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Topic: Miners on gas or exercise? (Read 3161 times)

sr. member
Activity: 542
Merit: 251
March 19, 2015, 11:48:04 AM
#27
A generator is not really made to run 24/7 they are made for when the power goes out you have a backup. I think the generator would die out quickly if being used at full all the time.
legendary
Activity: 1274
Merit: 1004
March 16, 2015, 08:15:07 PM
#26
For a wind turbine, yes. For a bike it's pretty easy. Standard cadence is around 60RPM or so, and you can get around a 3:1 ratio in a high gear, so that's about 180 wheel RPM. If you use a 26" wheel and a standard 2" pulley on the alt, you'd be spinning the alt at 2300, which is way more than the minimum.
newbie
Activity: 57
Merit: 0
March 16, 2015, 03:58:07 PM
#25
If you want to save yourself some time and effort, consider buying a motor kit. I've wound a couple helicopter motors that needed an extremely low RPM/volt using kits from Scorpion Power systems, and it makes the job much easier. It's still a fiddly process, but since you get the casing, shaft, bearings, etc it's nothing like trying to make everything out of resin.

I'll look into that. If I can find some good old motors or motor casings I'll probably get that instead.

That'd be cheaper, although removing the existing windings can be a huge PITA.

Honestly, you might just be better off buying an automotive alternator from a wrecker and using that. It'd be the cheapest and least time consuming.

I looked at that, and the RPMs needed to create any useful amount of energy is way to much. Even for a wind turbine it's not recommended.

Here's a quote from a site which explains the car alternator for wind turbines better than I can. You can imagine human power would be less than wind power in terms of longevity and, at some points of wind speed, RPMs.

Quote
I’m thinking about using an automobile alternator for a homebuilt wind generator. Will this work?

Ron Johnson • Albuquerque, New Mexico

Hello Ron, A car alternator is a bad choice for a wind generator. The efficiency in normal use is never more than about 60 percent. The bearings are too small to reliably support large blades (more than about 1.5 meters diameter). It is designed to be lightweight and robust, and to withstand running at very high rpm. At low rpm it produces nothing, and low rpm is where wind generators spend the majority of their time running.

If you use a car alternator in a wind turbine, the speed problem can be addressed in one of several unsatisfactory ways:

  • Use a small blade area so that the short blades can spin at high rpm. This means that you cannot catch much wind, and even so, you will need a high wind speed to get the necessary rpm. It will also take a lot of wind to produce high enough power to excite the magnetic field and actually have energy to spare.
  • Use gearing to increase the rpm. This involves extra cost, extra losses, extra unreliability, and overall ugly and clumsy engineering.
  • Rewind the coils to work at lower speed. This means more turns of thinner wire in each coil. This reduces the cut-in rpm, but also increases the losses in the coils themselves, limiting the power output and further reducing the already low efficiency.
  • A car alternator’s rotor needs to be powered to excite the magnetic field. The field has to be at a maximum to get output at the lowest speed. This represents a constant power loss of 30 to 40 watts during operation. You will also have to remove and bypass the internal regulator. The internal regulator in the alternator is not suitable for charging a deep-cycle battery via a long wire run.

While it is cheap and attractive at first look, the car alternator is more trouble than it is worth. It is better to build a purpose-built alternator for a wind turbine.
legendary
Activity: 1274
Merit: 1004
March 16, 2015, 12:04:02 PM
#24
If you want to save yourself some time and effort, consider buying a motor kit. I've wound a couple helicopter motors that needed an extremely low RPM/volt using kits from Scorpion Power systems, and it makes the job much easier. It's still a fiddly process, but since you get the casing, shaft, bearings, etc it's nothing like trying to make everything out of resin.

I'll look into that. If I can find some good old motors or motor casings I'll probably get that instead.

That'd be cheaper, although removing the existing windings can be a huge PITA.

Honestly, you might just be better off buying an automotive alternator from a wrecker and using that. It'd be the cheapest and least time consuming.
newbie
Activity: 57
Merit: 0
March 16, 2015, 11:30:00 AM
#23
If you want to save yourself some time and effort, consider buying a motor kit. I've wound a couple helicopter motors that needed an extremely low RPM/volt using kits from Scorpion Power systems, and it makes the job much easier. It's still a fiddly process, but since you get the casing, shaft, bearings, etc it's nothing like trying to make everything out of resin.

I'll look into that. If I can find some good old motors or motor casings I'll probably get that instead.

http://www.fitcoins.net/

Check this out!  Grin

I could do this fitcoins thing while I'm charging up my miners battery bank as well Smiley
legendary
Activity: 1274
Merit: 1004
March 16, 2015, 11:09:13 AM
#22
If you want to save yourself some time and effort, consider buying a motor kit. I've wound a couple helicopter motors that needed an extremely low RPM/volt using kits from Scorpion Power systems, and it makes the job much easier. It's still a fiddly process, but since you get the casing, shaft, bearings, etc it's nothing like trying to make everything out of resin.
newbie
Activity: 57
Merit: 0
March 16, 2015, 10:20:03 AM
#21
I stated before that I am going to be doing it for fun after you pointed out that it would be not something to do for a profit. No ROI needed.

And when I do store up enough power to run my ant s3 for an hour or a few hours, I can call it a success. Even if it isn't the most profitable or reasonable way to get power, it will still be fun to do.
Yes this is true but what machine would you be using? All the ones I have seen are next level expensive.

I will be using some neodymium n52 grade magnets along with coils of enameled copper wire. Mould those in separate resin disks and mount them with the coils stationary, magnets rotate. Hooke those up to a battery bank(batteries charged with electricity through charge controller and passed to electronic through inverter.)

That is all that is needed to create an electrical generator/alternator.

It's a fun DIY project you can make pretty cheap.

The good thing about making your own is you can determine the size of the coils and magnets which determine the electricity being generated. The speed of the rotation also determines that so it's a combo of speed and size.

How much can it generate from a human peddling is what I will find out when it's built.

Altogether you can make a DIY generator for as low as $100 depending on how big you want the magnets and coils to be. The full system would be a bit more but you can keep it pretty cheap.

I'm using some big 4" x 2" x 1/2" n52 magnets with 30 parallel wraps of 14 gauge copper enameled wire to see if I can get a good generation going.

If it doesn't produce at least what MrTeal said, around 150W in 2 hours, I can always turn it into a wind turbine or hydroelectric generator and try again.

You could probably make one with some n42 cylinder magnets around 1" diameter 1/4" thick and 16 gauge enameled copper wire 15-20 wraps for around $100.

The rest of the supplies to store the electricity and use it could be as cheap as $100. That would include the battery, a rectifier, charge controller and a small inverter. This is depending on which ones you use, of course, and the maximum watts you are looking for.
legendary
Activity: 1484
Merit: 1004
March 16, 2015, 09:04:12 AM
#20
http://www.fitcoins.net/

Check this out!  Grin
newbie
Activity: 57
Merit: 0
March 16, 2015, 08:42:19 AM
#19
I stated before that I am going to be doing it for fun after you pointed out that it would be not something to do for a profit. No ROI needed.

And when I do store up enough power to run my ant s3 for an hour or a few hours, I can call it a success. Even if it isn't the most profitable or reasonable way to get power, it will still be fun to do.
legendary
Activity: 1274
Merit: 1004
March 14, 2015, 11:06:01 PM
#18
I did a bunch of research on homemade wind turbines the last few days. It's very much possible to run a miner off of previously stored energy in a battery through an inverter. If that energy just happens to be made from a person peddling a stationary bike it won't change the outcome. Just the energy source.

It's not meant to run it full time but as a secondary source.

Taking some big 4x2x1/2 neodymium n52 magnets and some 14 gauge enameled copper wire. Coil the wire, run magnets opposite polarity across the wire in a 3 phase configuration, you produce AC current.

Hook it up to a 3 phase rectifier then to a charge controller to a battery bank you get DC power stored in a battery.

Run the battery bank to an inverter to change back to AC current and you can use that to power any electronic. Just depends how long before you need the grid again.

Hook the inverter up to your breaker box correctly, you shed cash from your power bill. This might have to be done by an electrician if you do this.


If you think I'm saying, "yea I'm going to power a miner for days from this." That is not at all what I'm saying

It may take a week to build up enough power for 15 hours of mining. But that's still 15 hours off your power bill. Also some exercise.

Now if you hook blades up to the stator(diy alternator) you can turn it into a wind turbine in the off time and possibly get more.

This really has nothing to do with miners specifically. You could say the same thing about just supplying some power to your home. They problem is that you'll likely never pay off the stuff you need to buy to do this.
Let's say you can produce 150W for two hours, every day. That's 0.3kWh of energy produced per day. Even if you're paying $0.20/kWh, that's $0.06/day in electricity produced. Even if you only spend $100 on your whole bicycle setup, it would take you almost 5 years of biking as hard as you can for two hours just to pay off that $100
newbie
Activity: 57
Merit: 0
March 14, 2015, 05:54:16 PM
#17
I did a bunch of research on homemade wind turbines the last few days. It's very much possible to run a miner off of previously stored energy in a battery through an inverter. If that energy just happens to be made from a person peddling a stationary bike it won't change the outcome. Just the energy source.

It's not meant to run it full time but as a secondary source.

Taking some big 4x2x1/2 neodymium n52 magnets and some 14 gauge enameled copper wire. Coil the wire, run magnets opposite polarity across the wire in a 3 phase configuration, you produce AC current.

Hook it up to a 3 phase rectifier then to a charge controller to a battery bank you get DC power stored in a battery.

Run the battery bank to an inverter to change back to AC current and you can use that to power any electronic. Just depends how long before you need the grid again.

Hook the inverter up to your breaker box correctly, you shed cash from your power bill. This might have to be done by an electrician if you do this.


If you think I'm saying, "yea I'm going to power a miner for days from this." That is not at all what I'm saying

It may take a week to build up enough power for 15 hours of mining. But that's still 15 hours off your power bill. Also some exercise.

Now if you hook blades up to the stator(diy alternator) you can turn it into a wind turbine in the off time and possibly get more.
legendary
Activity: 1414
Merit: 1077
March 14, 2015, 05:49:04 PM
#16
miners that takes energy from physical exercise? i don't think it's possible....you need a very big amount of energy, you cannot do it with a bike.
if you're interested in finding a way to mine some coin from physical activities you should check out Mangocoinz!

I'll show you guys what I mean when it's done... It's not running the miner directly from it.

It's storing power in a battery bank for later then switching back to your home electricity.

Or just chipping off cash from your monthly home electric bill.


There's no way you can do this from pedal power it's impossible.
newbie
Activity: 57
Merit: 0
March 14, 2015, 05:35:53 PM
#15
miners that takes energy from physical exercise? i don't think it's possible....you need a very big amount of energy, you cannot do it with a bike.
if you're interested in finding a way to mine some coin from physical activities you should check out Mangocoinz!

I'll show you guys what I mean when it's done... It's not running the miner directly from it.

It's storing power in a battery bank for later then switching back to your home electricity.

Or just chipping off cash from your monthly home electric bill.
full member
Activity: 224
Merit: 100
March 14, 2015, 05:32:35 PM
#14
miners that takes energy from physical exercise? i don't think it's possible....you need a very big amount of energy, you cannot do it with a bike.
if you're interested in finding a way to mine some coin from physical activities you should check out Mangocoinz!
newbie
Activity: 57
Merit: 0
March 14, 2015, 05:31:18 PM
#13
You must be joking thinking you can run a miner from pedal power surely Huh

As for gas I don't know but I'm sure if it were possible it would've been done by now.

Better off sticking to whats known and that's cheap or free electricity and efficient miners.

It's not just pedal power. Look up DIY 1000watt wind turbine.

Also it's not just purely from that. It's switching back and forth from home electric to alternator when the battery bank runs dry.

Have 5000 watt battery bank and you get 15 hours of free power from an S3 after charging.

Or it's running the alternator on your grid so it doesn't power the miner directly, but takes cash off of your monthly bill...
legendary
Activity: 1414
Merit: 1077
March 14, 2015, 05:28:10 PM
#12
You must be joking thinking you can run a miner from pedal power surely Huh.

You would be dead before you made 0.01btc.

As for gas I don't know but I'm sure if it were possible it would've been done by now.

Better off sticking to whats known and that's cheap or free electricity and efficient miners.
newbie
Activity: 57
Merit: 0
March 14, 2015, 05:19:59 PM
#11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVAZIDFMRXY

Pretty cheap.

Just plug it to a charger and charge a batterie. When its full use it to mine then when the battery get low, switch back to grid.

You will save some $ (really low) but hey if you do bicycle every day why not save some $ at the same time.  Grin

This is what I am going to be doing. But making my own alternator and have a battery bank to store the electricity for later. You always have the grid for when you run out as well.

I think it's a good way to get in shape and stay in shape.

It's not terribly expensive. I have most of what I need. A bike, resin, etc.

The magnets are the most expensive. About $200 to get some bulky n52 grade neodymium magnets for greater power generation and then $60 for some copper wire for the coils.

The design I'm going off of produces about 1000 Watts an hour when on a wind turbine. So I'll see what it produces when you have a geared bike hooked up to it moving faster.

I can also hook up some blades to turn it into a wind turbine when not riding.

It can be hooked directly to the grid too and get some money off of your monthly bill. This way it has more uses to it.
legendary
Activity: 1484
Merit: 1004
March 14, 2015, 10:12:22 AM
#10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVAZIDFMRXY

Pretty cheap.

Just plug it to a charger and charge a batterie. When its full use it to mine then when the battery get low, switch back to grid.

You will save some $ (really low) but hey if you do bicycle every day why not save some $ at the same time.  Grin
legendary
Activity: 1904
Merit: 1074
March 12, 2015, 02:02:21 AM
#9
The amount of fuel you would need to run the generator will offset the profit you would gain from it. {It will increase polution too}  Sad

In my country gas and electricity costs are about the same price... so I do not even consider that. I have thought of wind and solar energy, but the cost to set it up, would also offset my chance to ROI.

We need something with very little "setup" cost and something that is friendly to the environment.  Wink 
full member
Activity: 125
Merit: 100
March 11, 2015, 10:33:24 PM
#8
First of all the generator will have an initial cost of purchase and then running and maintenance. Not many generators are fit for constant running, so a typical cheap stuff won't cut it you'll need an industrial or military grade gear. What is more a small generator with low wattage will be much less efficient than a big one, so buying it for a small mining farm is a waste of cash.
There are special kits that allow you to use propane as fuel. If you really have to use a generator buy this kit, it's much cheaper.

Someone raised this on r/bitcoinmining not long ago. Someone else pointed out that there is an It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia where Charlie decides that "electricity is too expensive" and starts to power the bar with a generator, only to find out how much more expensive fuel is than electricity. The only country this plan would make sense is maybe Venezuela. And any sort of investment there doesn't make much sense.
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