Generating green juice by pedaling
by grmeyers
In an era when an abundance of items requires electrical or battery power to operate, what happens when you aren’t near the grid or – heaven forbid! – the power goes out?
Place your bike into a Pedal-A-Watt and generate electricity for yourself. Photo: Convergence Tech
There are some interesting portable power generating options are available to generate electricity from the sun or wind or by simply pedaling a stationary bicycle.
We begin with the do-it-yourself version of power generation: the bicycle. Convergence Tech manufactures the Pedal-A-Watt, a bicycle stand that not only generates electricity, it seconds as a fitness device. The power that’s generated can be used to power lights and/or other small appliances, such as laptops, cell phones, fluorescent or LED lights.
As Convergence Tech writes on its website, “Any bicycle that is in good shape will work with the Pedal-A-Watt Stand as the stand adjusts to fit any wheel size including children’s bikes.”
The company states that the average rider can produce between 125 and 300 watts using the Pedal-A-Watt. While this amount of power isn’t huge, many pieces of equipment draw very little power and can be powered for long spans of time with small amounts of power. As an example, a laptop draws 70 watts, thus one 20 minute workout could run the laptop for over an hour.
The Assembled Pedal-A-Watt (including a blocking diode) allows the owner to drop a bicycle into the stand, pedal and generate watts. According to Convergence, “The Assembled Pedal-A-Watt includes the bicycle stand, generator, 20 amp blocking diode, adjustment knob and instructions. The Pedal-A-Watt is built with off the shelf components to reduce waste and carbon footprint. The stand weighs 23 lbs.”
