We recently built two smoothie bike systems with large light-up advertising signs. These use our electrical pedal generators to charge some capacitors. This electrical energy is then used to power some standard electric smoothie machines. There is a large LED sign which lights up as you ‘fill’ the unit with energy and the, when the energy is used up, the lights switch off.
[Read more…]4 Bike Lights and Energy Display
We were asked to create a four bike pedal power system for French company Mes Scenes Des Stars, who provide fun and interactive exhibits at events around France. This system needed to be an energy race, where lights fill up as the cyclists pedal, and also a pedal Christmas light system. It also had two pedal smoothie bike attachments which can be added on. It’s the Swiss Army knife of pedal power systems!
Review of 2019
While I have not been putting many posts on the website recently, I have been very busy with pedal powered projects! In 2019 I worked on 12 large pedal powered projects (not including the hire of pedal powered equipment for events). This included supplying 31 pedal generator units and 7 pedal powered Scalextric systems. I’ve been trying to standardise a lot of kit I supply, but every project is different! I thought I would review some of these projects.
[Read more…]Pedal Generators
We can supply many different types of pedal generators, including portable systems.
We have three main types of generator:
- Roller Wheel Generator
- Hub Generator
- Recumbent Generator
Two Bike Energy Challenge
Here is our two-bike pedal power challenge. This comprises of two large LED bar graphs to show either power or energy.
The challenge can be either a timed challenge, where the winner is the person who generates the most energy or the maximum power, or it can be a race to generate a certain amount of energy.
This can be linked in to energy efficiency advice and gives the users an interactive way of feeling how much energy different devices use.
Pedal Power Energy Challenge
We were asked to provide a pedal power challenge for a sports promotion company.
We provided a two bike energy challenge with two large LED bar graphs. The energy from the cyclist is measured and displayed on the bar graph. The challenge is for 30 seconds and there is a large LED timer which counts down. The person who has generated the most energy in that time is the winner.
Pedal Power Fairy Lights
Here are some photos of our pedal powered fairy lights. This unit can take one or two pedal generators and powers strings of LED lights, 5m or more. The unit stores the energy from the cyclist in an ultra-capacitor and, when the capacitor is full, it runs the LED lights with a randomly chosen effect.
8-Bike Pedal Powered Scalextric
Every so often a project comes along that would have been the envy of my childhood self. This was one of those projects – I was asked to build a 8 lane pedal powered Scalextric. This meant putting together Scalextric track designs and testing Scalextric cars.
I was really pleased with the end result, which was built within a 10 day timescale. [Read more…]
Pedal power cinema
RE-Innovation joined forces with Magnificent Revolution to increase the pedal power capacity of Bristol. Check out Magnificent Revolution’s website for more details.
This included a two-day workshop for a number of bicycle related community groups to produce four pedal power generators, a one-day public pedal power workshop and a two and a half hour pedal powered screening of Metropolis at the Cube cinema. This was organised with the help of Sprockets and Dust.
