Sunday, November 21, 2010

How much electricity could one generate with a home treadmill?

You could exercise on it, have your dog run round it instead of going to the park, get your kids to play on it. Would it be any good for running your lights/heating? Could we put them in gyms and power city blocks?How much electricity could one generate with a home treadmill?
I explored this idea a few years ago when I first started to go to they gym. I'm also into energy conservation and alternative energy sources. I once went to a power station's visitor's centre where you could get on a stationary bike, which was wired to a 60Watt light bulb. I had to pedal quite hard to produce enough energy to power that light bulb. Having said that, I still thought that all those people who run on the tread mill in the gym (or rowing machine, bike etc.) could produce a lot of electricity. The question would be with how you are going to store this energy and stuff. Remember, as soon as you stop pedaling, the light bulb goes out. I'm sure that the electricity needed to power a gym equipment can be created by working on that equipment, but you need to find a way of conserving that energy to put it to good use. It is a great thing though, because there's a lot of people out there who clearly need the exercise or who have no jobs and they could do this all thay and create electricity.How much electricity could one generate with a home treadmill?
To store the energy for later, the treadmill could raise an object or fluid and store it at a high level tank. When released, there would be the a hydro dynamic energy released. Still have to have the conversion to electric unit if a light bulb was the intended target.

Ni

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The power should charge a battery, which makes the power storeable, to use when and where you need it. I've been wondering with the new low watt bulbs if this could be becoming a better solution as time goes by.

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A person could generate about 100W continuous. Higher powers would wear you out fast. Just about enough for a small light and a small TV. Not a very good solution to the energy crisis.
this wouldn't work very well because of the way treadmills are constructed, if there were an actual resistance (such as a generator), you would want to run off the treadmill, you would need to somehow brace yourself against the treadmill, not very comfortable
When you run upstairs your power will be about

mgh/t = 60 kg x 10 N/kg x 3m / 2 s = 900 watt.

For a short time your power can be about 0.9 kW

Soon your body will be exhausted.



Th

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