How to Build a Bike Generator - Capacitor and Battery Setup | DIY Bicycle Generator Series

Want to know how to make a bike generator? Here we discuss capacitor and battery setup for a DIY Bike Generator - generate off grid electricity to charge laptops, phones, boost a tiny house power supply, play music and more.
We talk through and demo how to add a large to capacitor into a bike generator circuit to stabilise the output and save the battery. We're also getting the unit ready for some high momentary current draw applications which will test our peddling mettle! Stay tuned for those!
This is part of the series on how to build a bicycle generator. Check our other videos for more info:

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If you have any questions, please post them in the comments and I'll get back to you.

SAFETY NOTICE: Be careful with capacitors, particularly of the size of the one used here. They can discharge a lot of charge very quickly, and can explode in some circumstances. Reverse polarity connection, over-voltage and short circuits all carry some risk. Please consult the safety information supplied with your capacitor (for large caps of this variety) and/or the wealth of information about capacitor safety available from reputable sources on the net. But don't worry too much - if you treat em right, they'll be safe!

Filming and photography by Rebecca Witcombe
Technical assistance from Gavin Smalley
Image credits:

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#bicyclegenerator #indoortraining #diybikegenerator

[itanc]

Love that “Monday morning big new cap feeling!”

[erykfreethinker]

Fantastic! I would need labels on each switch and a better memory. Thanks for uploading, looking forward to the next video :)

[Rojeeztalks]

thanks brother, good effort,

if you can develop a gear box that can magnify the rpm, then we can produce more electricity

[barrykmusic]

What a brilliant informative video! 📹👌

[bluemonkey]

Great Video mate. I’d love to build one!

[joshnabours]

I think it would be fun to add one of those small, server rack computer fans modulated to spin faster or slower depending on how you pedal. That way the sound would make you feel like you are powering a turbofan jet engine with your legs. They also provide quite a bit of airflow too.

[Tj-ikcn]

23:07 Near the back wheel is that an CT ac ammeter/voltmeter?? on the Alternator output red cable, which is dc?

[MrCarlRobinson]

I’m not sure what your background is but it’s a nice project. The huge audio cap is overkill and stores very little energy. At the low voltage you’re using you could go for physically smaller caps with much greater capacity. If you had it anyway, well, no loss. 👍

[tafsirnahian]

How much mechanical power you made through your legs? And what's the efficiency of the system?

[munmunnisharahman]

To run a water motor of 746W 450V 1hp
What should be the power of low rpm DC motor

[jandevos]

Hi, why did you stop generating these video's ?

[fajile]

2:28 is that the idea behind magnetic breaking?

[edisongewargis]

if you did this i am sure you will do it..please get back to me for self charge e bike

[jasonbrown]

the watt meter can likely be zero'd, when dealing with such small amount of power i would zero it. those cheap watt meters are handy, i have many of them but i have to randomly zero mine all the time for my solar system. watt hours is in my opinion one of the main pieces of data to gather and that meter not being zero'd throws it off. i am thinking of building something like this. i already had the bike on the trainer in my basement and try to ride any were from 3-10 miles a day. i am assuming this will get me about 50 to 300 watt hours per day and i am being generous, but i want to see what everyone else is getting before i do this.
if i only get about 50wh per day, thats only enough power to run my laptop for about 1 hour. but its fun and good exercise.

also, you cant charge a charged battery, a new 7ah agm battery will likely only take a .2amp trickle charge, but it is wasting your effort at that point. i would use the battery to the point of getting it to 50% soc which would be about 12.01v at rest, then try to charge it to see at what current can you and your system can feed that battery.

also, when your battery reaches 14.4v, it does not wear it out. this is the healthiest thing you can do for the battery, which is why "maintainer chargers" exist.

i think your old battery has 3 bad cells, this is not from being worn out or over used, its from 3 dead cells. if it was worn out, meaning had little ability to store energy and this was the only issue, it would still be a 12v battery. it would just "charge up" and discharge down quickly. each cell is about 2v and there is 6 of them approx 2v nominal, but it could be just one bad cell and the others are super low, but i could be wrong here too.

i do appreciate the video, and maybe you knew the things i mentioned, but its not clear to the viewer, just thought i'd help. essentially i want to charge a large battery bank12v at fist, maybe try to 48v at some point. but i can see a lot of physicaly work goes into making a tiny amount of power. i am thinking of the watts it takes to spin my box fan. on the higest setting it takes about 60 watts i think, and i dont think i could turn that fan blade with my bike with pulleys, belts etc etc for an hour, at those speeds, maybe 10minutes lol, but i could be wrong

[laus]

5:43 NO, when you touch the cap terminals, it will NOT "throw you across the room"
12 Volt pose no danger of electrocution to humans.

[joshnabours]

Personally, I think exploding a massive capacitor for funsies is better than just having one on a Monday morning. Just

[headlessxp]

Please stop spreading misinformation!
That cap can handle a maximum of 18V. Even if you were to ram a nail each into your hands to minimize body resistance, you would still get about 2kOhms of resistance which would allow about 18/2000 = 9 mA to flow through you. 9mA DC is a little bit uncomfortable at worst, nowhere near deadly levels of DC current. Unless your made out of metal, but then you've got other problems i guess.

[keithcrawford]

Your video isn’t planned at all. Hard to even watch