81–90 of 149 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of this is easy to say when you're personally not affected by them.
How do "they" affect you, poor soul?
This is neat. This may not be The Most Practical Solution, but the idea of having a thing that you can carry around and turn local bikes into power generation seems like a perfectly-reasonable invention for me.
We're talking about helping the homeless. They don't need the minmaxxed optimal solution. Not every homeless person may have access to a power outlet-- I don't know who wouldn't be able to move enough to pedal a bike but not enough to get to a public library, but that's really /not the point/. There are a lot of reasons that people end up homeless, and they can cause some really spotty/unreliable behavior.
There's nothing wrong with adding ideas/solutions to the mix. There's no need for a concept like this to replace other solutions. We can use all the viable solutions at the same time.
Most homeless people in the UK will be aware that they can charge phones in any public library. Also, most will have access to some kind of facility where they can also do stuff such as charge phones, have a shower and do laundry. If you present to the local authority as homeless you will usually be directed to a local charity that has these facilities. You will, likely, stay homeless but there is some basic help out…
> Most homeless people in the UK will be aware that they can charge phones in any public library. ..have access to some kind of facility to charge phones, have a shower and do laundry. You describe a different universe from US homelessness. Here there might be a tiny bit of religious outreach but the public (therefor public services) tends to lean toward hostility.
Nice prototype, but it doesn't actually work does it? Turns out that to transfer any significant torque (and therefore energy), you need either a larger gear, or a larger subtended angle, or a higher chain tension - and ideally all three. Since this device has none of those, I can be pretty confident that even after hours of pedalling, you won't have a charged phone. In fact, the video even shows the chain jumping sh…
BTW, I respect your project at https://omattos.com/2022/06/19/gym-power.html
I have also worked with human-powered generators (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huYJa2Du57g) and made a quick feasibility spreadsheet on the MyPowerbank at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X39ZgL86tmemdYv0r1Jg...
From my spreadsheet, this project looks plausible, but please feel free to add comments to it as you see fit.
My spreadsheet's calcs indicate an average power of about 25 Watts to reach the 25 minute charging time claim. Note that average humans can easily sustain 100 Watts. I have assumed an iPhone 12 battery as that's the first that came up when I searched: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=ihpone+...
As far as the shaking chain, note also that the device base is shaking so we can not directly infer the cog idler pulley-cum-prime-mover is not also moving.
In my experience with human-powered generators, the real obstacle was getting people to relax and focus and do nothing for longer than 2 minutes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same! Like, the bikes are charging via some inductive method, and the battery sucks off that. That’d be cool as hell!
They have some sort of battery that powers the lights. I wonder if the dock also charges those?
While I applaud the intent to bring the issue of homelessness to the forefront of the media, I feel like this project is more about gaining self attention for the project rather than solving the issue all together. The ~20GBP for the 18650 or 27500 batteries, the probably ~5GBP of the PCB needed, ~15GBP for the chain hardware and magnets, you are looking for a >40GBP to put this together, you can today get a <10GBP U…
While I applaud the intent to bring the issue of homelessness to the forefront of the media, I feel like this project is more about gaining self attention for the project rather than solving the issue all together. The ~20GBP for the 18650 or 27500 batteries, the probably ~5GBP of the PCB needed, ~15GBP for the chain hardware and magnets, you are looking for a >40GBP to put this together, you can today get a <10GBP U…
> USB hand crank Are any of those actually effective for charging a phone? I used to have a hand cranked radio, but radios built for this only need a minuscule amount of power. Does anybody have real experience using one of these to charge a phone? How long does it take?
https://www.amazon.ca/Powerhouse-Watt-Hand-Crank-Generator-Q...
While I applaud the intent to bring the issue of homelessness to the forefront of the media, I feel like this project is more about gaining self attention for the project rather than solving the issue all together. The ~20GBP for the 18650 or 27500 batteries, the probably ~5GBP of the PCB needed, ~15GBP for the chain hardware and magnets, you are looking for a >40GBP to put this together, you can today get a <10GBP U…
> USB hand crank Are any of those actually effective for charging a phone? I used to have a hand cranked radio, but radios built for this only need a minuscule amount of power. Does anybody have real experience using one of these to charge a phone? How long does it take?