Free Electric

[Tara D.]

A stationary bike that generates eccentricity to power your home! Although this is not an electric bike I thought it fitting to share with everyone here. I think it is really neat!

 

[Cameron Newland]

That's pretty cool. I'm running <30W of solar capacity (real output is less than 20W) at my house currently and I'm just using it to charge cell phones and tablets, but something like this could help me output the energy to charge a 3,000mAh cell phone in less than 3 minutes instead of using solar to charge it in 3 hours. Granted, I'd have to charge an auxiliary battery at 100W with the stationary bike for those three minutes (assuming 100W pedal output), and then charge the phone from that battery, which would take an hour, but that still takes a lot less time than my tiny solar array. It would be even more useful for powering laptops and small appliances, since they use a lot more energy than cell phones and tablets do.