First project

[kuchila]

Hi again,

     Lurker stepping out of shadows for a moment to glean thoughts and ideas on my project, lighting up a 3 wheel bicycle. Ok, I know that theres a company selling a bike system for flashing Led's on a bike, I did read posts on that, even went to the link and looked it over. But I didn't build that and I was informed to "start small", can't get much smaller can I ? Anyway, ideas are just on paper at this time so any insults, ideas or needles calmly welcomed, just don't use big caliber guns when shooting at me. I'm old and can't duck as well as I used to.

     Now, on to the paper,

  4 1/2 X 1/4 round neos on back of front sprocket, 2 coils on frame as pickup. Size wire to wind coils still up in air, ideas ? I figure a thin wire coil. Wires to a circuit board containing capacitor bank for storage, wire to on/off switch and led's for the lights. Sound feasible ? ?

 Bill

[ghurd]

Hi Bill,

Kind of doubt thats feasible, with that few of magnets, that small, low frequency, and 2 coils. You might get a reversed parallel pair of LEDs to flicker directly, but its going to be hard (near impossible) to get past rectifier drop to charge a capacitor.

Everyone knows its coming... How about a stepper motor?

G-

[coldspot]

Yep-

"Stepper Motor"

If you don't know-

The square ones out of an old printer

or some older A drives and 5.25" floppy drives.

but the ones from an older printer would be easyest

I think.

Would be an easy to set-up, I'd do it like the Factory

made ones with a drop on the wheel of bike with the

shaft on stepper or maybe a wheel on stepper also, could

be anything really.

I've made a half dozen or so, just figure out the wires

and use the little glass or even the bigger little black

diodes, then they are lighting up many LED's with little

paper towel, "Zub-Woofer" type blades in light winds.

Have fun

[Bruce S]

Bill;

   Instead of making the entire project into one. How about breaking it up into a couple different projects?

If you already have the LED light set for the bike, then you can look up what the power needs are and use some rechargeable NiCds to power them. Most of these likes don't draw that much power at all and even the little (700mah 1.2 AA) that are found in solar lawn lights will power them for a couple hours.

Then take the stepper motor, build a nice little 'mill setup as the charger for those batteries.

The design on the bike will have a sleeker look and you could have batteries at the ready for any little project  that comes your way.

Hope this helps

Cheers

Bruce S

[RP]

Bill,

First off, consider mounting your magnet to a wheel, not the sprocket.  That way you'll generate even when not peddling.

Also, you'll want your magnets out near the rim to have maximum possible speed of the magnets past the coils.  With only two coils you'll be limited in the power you can harvest but it all comes down to how much juice you really need.  I've got one of those "shake light" LED flashlights that is clearly visible from a distance.  It uses a clumsy but servicable method of shaking a magnet past a fixed coil.  It is NOT however a substitute for a head lamp.

[johnlm]

Increasing the speed of the magnets past the coils without increasing the number of magnets or the number of coils or the RPMs  will not increase the output power.  

Johnlm

[RP]

Magnets and coils don't care about rpm only the speed of the flux change across the coils.  Rpm is one way to increase the rate of flux change, another is to increase the radius that the magnets are mounted at.  If the magnets move faster past the coils there will be more power generated.

[kuchila]

  Whoa guys. You definately missed the post of me being new. rof As I have no idea as to what your talking about with "stepper motors" you've passed right over my head and rather quickly, I might ad. Now you did mention something about printer motors and those I know, seeing as I've got printers by the dozens. Are you, by chance, telling me to make a chargeing system from one of these motors when you refer to "stepper motor" ? Obviously, this old hillbilly needs to study the idea in much more detail as I clearly missed something  somewhere. Thanks a lot guys for deflating my head and never fear of me getting discouraged I just become more determined. Back to my books.

 Bill

[RP]

Whoops!  There will be a higher VOLTAGE.  There will be the same number of magnets passing/revolution so the power will NOT increase.

Sorry about that...

[kuchila]

Rp,

     From what you posted I get the idea that if I put the magnets on say, a 20 inch rim, out near or on the edge, place a few, say 3 or 4 coils out there on the frame rails and add more magnets, say 1 every inch or so that this may work ? Remember, this is a 3 wheeler and as such it has at least 2 frame rails per side of each rear tire, meaning I could, in theory, place 8 coils on each rear wheel, using both the inside and outside rails. I know, your sitting there wondering what this crazy old hillbilly is talking about so to muddy things up even more, this is a 12 speed bike converted to a 3 wheeler, something I was told couldn't be done. Each rear wheel has 2 rails as support shaped like an inverted "U". Braking is on the front 24 inch rim.

     Now I've heard from more knowlegable people on reasons why my original idea would not work, many of which were of the opinion that too few magnets and coils and not enough speed of magnets passing coils, placing magnets on the outer rim of the back tire and adding more coils sounds like a cure. More magnets, more coils and greater speed should mean more power.

 Bill

[ghurd]

A stepper motor makes a neat little alternator. Usually very low power. But ready to use. Great for LEDs.

Most have 2 sets of coils. Just need to figure out what wires are together, then rectify the output (make the AC output to DC).

They have 4, 6, or 8 wires. Avoid 5 wire motors.

Square laminated steppers tend to be better built than the 'tuna can' style.

Here is what they look like.

http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/category/400600/Stepper_Motors.html

Here is how to use them.

http://www.c-realevents.demon.co.uk/steppers/stepmotor.htm

There doesn't seem to be any relation to output vs cost.

They make a LOT less amps than they use as a motor.

They tend to make more volts than they use as a motor.

Big fun.

G-

[kuchila]

G,

     Thanks for the info, that was a great site. Guess I'll be looking in some of this old computer stuff I've got laying around looking for the bigger stepper motor that you suggest are better made. I wish I still had those 28 dot matrix printers I tossed out last year. Bet there were big steppers in every one but I wasn't aware of them then. I do still have at least a dozen old inkjet printers and about 8 of the old 5.25 floppy drives around. Learning as you speak

 Bill

[RP]

I say give it a try with 4 magnets and one coil.  Once you've something, then add more coils and magnets to get more.  One thing to consider about Neo magnets on the rims is they may collect metal off the road!!

[kuchila]

   Round 1.  Idea for magnets on back of sprocket, not a good idea due to fact of not enough magnets, not enough coils and speed of magnets passing coils slow.

    Round 2.  Idea of magnets on edge of rear wheel, not a good idea due to fact of picking up road debris every time I ride the bike. (I can see all those nails, screws and such bristling from the magnets, probably tearing out a coil or two)

     Ok, both of those are good reasons for not using those ideas and I thank each and every one of you for taking the time to steer me in different directions. Those "stepper motors" are a pretty neat item and may become another project, say LED's on my other 3 wheeler.

     On to round 3. As I'm still determined to make electricity with magnets and coils to light up my bike I've set up another plan. 1 inch curved 1/4 inch strip of steel with 9 coils mounted on the inverted "U" supports, magnets, now 1/2 X 1/2 X 1/4 square, around the spokes of wheel. More magnets, more coils, and magnets far from road surface.

    Reason behind my persistance of using magnets and coils on this is I'm trying to learn the theory and figure if I can get this to work on a bike I should be able to get it to work on a generator.

 Bill

   

[ghurd]

This is not intended to scare you, but it will give you an idea of what you need to consider.

http://www.fieldlines.com/comments/2004/10/15/22250/879/16#16

And Skippy did it.

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

[kuchila]

 Looks like attaching the magnets to spokes isn't efficent way. More thought needed, , again. lol But if Skippy can do it, you can bet money I can.

 Bill

[ghurd]

If you are not 100% convinced you need to wind the wires yourself,

you could get a little shaded pole motor (out of a microwave or something),

cut the laminations, and wiggle off a lot of tight wound small wire already coiled, on a plastic holder.

Best photo I can find, take off the gear box and thats what they look like.

http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/item/ACM-121/400300/30_RPM_GEAR_MOTOR,115_VAC.html

G-

[kuchila]

  Alright, you guys have beat me up every round and have even managed to teach me a thing or two. This is exactly what I want, a place to learn without making major mistakes. I've learned that a LED takes 3 to 3.5 volts DC 20 Ma to light, magnets close to ground will snatch up debris off road, coils need to be in phase, (not real sure what that is, still reading) speed of magnet travel is relavent to output, number of magnets is relavent. See ? ? You can teach an old dog new tricks. Just takes the right voltage.

     Now, lets see what you think of this idea.

    8" X 1/4" rotor with 12 1" X 1/8" magnets mounted to rear wheel. 9" X 1/4" stator plate designed to hold 9 round coils and act as blank steel plate for flux, same as a single rotor generator, just smaller. I start with one coil on stator plate and see how many LED's I can light and add coils to stator until I get the number of LED's lit I'm looking for. Now you must remember, I'm just looking for lights, not to see by but to be seen if I ride at night.

 Bill

[elvin1949]

Bill

remember one thing,when the first led lights up

YOU will become an ADDICT like the rest of us.

 Have fun and remember once you light up the first bulb THEN it get's EASY.

later

Elvin

[kuchila]

Elvin,

     What do you mean, , "When the first LED lights up" ? ? ? I'm already hooked and haven't even started building. Just reading all these posts of all your projects done that after about 3 nights of reading.

 Bill

[kuchila]

   Back again. At this time the gennie for the 3 wheeler is awaiting funding so I thought of previous posts about stepper motors. I dug around in my junk room and found a couple printers and now have about a half dozen of them setting on my table, 2 6 wire, a 4 wire and the rest 5 wire. Now, I know I have no idea what I'm doing when I test these for power output but according to my meter I have a 6 wire that put out 11.6 volts ac spinning it by hand ? ? That can't be right, can it ? ? The rest all fall in the range of 3-4 volts ac when spinning them by hand which is about what I thought. 4 of the 6 I have are small, about the size of a half dollar, maybe an inch thick, one is about twice that size, still an inch thick and the 11 volt one is about the size of a snuff box, still an inch thick. They're all of the "tuna can" type which isn't the better kind but "ya play with what ya got". Well, this was just to let you all know that I haven't disappeared into the shadows completely and am still tinkering around with different ideas for generating power so back to my tinkering.

 Bill

[ghurd]

The V sounds right to me. The amps will be limited, but LEDs can't handle much anyway.

Grab a LED from the front of one of the printers, jam it in the motor connecter, and give it a SLOW spin. It should light, maybe in pulses. Don't spin too fast, or the reverse part of the AC will pass 5V and the LED burns out.

Jam another one across the other coil, and they may pulse oposite each other, or switch LED leads around on one if they pulse at the same time.

Still big fun!

G-

[kuchila]

 G,

     11.6 volts sounds right ? ? Turning the shaft by fingers ? ? Darn, didn't kinow me own strength. lol Anyway, more accomplished tonight. Tested the wires resistance and found the commons, found another dot matrix printer so now the count is up to 8 motors and hooked one up to a drill. At a slow spin, probably 150-200 RPM range, 21.7 ac volts, top speed of drill, 52.8 volts. So it looks like I need a bunch of diodes and something to control the voltage before I use that motor with LEDs. I didn't think to check what the amp output was but as I was holding both wires I was testing with same fingers and felt no shock, I'm guessing it wasn't a big number. Also looks like I'll be making a trip out to the dumpster and grabbing a couple leds off the printer leftovers to try your idea. Also need to figure out a way to remove brass gears off the shafts as only 3 motors had plastic gears that I could easily remove. The mnotor I tested was a 6 wire and each wire, except for the commons of course, had the same basic voltage within 1 volt. I did notice yesterday while I was out that the local farmers supply store has this big metal windmill, must be 20 ft, outside the store. Now, I wonder what I could do with that ? ?  

 Bill

[ghurd]

The amps will still be low.  Rectify the outputs and test the amps into a 12V battery.

Like the 53V motor may only make 20ma at 12V, then the numbers can lead to something.

All this recent talk about steppers got me thinking (never good) about some 5 wire motors I have.

Next thing I knew, had another little windmill. Kind of cute.

Simple.  Motor, 4 resistors, 9 LEDs, some telephone wire. Thats it.  Not even a diode.

I'll probably put up a diary in a day or 2.

May be about what you want to do, but it only lights when turning. Same principles apply.

G-

[kuchila]

 G,

     Yeah, thats exactly what I want light on the 3 wheelers for, just to be seen when I ride at night. I'm in a small town, 2200 total, and have been here my whole life so I should know the place pretty well. I just don't relish the idea of one of these kids running over my old asp and claiming he didn't see me. lol I done that LED on wires and it did light up then I screwed up and went to RadioShack. Got a pack of 20 LED's, a 10 pack of alligator wires, 4 rectifier diodes and a zenon strobe bulb. I'm now figuring ways to supply the voltage to the strobe to get it to fire.

 Bill

[ghurd]

I haven't played with strobes in a lot of years. Seems like they took quite a lot of power that would be hard to get from most stepper motors.  Not sure I would want the kid in that fancy Honda blinded by a strobe?

Got that new LED windmill in Diaries now.

That motor could have easily run 2X more LEDs, most probably 10X.

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2006/4/25/184337/514

[kuchila]

 G,

     Yeah, I seen your recent buildup, pretty nice. Myself, still tinkering with ideas and theories, getting nothing done but am learning loads. Especially reading all the posts here. My thoughts on the strobe are as follows,

     External flash for a 35 mm camera uses same basic bulb with 4 1.5 volt batteries. Common logic says there must be some form of transformer in the circuit, stepping up the voltage. Also, there must be some form of capacitor to store the charge as it comes up to operating voltage. Now, all I have to do is figure out if I'm on the right track, probably not. lol

 Bill