foot power

[Alan Eliasen]

On 01/26/2011 10:05 PM, Carlos Nazareno wrote:
> Hey guys.
> 
> I haven't taken that much look into foot pedal chargers and do know
> what their internals look like -- I just remembered coming across the
> link I posted so I shared The efficient way to do a foot pedal powered
> generator would probably be to have a small weighted wheel spin as a
> dynamo when you step on it?
> 
> You just keep pumping on the pedal to keep the wheel spinning and it
> shouldn't take much effort, the wheel's momentum should keep power
> flowing.

   A lot of these ideas have been analyzed in detail.  Hardly any of
them except the bicycle idea would be feasible at our power levels:

   http://tinyurl.com/6zozbcn

   I would note that in your sample above, the reverse EMF from the
generator will be significant; the wheel will slow down rapidly.
There's no such thing as a free lunch.

   It seems that the only thing that's feasible to make the XO
kid-powered is to significantly lower its power usage.

-- 
  Alan Eliasen
  eliasen at mindspring.com
  http://futureboy.us/