Charge your phone using pedal power with the K-TOR Power Box

K-TOR has added a new portable charging device to its lineup. The new Power Box puts your legs to work toward converting kinetic energy to electricity. Use it enough and you might just get your weekly workout. It is quite simply a pedal-powered generator equipped with a dual-pronged outlet so that you can plug in an AC adapter and charge your device directly from your leg power. The box works for devices rated 20W and below, including low-power netbooks, tablets, smartphones, video devices and portable game systems.

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How To Build Your Own Pedal-Powered Bike Generator

If you were a puzzle fan in your childhood or if you simply love building things, you now have the chance to make a most surprising combination: a power-generating exercise bike out of a washing machine. So you get a double effect from a work-out: great legs and power for your house!

A regular routine will get you support for, let’s say, a 50W consumer and a 21” monitor. You basically need a washing machine motor and an old bicycle as basic parts, but also a bridge rectifier, an old UPS and a battery, a 20-gauge wire angle, soldering iron and a cheap multimeter. A soldering and a welding setup will definitely come in handy and don’t forget to bring in an angle grinder with cutoff wheels.

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Best of 2011 Concept electric bicycles

The bicycle is fast coming back into vogue, particularly the electric bicycles, that would be the best way to travel across cities. Urban traveling by cars has become a very time-consuming affair due to the ever-increasing number of vehicles on the roads leading to traffic snarls. However, a bicycle would be able to overcome the challenges of traffic and would make traveling less cumbersome. Also, the prices of fuel have reached a peak and traveling by car has become more of a luxury. Hence, electric-powered vehicles and bikes are much in demand. Many designers and even major automakers are gearing up to making bikes and cars with electric-powered engines that would serve as the best alternative for fuel which is a non-renewable commodity. Here are eight amazing concept electric bicycles that you might soon see on the roads:

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How to convert an exercise bike into an electricity generating bike

So you pedal an exercise bike at home. That is a good cardio-vascular workout, besides making you feel less guilty about the portion of fries you ate with your burger last evening. Many exercise bikes come with attachments to read your heart rate and and display the calories burnt. The muscular effort is used in overcoming friction in the bike drive and is dissipated as heat. Instead of wasting the the muscular energy as heat, it is possible to convert it into electricity as your contribution to the cause of green energy. The electricity generated will be in the 50 watts to 300 watts range, enough to light a bulb , run a fan or power your laptop but won’t make a significant difference to your utility bill. It is an easy do-it-yourself gadget and is good for a few bragging points with your friends and neighbors.

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How to charge USB devices by pedaling your bicycle

You might know “Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It can only be transformed from one form of energy to another”. We human beings are dependent on energy for almost every activity we intend to do. Natural energy is available through various resources like the wind, tidal, solar, hydro, bio-energy, etc. However, the process of transforming the available natural energy into the energy that could be utilized by our domestic appliances is a little difficult and it is also a time consuming process. That is why most of the energy we use at our home are produced in large scale either by the government or by private concerns. But it is possible to convert one form of energy into another form, right from our homes.

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Star Trac Spinner NXT helps you generate electricity by pedaling

Have you ever thought that the pedaling which you do at fitness centers can generate electricity? Read along to find out how you can attain environmental nirvana by just pedaling your spin bike. A company named Green Revolution has manufactured a device called Star Trac Spinner NXT, which can convert human energy into electricity. The cycle is similar to the cycles which we see at fitness centers. These eco friendly cycles, which come fitted with generators, are installed in 75 centers across the US.

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OneBike is quite an innovation I tell you! It’s an electric bike that gets powered by kinetic energy. Basically when you set it on its cradle at home, the bike becomes a stationary fitness machine. So every time you pedal to keep fit, it harnesses energy from your motion and converts it to electric power. Tank up the juice and cruise the roads my friends! Awesome!

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sports

Hitting the gym is about to get a whole lot greener as SportsArt Fitness just unveiled an energy-generating exercise machine that produces watts as you work out! The company’s new S770 Pinnacle Trainer features a kinetic energy-generating design that feeds excess electricity back into the power grid. The machine can generate up to 2,000 watts during use, and it can potentially save up to $3,000 in utility bills each year.

 

The machine utilizes “forward/backward and medial/lateral” motion to improve core stability and balance, and it activates various muscle groups for a complete workout. The new machine also has a monitor for heart rate, and it is completely powered by the kinetic energy generated during a workout – all one needs to do is start exercising.

SportsArt Fitness is marketing their new product as one of the first of its kind. “The power inverter attached to the Green System is about the size of a stereo receiver and operates on 208 – 240 VAC power,” says Bob Baumgartner, Product Manager for SportsArt Fitness. “The product feels and acts like any other cardio product… but what happens behind the scenes is not like any other cardio product.”

This S770 is also a great option for those who prefer to set up their own home gym – it represents a good long-term monetary investment, and it’s a huge step forward for environmental sustainability. Hopefully we’ll see more energy-generating exercise equipment in the future!

 

Source: inhabitat

 

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