one two three go
keep pedaling my margarita is not done yet
hey guys Retired at 40 thanks for
tuning in I'm here with my new bicycle
power generator and I've been watching a
lot of videos on bicycle power
generators and I've found a few major
flaws with most of them so the first
major flaw that I find in most of the
videos is that everyone wants to take
this tire off and run a belt around
whatever they're using for their
generator and I don't quite understand
that the way that mine is built the
rubber tire has plenty of traction hooks
right into the wheel of whatever you're
powering and you don't you skip a step
you don't have to put that belt on there
and the great thing about this is this
is on a bike stand like portable bike
stand so I can take my bike off right
now and go ride it I don't have to
disassemble anything I'm not taking up
huge amounts of space in my house this
will fold up and go right under a bed or
in a closet or whatever and it's it's
portable
the second major flaw is that they're
not adjustable so mine you can you could
have this Lightspeed bike or I could put
my mountain bike on here or I can have
my kids bike sitting on here and the
kids can pedal and make power or
whatever so any sized bike will will fit
in here because all I need to do is take
this off and this all adjust this is on
a hinge so this pulls power into
whatever size tire you have whether it's
a 29 and 27 and a half or a 16 inch tire
it doesn't matter and the last major I
wouldn't call it a flaw more of just a
matter of being versatile is my head I'm
using a solar charge controller and that
way if I want to plug in any other kind
of something that's going to charge this
battery here I I can pedal I can hook up
a solar panel I can do all kinds of
other things charge the same battery and
not have to mess with this
I've seen a lot that just goes straight
into whatever they're powering or they
won't have a charge controller at all on
there ok so let's get into the nuts and
bolts of this whole operation basically
what I did is just took a regular
portable bike stand just a stationary
bike stand and I took they usually have
a wheel like this and this hinges on
here and it'll provide resistance and
whatnot which gave me the idea to make
the the charger in the first place
because this looks a whole lot like this
treadmill motor that I used for those of
you who didn't know this you can take
some electric motors and spin them
backwards and it will actually charge as
opposed to taking power so that's what
I've done when this moves it obviously
produces power and I've run it through
the solar charge controller and then the
charge controller just goes to the
battery and then I have a power inverter
hooked into the battery to run whatever
you want and I've made the chart I've
made the power inverter so you can take
it off of here and just charge the
battery I like to just use this to
charge my RV battery in the winter time
just for something to do and it keeps
the RV battery nice and charged up once
I got this resistance wheel off of here
I just took a piece of wood I believe
this is a 2 by 8 and I cut it out
notched it out onto the hinge ran the
same hardware through that and that just
allows this to move up and down like
this and you just offset it so whatever
you're mounting on here whether it be
some kind of a turbine or a treadmill or
a treadmill motor or a car alternator or
whatever you're doing this will amount
go straight up to the tire you've got
direct contact with the tire and then
for right now I just throw a bungee cord
around this whole thing and hook it on
to these little
spots right here and it just keeps
resistance on this keeps it up against
the tire and I mean what better traction
can you get than a rubber tire against
something so you can see right now the
battery at idle state is twelve point
nine volts which is pretty much where
you want the battery to be at fully
charged and once I start pedaling
that voltage starts to go up
and do this long enough and you can just
keep charging that battery and
interestingly enough if you plug
something in to the power inverter right
now depending on what it is if it's
sucking some good wattage it will
actually make it quite a bit harder to
pedal the bike well there you go this is
my interpretation of the pedal power
generator hopefully you found it useful
if you did take a moment to subscribe
to retired at 40 in the meantime
remember to live life simple we'll catch
you next time
