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U.S. Gyms to generate their own power

Catwell
There are already over 80 gyms in the United States outfitted with energy collectors on their various exercise machines. One in particular, the Green Microgym in Portland Oregon, is completely outfitted with generators. But, it isn't completely off the grid. Even though a gym's power budget is based on lights, environmental control, and various computer based exercise machines the power generated by the 200 members isn't enough to impress. It is a step in the right direction.
 
The main problem begins with the cost of each retrofit generator, which comes to be around $1000 per machine. So, with 200 machines, this can be a sizable investment. Similar to solar cells, these generators only produce results when used. If you have ever been to a gym, you'll see a lot of unused equipment just rusting away. And with the 1-2 month motivation span from each gym member, the devices will take quite a long time to pay for themselves.
 
It is a step in the right direction. As generators become more efficient, these simple ideas will be far more useful. Just imagine adding the same generators to all public doors, or really, anything that moves. Micro energy harvesting will most likely be all the rage in a few years. It's unfortunate that, often, it takes more energy to produce the generators than they themselves produce in a year or more.
 
Anyone go to a gym that has generators on the cycles?
 
Cabe
 
PS. Although expensive, a power generating cycler, VisCycle, can be ordered directly from the Green Microgym's website site. That is a great idea. Here is another great idea, harnessing childrens' excess energy and turn it into Kilowatt-hours!

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Parents

  • Actually, there are many pieces of exercise equipment that generate their own power. Most of them don't offer a way to use any of the energy externally, they merly drain off the excess power through a rather large resistor. I bought an older one and found that it used a standard car alternator?!? Wow that makes things easy! They put a purpose built alternator in them that have dummy regulator chips (they only act as place holders, no circuitry inside). But, you can either trick the system to give you power using the existing circuitry (Like I tried to do), without schematics this becomes a tricky and time consuming task.  The easy way is to disconnect the alternator from the onboard circuitry and install a simple regulator circuit of your own. Use a potentiometer (Variable Resistor) to vary the voltage and off you go! Now you can set the output voltage to charge any combination of batteries with a range of voltages.  With a little filtering you can produce a stable output for charging cell phones and pda's, or just run a small fan to keep cool while exercising. Pretty neat I thought. The only problem with using an alternator as opposed to a generator is the need for a startup power source to give you an initial magnetic field to start power generation. If it has an alternator then it will also come with a small battery to do just that. Mine has an 8V lead acid, something small like 7ah or lower, don't need much to get the system started. A quick tap of a momentary switch takes care of that, just make sure you feed power back to keep this startup battery charged.

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  • Actually, there are many pieces of exercise equipment that generate their own power. Most of them don't offer a way to use any of the energy externally, they merly drain off the excess power through a rather large resistor. I bought an older one and found that it used a standard car alternator?!? Wow that makes things easy! They put a purpose built alternator in them that have dummy regulator chips (they only act as place holders, no circuitry inside). But, you can either trick the system to give you power using the existing circuitry (Like I tried to do), without schematics this becomes a tricky and time consuming task.  The easy way is to disconnect the alternator from the onboard circuitry and install a simple regulator circuit of your own. Use a potentiometer (Variable Resistor) to vary the voltage and off you go! Now you can set the output voltage to charge any combination of batteries with a range of voltages.  With a little filtering you can produce a stable output for charging cell phones and pda's, or just run a small fan to keep cool while exercising. Pretty neat I thought. The only problem with using an alternator as opposed to a generator is the need for a startup power source to give you an initial magnetic field to start power generation. If it has an alternator then it will also come with a small battery to do just that. Mine has an 8V lead acid, something small like 7ah or lower, don't need much to get the system started. A quick tap of a momentary switch takes care of that, just make sure you feed power back to keep this startup battery charged.

Children
  • in reply to Former Member

    Neat stuff!  There's an interesting (although not technical) video here describing one such gym in California.

     

    I'd like to grab an old exercise bike one day and rig it up as a generator... It's always frustrated me to see exercise equipment plugged into the wall.  I suppose taking AC power is simpler and likely cheaper, but it just seems like such a waste.

     

    Interestingly, a couple of years ago my parents bought a new exercise bike that was self-powered.  It worked great, but if you had to stop pedaling for just a few seconds, the whole system reset and you had to start your cycle over again.  So they asked me if I could fix that.  Well after a little probing I found the perfect spot to add a bundle of supercaps.  Now you get several minutes of non-pedaling time with only a few extra seconds required at startup to charge the caps.