Power Generating Backpack

[destudent]

Hey, I am working on fabricating a backpack that can produce energy that can used to power a cell phone battery, GPS, etc. To do this I would have a gear rack that would be moving up and down caused by the suspension of the backpack weight. The problem that arises is that the gear rack turns a pinion gear which is attached to a gear motor, but the motor outputs a positive voltage when the gear up on the pinion gear and negative when it moves down. My question is if there is a chip that anyone knows about that will continuously keep the polarity at a positive voltage? Any comments or advice will be very helpful. Thanks.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Hey, I am working on fabricating a backpack that can produce energy that can used to power a cell phone battery, GPS, etc. To do this I would have a gear rack that would be moving up and down caused by the suspension of the backpack weight. The problem that arises is that the gear rack turns a pinion gear which is attached to a gear motor, but the motor outputs a positive voltage when the gear up on the pinion gear and negative when it moves down. My question is if there is a chip that anyone knows about that will continuously keep the polarity at a positive voltage? Any comments or advice will be very helpful. Thanks.

Just a simple bridge rectifier.

 

[Mr RB]

It's a clever idea but I think you would struggle even to get a watt out of it reliably.

You could stick a small solar panel to the top of the backpack and get far more than a watt. Of course that will only happen when it is in the sun, but then the solar backpack will still generate power when you are resting or cooking etc, so its a tradeoff.