Several readers have emailed me about this great project from Instructables. A group of students from MIT have created a system that uses a turning bike wheel to charge USB devices. It’s not quite a consumer-ready product yet, but it’s definitely got some promise.
Check it out:
How to Charge Any USB Device by Riding Your Bike – More DIY How To Projects
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Nobody in Europe would ever have had the idea to use a modified 275 dollar electric motor as the generator. As commenters on the page have pointed out there’s this great invention called dynamo…
The circuit design is helpful, though. Circuit board plus hub dynamo would be a great touring setup to recharge a GPS or a flashlight. Maybe I should dust off my soldering iron.
Or this:
http://www.jawetec.de/index.php?content=bikecharger&framing=radsport&PHPSESSID=v80hu3cfri1s7oadf274mp05c0&PHPSESSID=v80hu3cfri1s7oadf274mp05c0
Where can these schematics be found?