[clug] Exercise and pay the bills!

[Ben]

I'm involved with building two such machines.

We're planning on making an upright style bike, but mine will be a
recumbent that I can sit in at the computer, It will be tilted back
with monitors above so I"ll be half lying down while using the PC.

For the generators we are using the permanent magnet motors that can
be "recovered" from Fisher & Paykel and other direct drive washing
machines. They are 3 phase and I'm pretty sure 240V.

They also have all the bearings etc. but these could run a little
smoother so I'm not sure if we'll use them or not. you have to break
off the water seal. If you hate washing machines, then it's quite a
therapeutic recovery process. :-)

We also reuse the bridge rectifier and other diodes.

I'm just doing the grunt work, so I don't really know where it goes from there.


2009/2/8 Paul Wayper <paulway at mabula.net>:
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> Hi all,
>
> I had an idea a couple of days ago that I'd like to explore with some
> hardware
> and electrical engineering types.  I'm hoping to find them on this list :-)
>
> Most exercise machines sold these days just use either friction, magnetic
> coupling or resistive loads as the 'sink' for work done.  Since Kate and I
> are
> in the process of getting a solar panel system put in, and the inverter can
> take 48VDC and put it onto the grid as 240VAC, I was thinking of getting a
> 48VDC generator and hooking it up to some exercise system and generating
> actual usable power while I work out.
>
> This is where my understanding of electrical generation starts getting me
> unstuck.  Most exercise systems have a display that tells you how much power
> you've used and various statistics on it - OK, so we need a little
> microprocessor - and also allow you to vary the load so your work varies
> over
> time.  I can see I'm going to have to learn a bit more about microprocessors
> for the first part, but I'm not sure how to execute the second part.
>  Multiple
> small generators that get switched between short circuit and output to the
> inverter?  Some kind of DC/DC converter with a variable duty cycle?  (Yes,
> of
> course, I can have gears, but that makes the device a lot more cumbersome
> and
> I'd like to avoid that).
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Have fun,
>
> Paul
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