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Old 01-20-09, 08:10 PM   #50
MetroMPG
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Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: 1000 Islands region, Ontario, Canada
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doofus McFancypants View Post
Would it be possable to use this in place of an Alternator in the car?
Not with this setup. Back of the envelope calcs showed my car using an estimated 288 watts to run, with some accessories on.

The ghetto generator is good for a relatively comfortable (non sweaty) 50 watt output.

So you can see for each 5 minutes of driving, you'd have to pedal for probably 30 minutes or more (charging inefficiencies) to replace the energy used.

Better to bike and power your reading lights or something that can be "sized" to be replaced by 30 min of pedaling.

BTW, aside from attempting to recharge my laptop while it was on (doable, but too sweaty), and recharging my camera batteries (doable), I've just been using the bike to slowly recharge the used car battery I picked up. It arrived with 12.3v resting voltage, and so far this week (maybe 30-45 minutes a day) I've raised it to 12.43 resting voltage.

(I'm not sure what the battery's amp hour capacity is.)

Once I get to 12.65v, I'll start thinking about what I want to "spend" my energy on that can easily be replaced in a day or 2.
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