that much power--his burst output is about enough to run a desktop computer. I researched this a while back because of an ingenious idea to decouple power and pedalling speed by putting a pedalled generator, a supercap, and an electric motor on a bicycle frame. Sadly, it would've been about 2x as heavy as a normal electric bicycle, and 60% as efficient.