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Bicycle-Powered Charger
Howell, Alexandra N.
Howell, Alexandra N.
Abstract
Description
Bicycles offer effective means of exercise and are popular forms of transportation. One fault of the current use of bicycles is that the mechanical energy generated by a moving bicycle is often wasted in the form of friction and expended heat. Wasted energy is troubling in the modern world now that energy is deeply integrated into peoples' everyday lives – one of the most common energy consumers being small electrical devices such as cellphones. Our senior design project addresses this issue via a bicycle-powered charger system designed to operate similar to a normal commercial bicycle trainer while concurrently mitigating dependence on outlet electrical energy for charging. The system is composed of the frame (trainer) and the charging system. The trainer is based on a standard retail bicycle trainer to enable easy transition from road use to stationary exercise use. The charging system will be capable of charging a 12 V battery pack, which will then be able to charge multiple 5 V devices simultaneously. The bicycle wheel sets into the trainer while resting against a rotor which spins the shaft connected to a generator (a permanent magnet ATV magneto) which outputs a variable AC voltage RMS. This AC output from the generator will pass through a shunt voltage regulator and a boost power inverter, which connects to a removable battery pack capable of charging during system operation and stores charge for use after operation. The prototype we create will utilize a purchased trainer for design, but this prototype is intended to evolve into a commercial product. We will discuss our design and estimate cost of a commercial product.
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University of Wyoming. Libraries