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In Dave's words....

we are sending out a big thanks to the backshed/homegrown power site for giving us an inside look at some "homegrown" projects that folks just like you and me have knocked up in our own backyards.

Tthis project is yet another variation of a human powered pedal generator. The goal here was to put together a pleasing to the eye "designer" model pedal generator with readily available off the shelf components using common hand tools. It was important that this build be robust, self contained, safe and versatile as we have it available for public use and from time to time take it on the road to fairs and expos. We can look at this as a novelty or curiosity but as silly as it may seem to some, it may in fact have a place in today's world.

A common comment we get is something like "you can buy more power than that with pocket change than you can make with that thing in a day" and very true! ..... ......on the other side of that coin is the fact that recent greenpeace estimates say that there are close to 2 BILLION people on the planet without any access to power and probably no pocket change either.

The comparatively small power from a human powered generator can go a long way to powering some basic things like lighting and communications when no other source is available, even at any price. If nothing else, jumping on the pedal generator can give people a real appreciation for the effort required to convert physical movement into electricity and here we help to demonstrate it visually with onboard gages displaying their power output.

I've employed a PWM controller in an unconventional manner to manually adjust the generator duty cycle/physical resistance level on this build and have been pleasantly surprised that it's worked as well as it has. Any tech guys/gals care to help tell us what's going on here? This type of configuration could use some more study as it is currently beyond my ability to explain. (yep, still a'learning...and forgetting as well) :)

Have fun and play safe.
Kind regards, Dave 73 De kb1mzf

Thanks Dave

You can see more pictures and information about Dave's pedal generator at his Picasa web album....

http://picasaweb.google.com/davidamesofsouthington/PedalGeneratorBuild#