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Hamster AC generator!

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NJ Roadmap

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https://www.otherpower.com/hamster.html

"though it's hard for the hamster to make higher voltages with his low-rpm wheel, he has torque to spare. 2 LEDs are barely taxing him......we are drawing only about 30 milliamps into the LEDs at Skippy's top speed. If we add more electrical load to the circuit, he could make more power, with a resulting increase in physical resistance on the wheel---like running uphill. We have yet to try small incandescent flashlight bulbs in the circuit--something that draws more power and makes more physical resistance against the wheel spinning. We did try more LEDs -- he had no trouble lighting up 6 of them. Next we plan to try an array of low-voltage incandescent flashlight bulbs to get optimum power output without tiring Skippy out too much. DanF is guessing that Skippy is good for 200 milliamps without tiring":eek:
 
200ma at what voltage excatly? Even if you had to step it up, you could probably use Skippy to keep a small sealed lead acid battery topped off. I'm starting to get this image of hordes of slave gerbils used to power electronics experiments around the country.
 
Great idea.
Great link too !!
Brings me back to my childhood when i was 12, and had about 40 mice in a large aquarium. (with only drinking water)

I was looking at that idea but access to stepper motors etc was a lot more limited then, wasn't invented, although i tried an old bicycle dynamo but it ran to slow to give any usefull voltage, about 100 mV, just enough to show on my AMM.

I did put a revolution counter on the wheel for which i used an old electricty meter dial.
Recordings of 40 to 60 RPM were recorded and average was about 25000 revolutions over a 24 hour period. I had a couple of these tradmills and readings varied between 12 and 25 thousand / 24 hrs, as far i still remember.
Interesting that mice also had their favorite tradmill as well.
 
The nearest town to me, Chesterfield, is famous for it's church having a crooked spire - originally I presumed it was poorly seasoned wood, and warped - but apparently it was due to replacing the original wooden shingles with slate, the extra weight warped it.

Anyway - the reason for mentioning this - just across the road is the Chesterfield museum, and they have an old hoist/crane that was used to build the spire, it was found still in situ where it had been for hundreds of years. Esentially it's a human sized hamster wheel, and someone would walk inside it to lift heavy items up the spire.

Here are pictures of the church, and the hamster wheel!
 

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Is that the original "Hamster wheel"? It looks like its in really good shape for being that old!
 
Andy1845c said:
Is that the original "Hamster wheel"? It looks like its in really good shape for being that old!

I presume it's been restored? - I must admit I was amazed at the idea of it, it had never occurred to me they used to do that.
 
Its hard to see exactly how it worked from the picture. Have you seen it in person Nigel? I wonder if it had some type of ratchet mechanism to keep the load from falling in the event one of the men in the wheel fell. I'd sure hate to be in there when somthing went wrong and the load spun the thing backwards.
 
Andy1845c said:
Its hard to see exactly how it worked from the picture. Have you seen it in person Nigel? I wonder if it had some type of ratchet mechanism to keep the load from falling in the event one of the men in the wheel fell. I'd sure hate to be in there when somthing went wrong and the load spun the thing backwards.

Yes, I have seen it (I'll have to go again and look) - I had exactly the same thought as you, and I seem to recall there was no safety mechanism at all!.

Still, peasants didn't cost much, and if they died it meant you didn't have to pay them! :D
 
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