Wind power to watch TV

GreenPowerManiac

I've threatened the wife many times before to pull the plug on the TV set because of excessive watching & weight gain.

Why not set up a PMA connected to an exercise cycle right in front of the TV ? When you want to watch Emeril Live, you'll have to peddle your butt off to generate power to watch it.

BB.

Re: Wind power to watch TV

At best, you will probably generate around 100-200 watts for 20-40 minutes... You will need to keep the TV relatively small to make it anywhere near practical. If you add batteries, then there will be more costs and energy losses.

Who knows--maybe your wife will thank you?

-Bill

niel

Re: Wind power to watch TV

gpm,
i've always liked the idea of such a dual purpose in exercise equipment. the resulting electricity would either go to a battery that consumers would kill for lack of charge in it or it would go to the utility in a grid tied arangement. the gt system would not be very popular among the utilities and maybe even inspectors electricians, and the nec. unfortunately at this time such a thing is mostly confined to diy. costs are higher too, but people overspend on that stuff anyway imho.

boB

Re: Wind power to watch TV

OR, something like this.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LNk0GuGb_A

http://rerev.com/recardio.html


BTW, I routinely take my laptop to the gym and use it while on the elliptical trainer, but of
course, I do not use the energy that I produce... I sure could though, to keep the battery up.

I could also run my little fan that I clip onto the machine, too, by the exercise itself.
Well, maybe...

boB

niel

Re: Wind power to watch TV

yes, something like that. those ones are gt, but could also be configured for batteries if people wouldn't run them down too far and remember to give them a full charge some times. for us we know and would take the steps to maintain the batteries as most, i fear, would stop exercising and get interested in a show and run it down.
now in fairness one could go without the battery and generate only up to say 100 or 200w like the tv and you stop and it stops. the problem is if they run a small 15w radio then they won't get much of a workout.

GreenPowerManiac

Re: Wind power to watch TV

I was kind of thinking of one of those LED flashlights that you have to shake in order to store power.

Spin the turbine for a minute then stop for a minute. When you see the power dwindling, start cranking again. The idea is to make a 20 minute workout within a 1 hour show.

niel

Re: Wind power to watch TV

gpm,
those are storing small amounts of power most likely in an electrolytic capacitor. these are fine for small power levels where a few milliwatts are used, but it is another story to watch a tv. that would mean a battery to store that much power.

GreenPowerManiac

Re: Wind power to watch TV

The way things are nowadays, most all electronics are solid-state. My 61" HD TV only needs 200 watts to operate and it's 9 years old. Sooner or later they'll figure out how to run 200 milliwatts for it.

Watch this electric cycle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sftkgQAr2rU

BB.

Re: Wind power to watch TV

You may be surprised when you look for a new flat screen TV (assuming your old TV has a picture tube)--The new flat screens (LCD, Plasma) seem to use around 2x the power of the equivalent picture tube TV. Some of the older Projection TV's used less power than LCD.

My several year old LCD 32" uses around 160 watts of power...

-Bill

GreenPowerManiac

Re: Wind power to watch TV

It's one of those RGB projector types & flat screen. Pretty fancy for its time.

Now if the cycle was set up with a few pulleys to increase the rpms....

dwh

Re: Wind power to watch TV

The quicky hack and slash way:

http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_experiments_bicycle.html


The slightly more scientific way:

http://www.los-gatos.ca.us/davidbu/pedgen.html

GreenPowerManiac

Re: Wind power to watch TV

Check this out : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cf89tawZX8&feature=PlayList&p=6978902494E9A09C&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=31

If you think the bicycle is neat watch this....