Bicycle Generator 

As a mechanical engineering student i love these kinds of videos, how people can be so creative and think of different and new ideas to generate put a use to something. Who cares if it was just chopping a onion? He set out and did something really cool and we can learn and use that towards many of things. Awesome video man, i'd love to see some more cool videos like this one.

I'm an engineering student who today was asked to look into building an off-grid water-wheel generator for a friend in Colorado, and I very much appreciate how you explained the details. Nice work!

This type of generator should be put in gym. So people run bicycle to loss weight and also get benefit of electricity generation.

There's a dozen ways around the complexity you have in your circuit. First off, GM made this thing called 'a one-wire alternator' that auto-hots the stator when the alternator starts rotating. You can also wire this yourself with a non-one-wire alternator. Alternatively, put a 12v wet-cell or rechargeable in the circuit that has the inverter in it, and simply hot the charge circuit as you need. Finally, if you take that rotor out, remove the brushes and did some machine work to change that armature over to a permanent magnet configuration, then you would have an always-hot stator, without need to 'hot' the stator (the main reason that alternators have powered stators is to conserve price and weight, but for an AC generator, you can drill and insert N52 neodymium magnets to make the stator 'always magnetized').

That's very clever there Einstien but I think that I have you beat!, I set up a water wheel down by the river and plumbed a 4" water line from about 150 feet up stream past where there is a 5 foot drop. With the water coming out of the end of my pipe with considerable force it flows onto a home built water wheel that spins a shaft connected to a gear box and increases the speed 150 to one. with this set up we mounted a real 110 volt generator head and wired it to an extension cord routed up to my house. We comfortably can use about 600-900 watts of 110 volt free electricity which is more than enough to run all of my LED lighting and electric fan blowing air over my wood stove. The only thing that I now need to set up is a remote water cut off valve so it can be safely shut down when leaving home. The weight and force of water is very powerful and if you set it up right you can get free electric power with minimal water flow but you do have to have at least a good 5+ feet of drop and 4" pipe diameter or larger. A simple diversion screen angled sideways keeps the inlet of my pipe clear of river debris. Picts and video coming soon!. Marti

Nice job explaining how the alternator works and a nice demonstration. Someone else posted - you can use a "Self Exciting" alternator from GM, also called a "1 wire" alternator. At 1500 rpms, the regulator is self-exciting, providing power to the field coils. Using the alternator to charge a 12V deep-cycle battery can provide a nice "reservoir" of energy. As you know, 200W continuous output is a lot for most cyclists. 100 Watts is fairly manageable for people who are in decent shape.

Wow, thank you for the explanation of the difference between alternator and generator. I've asked at least a dozen people over the years that have electrical related careers/self appointed experts and not 1 person could tell me. You are a valued asset and should be spared if zombies ever take over.

Hook this up to your television set so you have motivation to work out because when you stop, the tv will turn off. lol

I loved this episode of Gilligan's island. Nice to know the professor was right after all!

This demonstration is a little bit tedious to to it practice all the time due to big physical effort involved. Anyhow this demonstration is way better than the free energy magnet motors scams allover the youtube. Those scams are not able to product a single volt or a mA. Those scammer are only able to produce money from youtube out of their scam videos. This guy has a very clear concept of car alternators. His illustration is real that is why I love his work.

This would be great for kids .... let them bicycle their energy for computer and tv ..... keep them active and in shape :)

Why are you the only one in the world that can explain the difference between a generator and an alternator. You made it so easy to understand. You think and speak clearly. Thank you so much for a wonderful science video. I love learning science on youtube. I learned nothing in schools.

Great system, Physical work out and generating electricity, way to go !

Hi enjoyed watching your videos. It gave me the knowledge to build a backup up off grid 12v charging device similar to your design. I used a second hand 100 amp alternator, cycle turbo trainer, old jump lead switches etc. Basically I can pedal in high gear with little stress on Crank & alternator rotation. Pushing rear wheel by hand has alternator pulley & rear wheel rotating freely. Obviously when exciting you can feel load slightly but you can cycle immediately in high gear. Tyre, inner tube & turbo trainer tiny freewheel resistance roller removed. Belt goes round backwheel & alternator. Turbo trainer folds in half with alternator attached. Bicycle comes off turbo trainer & can be used as normal by just adding tyre & Innertube. Bike kept in campervan with turbo trainer & can be used to jump-start van or charge leisure batteries. Beats charging with a slow battery trickle charger. Basically fully off grid backup. So glad I watched your videos explaining everything in detail. Something I have always thought about making. Now I have & it works well. Lol.

Can you upload a diagram of electrical connections?

Ok, this video gets a like. (I rarely give them out, even on some of the most popular videos) This deserves a like, however, for a few reasons, first, I learned something new about an alternator that I didn't know. Second, I learned how it is possible to use a salvaged alternator for something productive. And, I got to watch one of the most entertaining ways of chopping an onion I have ever seen!

For any real world applications there should have been a 12 Volt Lead Acid battery connected to the circuit as is intended by the alternator design. DC current isn't totally smooth coming off an alternator as it still has some pulsation in it. Batteries not only act as a storage device but also as a filter smoothing out pulsations and voltage spikes. Continued usage would probably result in failure of the inverter, solid state devices connected to inverter, or static noise in any audio device.

you have a cool bike ,you started with good construction of the bike mount then just slapped two angle brackets to mount the alternator, quality work means so much more

I want to make this for my wife so she will exercise while I get free electricity. it will be a win win for both of us.

i made one of these thats real sweet, video will be up soon, but my issue is that when my inverter is on, it is really hard to peddle. i have an 1100 watt inverter and a 40 watt alternator. whats the deal? the inverter should not be using all that wattage unless its being drawn right? it seems as though i need to have two different batteries and be able to charge one battery while the other one is in use. granted i did try and power a toaster which is very hard lol.

This is awesome. Would've never thought this would work. great video

What you could also do is use the derailer to vary the amount of power output you are giving...if whatever you are using is starting to cough out on your electricity, you just keep shifting up and pedaling at the same pace. This will allow you to be able to be more energy efficient with your body too, as since you may not be using as much electricity at some points rather than others, you can gear it down and therefore tire yourself out less as you are still pedaling at the same speed, but with less pedal force applied. Also, if you want to use this setup for a very, very long time, you may want to replace the plastic pedals with metal ones. I find that on a normal bicycle, even if you do not stand up and pedal using the bike, you can still wear out those cheap plastic pedals so easily. With a set of pedals that AT LEAST has a metal frame of it's own aside from the steel pegs inside, you can expect the pedals to at least be able to withstand you pushing the bike hard everywhere you go for about 3 years if the steel frame is the worst available on the market.

You can ask Auto Zone for a single wire GM alternator and they will know what you are asking for. Tell them to test it for you. That will put residual charge in it. Now, you can hook it up to a battery and you only need the single battery wire for it to work. Of course you still need a ground wire to the negative of the battery. Now when you start pedaling it will spin up and the residual will be enough for it to take off charging. No switch is needed. I did that on my diesel boat. Auto restorers do that on 6 volt conversions or generator conversions to alternators... You are welcome.. 40 years in electronics.

I'm pretty sure that Delco makes self-exciting alternators that are used in some trucks and boats. They're known as single-wire alternators and use residual magnetism in the rotor to excite the voltage regulator.

You should hook this up to your TV or other electronics if you have kids. Tell them if they want to watch TV or youtube they have to power it with the bicycle.

In a serious "blackout", a few of these together, could help keep emergency services/hospital patients alive, as well as a T.V. Thanks for sharing. Every car owner should have an inverter. Cheers.

This was like my idea to create jobs for everyone...goto work in the human generated power plants, except I envisioned horizontal wheels where you turn it like in CONAN THE BARBARIAN, and if you fall down they whip you, no workers comp, no benefits except full on protein lunches, and the most amazing pay.

Can you also use an electric motor like one from a washing machine? If you manually turn a motor it acts like a generator. How much power would it generate?

Knowledge is power. great video.

Where do you get the drive belt for the generator? What exactly did you ask for when you purchased the belt?

how long would it take to charge dead car batt to full charge

I could burn fats, produce my own electricity and save money!! wow!!

How many watts was the food processor? When you flipped it on how difficult did it become to pedal? Those wattage output meters on gym equipment made me want to create a setup similar to what you have. Thanks for the video.

To think all these years I just used a knife.

Which type of alternator are you using? I tried one with a motor and it reached a point when the alternotor slowed down. If it is used using a bicycle, can it run smoothly?

What did your wife say when she came home and saw the bicycle and stuff in the dining room?

roughly how much power does it use from the batteries in comparison to the power produced? is it producing much more than when you would just use the batteries to power the thing you want to run on electricity?

That awesome explanation down to earth, put it on ebay i'll be one to buy one such

I would like to build this for my final project in college but I would also be required to build the AC-DC inverter as well. Any idea whats the cost of the components to get a high output like 120V as seen in this vid?

Thanos would be proud. "I spinned the wheels to spin the wheels."

Great vid. I have a question though. If you simply want to charge up a battery bank (a set of car batteries for instance), could you simply hook up the alternator directly to the batteries to charge them. Then I would hook the power inverter to the batteries, so that I can have power after I stop pedaling. Would that work?

Can you use the bycycle to recharge batters that can run a three bedroom trailor or home ?

I am figuring a way to do this for my 1992 ford f150. I have a spare alternator and want to make a generator out of it and have my inverter inside my truck cab. This is awesome and only this it was burnt out and probably need parts to replace. Nice video. Gonna try this

What if everyone in a city did that for 20 minutes everyday? How much would we become less reliant on converted fossil fuels for energy?

Looks great! How to you choose the belt? Obviousy it has to work with the pulley, but what about working with the rim of bike? Some sizes or styles better than others? I was just going to go with whatever I could get from the junkyard when I go to get the alternator. What length is good?

Use a self-exciting alternator and you won't need an external battery to start it up.

Could I use this to charge Jackery or another battery storage? All answers appreciated. Thanks!

That little batt pack to start the alt to working, All you need is one 1.5v battery, you don't need a full 12v. one single cell will make enough magnet and the alternator will pick it up from there !!

Do you create more power with the alternator than a generator?

You would use much less energy chopping an onion by hand with a knife,.... Just saying

the 12 volt charge that you hooked up to the alternator. is this something that you built, bought?

Would it be more efficient to hook bicycle chain directly to the food processor spindle? :)

so by the saying... the alternator is already self-sustaining after initially field-excited by the battery pack?

Why are all you people commenting that this is a useless experiment? If you have a fat wife, you can make her bike to power the stove or oven.

What amperage is your alternator? I want to do this with a 235AMP Escalade alternator, but need to be sure I can spin it with just bike power. Any thoughts?

Hah! Spinning a wheel to generate power to spin another wheel.

How did you decide on the alternator setup vs an electric motor and some sort of charge controller? I've seen others using 24v scooter motors as the generator but they need some way to control the voltage going into the battery and, it seems, they lose some power if they pedal too fast because the charge controller diverts it before it hits the battery. Is the self regulating alternator setup the best you think?

This is great - think I'll try something like this myself. How hard is it to pedal once there is a load on the alternator? Do you think it would work modifying the rear wheel to a flywheel so you don't have to pedal continuously?

Hi. In the video, you said that two wires need to read 12 volts in order to maintain current. May I ask which wires need 12V supply? I have a Delco Remy alternator too which has 4 pins (P.L.I.S.).

i love the irony of how his spinning something to remotely spin something else

I'm confused.. how is the alternator still putting out voltage to the inverter after you turn the 12 volts off the stator? Is it self-exciting after that point?

An alternator creates AC voltage and the internal (DIODE) rectifier converts the AC voltage to DC. The internal voltage regulator regulates the DC voltage to around 14.5 volts DC. The external inverter takes the DC voltage from the alternator and then converts it back to AC voltage to run the food processor. I wander if we could just regulate the alternator AC voltage to 110 volts and what the wattage output would be? Hmmm Also you can use a self exciting regulator and do away with the battery source.

Imagine it with 180mm cranks (asuming yours are shorter, I believe they are) and a 54 x 11 gear ratio with a fixed-gear rear cog, which self-propels and sort of keeps pedaling under its own momentum!!! Much easier on the legs once up to speed. Great concept, im curious to see the potential of this brilliant thing

Dang, that's a lot of work to chop some onions...

@ 200 amps an Alternator will pull 8hp!! Facts Awesome Idea brother!!! GOOD JOB!

they body is more efficient at 85-95rpm. You will last longer at any workload

Have you tried connecting more then one alternator to Ur set up?

..you could probably blend more efficiently if you got rid of the electricity and just hooked up the blender to the bike. have a band go from the wheel and spin it

Great experience! Have you measured the accumulated energy we can get during 1 hour of such biking?

Where did you get the black part of your stand that holds up that back wheel? thanks

Hella work out to chop a onion!!!Neat!!!

Very cool. You have explained it very well. Thanks. I probably have more than 100 older style alternators that will work great for this kind of project. I could let them go for cheap.

Holy shit, it's Hank Hill.

Could you just run a straight axle through multiple back rims/alternators creating more power? Using said power to run an electric motor to make it where you only have to get this started and then eventually run itself? Or would the electric motor be an energyhog?

i just use a knife to cut onions!!

hi sir.. wanna ask u 1 thing.. what is the spec of the alternator that we can used as what u show above?

Hook up a 12 volt battery to your system. Much more practical.

Apologies if you've covered this before. What did the drag feel like when the chopper was running? Was it like peddling fast of flat ground or chuffing hard up a hill?. Cool video.

Works very well. :-) Be sure to check out my version(recently uploaded), no other video on YT shows my setup or power output. Thanks

Thanks you for sharing your time and details to the people of Earth.

5:22

thanx very much. I plan to use mine to charge my car battery, and/or run other DC devices. Including LED lighting. I came here looking for this invention, by my own searching, and yours was at the top of the list, and for good reason, evidently. Thanx again.

All of that to save $0.12 in electricity. Guy might be good in science but failed in business math.

This is a good video and a good idea but i was just wondering is it safe to plug the grid tie inverter to the wall outlet in the UK

not very efficient to convert your energy into electricity and then in onion cutting motion but electricity is more universal than onion cutting motion :p

Hi do you have any specific sources and links that I could go to to research for designing a bike like this?

why not using a motorbike. free electricity with gasoline

Leo, out of curiosity, does it produce electricity when you pedal backwards? please reply

Hi Leo. I have a silly question about this video. I know your using a car alternator. But do you think its possible to use a gas powered generator motor then convert it to hydro powered generator instead of gas?

I have an old electric mower and weed eater both with their motors in tact. Is it possible to set one of these up in a similar manner as you did in the video to create AC current? I am self taught and trying to learn more about how these all work and from my understanding, would and electric motor be the same as you described an alternator to be?

when you flip the switch off, I noticed that the voltage drop from 14.4 to 12.1. However, you say that the alternator is still producing 14.4 volts. Where is that energy coming out of? I tried to set up myself and can't get 14.4 volts anywhere as soon as you cut it off

hey I have one thing to ask. I connected the field wire and the positive terminal to the positive terminal of the battery and the ground to the ground of the battery. When i start pedaling i only get 1 volt when the volt meter is measured coming at the end of the alternator instead of a 12-14 volts. Any suggestions would help. Thanks

great job man!but i have a question...istead of having the 12 volt battery pack you have a normal car battery would it charge after swiching the swich?good job thanks

have you try to rotate the generator product by their own electric? like alternator -> powering motor -> rotate alternator again?

How long would you have to be peddling to charge a deep cycle battery out of curiosity? 12V 125AH

I have this same kind of alternator and I am trying to generate electricity, Do i need special kinds of cords or can I just use copper wires with alligator clips to clip on to certain parts, if so which 2 parts do I hook on to to create electricity when I spin it? Thanks.

Will only a 12 volt source work with this setup? Or could I connect a golf cart battery to it as the source of electricity to fire up the alternator, and in return, have the setup charge the battery, which I could then use to charge say a laptop, some phones and such?

Did you use a true sine wave inverter, or modified sine wave model?

so while the bike is runing u switch the buton back OFF right? and u still get 12v power out of generator?....but what happend if u put insted of switch buton just a light bulb? and also didi u use any diode on excitations cable?

Wouldn't having a flywheel (or simulating one by supporting metal plates on the spokes) create moment of inertia that would allow you to gradually move upwards in gear ratios?