Happy to be part of the first thousand subscribers to this channel. The material is meticulously planned, fun and includes documentation- it’s greatly appreciated! Thanks for spending the time putting these together and sharing.
Cool project! I wasn't aware of how useful steppers are as generators, and am definitely going to have a play around with them. Just a thought (It might ruin the "bare bones" design philosophy somewhat), but it might be worth using a cheap ebay DC-DC converter module to improve the charging efficiency and double as a voltage limiter for the caps (eg LM2596 to charge the caps from the stepper). You could also use a similar module (boost or buck depending on the arrangement of caps) to provide a regulated 5V out for charging USB devices.
They probably exist already but i haven't looked....a universal or multi output dc dc buck boost converter would be ideal for any generator. I assume something exists already due to products like solar generators etc that have many outputs...12v car...120v household outlet, usb outlets, and maybe others. 12v is good for being able to jump start a motor and or charge from the alternator. Inverter is obviously needed for 120 and is the least necessary but more useful if there. Having an 18v (20v) output to charge tool batteries would be good. Maybe 52v and everything below could be useful for some kind of electric vehicle like a bike.
I made a similar device years ago. The charge protection I used was similar to yours but I used an LED instead of a zener or a stack of diodes as the reference and as a side effect, I got my charge indication for free. When the LED lights it trips the protection circuit.. I used a small signal transistor instead of an op-amp. I also used a high-side p-channel mosfet that passes the charge current to the caps. This way I am not ever shorting out the caps.
@@clonkex I would share this design with you but I don't know how on YT. Seems pretty restricted. It is easy enough to be represented with ASCII art but I am not that talented. LOL I would gladly share my design (of course, for free) if you know of a good way to do so.
@@ybtech URLs outside YT usually work but sometimes the comment disappears. But don't worry, I'm in the process of renovating and my workshop is a total mess. I have no time for fun projects anyway :(
@escorpiuser I am having problems finding a working copy of my Eagle files. I will post as much detail I have as soon as I can find a good copy for ya'll.
Cool project but I have two thoughts. One is that if you were only generating 2.5w power going in and as you said it was still easy to turn I definitely would think a higher gear ratio to the steeper motor is in order to get more power in less time. Also the super caps could still be great to use but maybe in connection with a boost circuit. I know they are not as efficient but it would let you be able to get much more power out of them to much lower levels. Even a basic Joule Theif would work for the leds. And what you very much could do is have a toggle switch to run lights directly off the caps above a certian voltage then switch to the boost circuit after it. Or even just having the circuit for the lights be run off a buck boost and forgoing the resistors to the lights by keeping the voltage slightly lower then thier max. Thereby saving a lot of the power losses in the resistors have at higher voltages. And keeping the lights running much brighter or even full brightness at lower levels. First video I seen by you. Thanks for sharing.
I've used stepper motors as an alternator, rectified to DC, but your circuit is very helpful, thank you for taking the time to explain it all. Nice little package you've put together there.
Nice to see a hearty working project with practical use - sure beats the hell out of those waste of time, phoney free energy projects I keep seeing, kicking around…. 👌👍👍👍
I get excited to see your thumbnail pop up in my subscriptions, and great content as always! I can also hear a big improvement in the audio quality here. Keep it up, man!
It would be cool to have a switch to go from one mode to another mode so that you can charge for longer periods of time. In other words have both banks of capacitors in there and have a switch.
The TL431 can be found in most switching supplies. It's a precision 2.5V adjustable voltage regulator. And if there is a voltage divider between the cathode, anode and input pin, you can set it at any voltage.
@@tinu5779 The LED does not have the stability of the TL431. As the temperature changes, the voltage across the LED changes, causing poor regulation. It would be better to use a zener diode.
If you really need ample charge with low RPM, use Airconditioner indoor BLDC and remove its circuitery. Hook 3 wires on 3 AC terminals and add rectifier and smoothing capacitor. You can easy glow 12V bulb just rotating shaft with your fingers. Adding gears would triple the voltage.
Very nice project. I think you lose quite a large portion of energy by choosing 100ohm resistors with the LEDs. You might want to consider using different LEDs and a smaller series resistance.
Yes, definitely. I think the most efficient approach would be to use the minimum resistance possible for current balancing, and then have a switching converter maintain a constant current on the LEDs & run them just above their threshold voltage. I wasn't willing to get into that level of complexity for this project, but in a future iteration i might
Я б увеличил передаточное число, так как много энергии теряется на диодных мостах, собрал бы батарею ионисторов вольт на 16-20, после этого использовал бы понижающий преобразователь под свои нужды
I have flashbacks of when I was a child finding one of those old school hand cranked alternators for electroshock therapy... that thing had such a wild kick.
I wonder if you could just use a a suitable high voltage led cob to protect the cap bank from over voltage. Much simpler for beginners to just have a led cob in parallell with the cap bank. A voltage booster that works from 0.8V lets you drain the capacitors much more so you save money on capacitors and one gets adjustable voltage from a 3USD ebay booster circuit. Then wasted energy is less before the cap bank reaches a high enough voltage for the step up booster to work. Then the crank time is much less before you get light :)
You get very easily 220 volt out of the stepper motor, if you can put more RPM to the stepper motor. I have same kind stepper motor, and by keeping the motor axle next to bicycle rear wheel, while same time give rear wheel some spins. Usually stepper motor have three output at the same time. I made few simple tests on my stepper motor some time ago.
still 2W is okay for use but pretty low compared to what a hand can easily handle, some of those old hand cranked generators also can generate similar or bigger amounts of power while being much smaller and such, probably also mostly due to being optimized for generating and having a big gearbox in them. you might want to try using one of those smaller steppermotors with a strong gearbox, or add more gear ratio to your current setup since your current setup does have one advantage and that is that as long as the power is drawn away fast enough that it does't reach to high voltage, the motor won't be likely to break and the gers won't break as easily either or be more easy to replace. now much energy is wasted in the arm shaking everywhere. technically seen something like 50W should easily be reachable hand cranked if the generator is efficient enough, so have to figure out why the current now is low. might also be that your cirquit to regulate it or such just is to slow, perhaps add a higher voltage capacitor directly after the rectifier so it can run on better power levels and more stable.
Modular generator, cool! Make a few modular engine options. For example, make a PVC water turbine with a modular shaft to fit this. Install it in the water line in your house!
I just love the way you talk and explain things as if you are Afrotechmods brother(really miss him tbh) but keep on doing what you are doing! Some theory and some thought process behind the idea plus the building process all fits nicely together, seems well balanced :)
The way you short the caps to prevent overvoltage, is that a normal way to do this? From what I understand, the shorting goes through the MOSFET, as the gate is open when the overvoltage happens, and the potential heat gets dissipated there up to a 175°c limit. But what would happen if you really cranked hard on that handle? Would you run into problems eventually or no? I have not seen any sort of voltage protection before so I have no idea how else to do it, I mean the way you do it here makes sense, it just seems a bit "counterintuitive" to short the caps to protect them. Could you maybe explain this a bit more?
Instead of emergency purposes, I made a exercise equipment using the same concept: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ve6xuFQeiTI.htmlsi=ZesX5qz6bFDCtewh I think simultaneously charging USB powerbanks and doing daily body training will create more value. However, my skill in electronics is terrible and I never get output higher than 2 Watts.
My friend why to use stepper motor, bridge rectifier if you could directly put gear dc generator of 12v. It could reduce your charging time to 3 min and also decrease the size of overall setup. The discharging time could be 3hours if use 3 (1watt) bright white leds in series. Just an idea for your reference mate, i have perfected a hand crank generator simple in size of 3inch *2inch with 12v geared hand crank generator with two 500f supercapacitor. Try it yourself, it really works.
I have a turbine producing 4.7KW for 5 minutes every 25 minutes. Is this a good situation to use a supercapacitor to produce constant electrical output. I need to have 60KWH from my waterwheel system Thank you in advance
Great! There is little that I'd change. Use an LED driver to drive these white LEDs or use a high power LED module. You are wasting most of the energy in the resistors. Given the time effort to charge the caps, it is painful amount of waste. Maybe add a USB charger module to it?
The stepper motor's internal construction lends to a much better RPM to voltage ratio. With any old brushed motor (which I assume you mean by 'normal') you'd need a set of gears to get enough speed on that shaft.
To me it is stupid to limit one's capacitance. I would put in MORE capacitance rather than less and take the time to crank it up. But then I have spent more time in a 'survival situation' than most people who might be seeing this as merely a novelty. Also I would make maximum use of the total peak voltage possible for other, higher voltage needs a person in 'survival mode' is more likely to encounter.
I have a better and easier idea, which is by converting thermal energy into electrical energy using an electronic device called a vilteer. How this project works: Bring several sensors from the vilteer and cover them with a highly heat-conducting cloth, then sit on it. Your body heat will turn into electricity without any effort on your part.
One 3 watt led might have been a better option than 10 smaller leds. It certainly would have made the wiring less complex and time consuming. Still it was a good video.
Exploiting the different foward voltages of the LED lights for rough power indication is a great Idea. Thank you. UV/Purple ones are even higher then Blue as a heads up.
dude make a freaking home battery, but do it with gravity, it seems that would be doable to me, or what about compressed air or something, something that people can do that isnt so expensive all we have to do is figure out how to store energy into something and take it out, seems simple to me, we dont need all these chem batteries we need a new type of small generator
You should try using a three phase bridge rectifier, just don't use one leg. I think it will have less loss since it uses less diodes: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-heFF7Y4RLmQ.html
The belt is a very simple way to connect the handcrank with the Stepper motor but you would definitely have to crank a lot less if you add step up cogwheel gears that give you much more spinning momentum per crank. Just ONE rotation of the crank would give you much more juice instead of the belt gear.
Dude this is brilliant to watch. I'm only beginning to learn about this stuff atm so this is way above my head but I'm learning at a faster rate than I actually thought I was capable of.. I am going to attemopt building my own CNC Router over the Xmas holidays. It's the wiring of the motors, drivers, etc to the Arduino and Shield.. Do u have any tips for that process or is there a video u could give me a heads up on that goes through the whole thing in detail bcos most ppl just gloss over the elctronics part of their build.. That's the real shame in a lotta these types of videos bro. Not saying ur like that bcos ur videos go into detail but most ppl fly through the electronics bcos they think it will bore the life outa everybody but not me.. It';s the electronics parts of the videos that I'm more interested in and of course the software.. I would very much appreciate a heads up on any channels who walk ppl through the wiring details of any CNC build. That's where I really need help man. Another brilliant video from ur good self man. Keep up the great work and have a lovely Xmas and all the very best in 2023 bro and that goes for everybody in the comment section as well
Other creators skip through a lot of the finer details to save their behinds. Most don't want to show a huge amount of detail for two fairly commendable reasons. First being that if they build something and the average person copies it but copies it incorrectly for whatever reason and either harms themselves or others because of it lays the groundwork for a lawsuit with incredibly long drawn out lawyer sessions.... Second I think is also a big one in that these people (the ones not creating fake click bait vids for money) have spent an enormous amount of time and effort to learn the theory and probably had if not still have a boatload of student loans to pay.. So why go through what they did just to give that knowledge and experience away to others who aren't going to go the distance in learning all the history and "Laws" that is absolutely mind-blowing (IMO) amount of information. Perhaps it's another way for us diy/weekend warrior fiddling with a stereo system or a faulty television to actually dive into literature and get frustrated enough to quit or press on and find those particular details on our own. I've been mucking around with low level electronics for just over 2.5 years now. A corner of my apartment unit looks like a tornado hit it with partial projects to take apart, ones to put back together, and ones I'm trying to create on my own.....all of which are somewhat covering dime sized to a small pizza dish sized burn marks from electrical fires or shorts. I keep pressing forward, not to be an electrical engineer but because I love learning. There are a shit ton of free pdf books online to download on how to build projects in a vast amount of subjects/fields of expertise. Who knows by reading more about what you want to build the information might stick and not taking the easy path might make a person feel good about what they built...or caught on fire...either way it's yours and not some monkey see monkey do project even if it still ends up looking similar it'll be from your own hands and mind.
@@supersteve1224 Look bro I hear what ur saying. I've never looked for an easy path and to say ppl are taking lawsuits?? against creators on here is mental. I never realised that shit was going on. That's very sad to hear that is happening. I read a lotta stuff online. As far as anything electronic/electrics I try to not build anything without somebody around who can give me proper advice. Last thing I want is for a bloody fire to start in my workshop bcos it's connected into my home. Thanks for the reply man.
The super capacitor is there to act as a battery, but with easier charging characteristics. :) Charging your electric vehicle with this device would be an act of torture.
Increase the gear ratio and replace the stepper motor with a BLDC motor and a 3 phase rectifier .. it will be able to supply more current .. as they are ment to be operated at high currents (unlike Nema17 stepper which works on 2Amps)
Круто! Я тоже собирал нечто подобное. Моя цепочка была следующая: nema17, диодные мосты, step-down mini 360 до 2.4v, один ионистор+ от него же step-up(me2108a, 3.3v, хорошая штука работает уже от 0.4v), а после светодиод через резистор. Китайский ионистор на 3 фарада при нагрузке в 3.3v 5ma отработал 10 минут Другой ионистор на 30 фарад при тех же условиях отработал 60 минут. 30 фарад сложновато зарядить через шаговик, но думаю что 80-100ma он сможет в течении 5 мин предоставить.
I built someting similar a while back, only i used a dead HD container, blades from a microwave cooling fan, a bit of trickey with plumbing gear. All linked to a stepper, charging circuit, a tiny volt meter and a usb. Inserted to my water mains just by the toilet. So everytime you flushed the bog you could charge your phone. Works a treat.
To get most charge ot of a set cranking time you should have lower charge voltage but higher amps on the input to the cap bank. So a buck converter could be nice here, charge a "small" capacitor at 10 or 15 volt and buck converter to get it down to about 5 volt. That is like a cheap diy MPPT converter since now you're "shorting" the stepper motor and loosing lots of watt since the voltage is so low
This is a ealy cool project, especially for people who enjoy going out camping. I think 20min of cranking while in the wilderness won't really be much of a bother.
Why dont add some sort of dc to dc converter at the led's. That way you can use them at lower than 3volts that they require for max illumination. Now half of the caps energy is almost useless.
Interesting idea but I can't help but notice the high tech use of stepper motors, super capacitors, 3D printing and then using masking tape to insulate the connections.
For 6:47, you may have been able to achieve similar results with a diode clipper and a transistor or two...or if you applied the clipper to the AC output you could do it with just a diode alone.
You can replace the mosfet with relay that has normally open and normally close state and redirect the power another led indicator that the bank is charged when trying crank.
