[Energy] Standardizing pedal power for the occupiers
Amos Blanton
amos.blanton at gmail.com
Tue Nov 8 17:56:20 EST 2011
On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 5:25 PM, Timothy Robertson <tim_r at mit.edu> wrote:
> Amos,
>
> I really enjoyed the diagram. I would like to suggest that the other
> members of the group start taking photos and writing down their notes. Not
> that we necessarily need documentation, but it would be great to have
> images/notes for websites and future members to learn from.
>
Absolutely. Should such things live on a wiki? Occupy Boston's? One could
imagine having a page that lists all the various resources and docs related
to pedal power would be useful.
Also, I meant to copyleft the diagram and will do so soon so it can be
refined by anyone.
> Hi y'all --
> Have any occupations other than Boston and Wall Street been in the loop
> with this pedal power group? If not, I'd love to volunteer Boston's
> InterOccupy Communications working group to take point on disseminating
> materials like Amos' diagram to other Occupations around the
> country/globe/solar system/etc.
> Thanks so very much,
> -- Farhad
I don't know how much interconnection has already happened - I think Ted
would be a good one to ask. As for disseminating, please go ahead.
-Amos
> Best,
>
> Tim
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 4:54 PM, Farhad Ebrahimi <yahktoe at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi y'all --
>>
>> Have any occupations other than Boston and Wall Street been in the loop
>> with this pedal power group? If not, I'd love to volunteer Boston's
>> InterOccupy Communications working group to take point on disseminating
>> materials like Amos' diagram to other Occupations around the
>> country/globe/solar system/etc.
>>
>> Thanks so very much,
>> -- Farhad
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 4:49 PM, Ted Moallem <ted.moallem at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> For the bike and motor-mount hardware, we basically want to replicate
>>> Pedal-a-watt generator design <http://www.econvergence.net/electro.htm>(
>>> http://www.econvergence.net/electro.htm), but with a price tag that's a
>>> lot closer to FREE.
>>>
>>> OccupyWS sustainability group and TimesUp! are building similar
>>> contraptions, but they have an actual budget and sense of urgency, so we
>>> should probably simplify construction more than they did.
>>>
>>> Does anyone happen to have a Pedal-a-watt stand (or the gaming
>>> equivalent) that we could use as a model?
>>>
>>>
>>> Amos, the diagram looks great. Let's arrange a time to get together
>>> with Noah Vawter and anyone else interested to put together a circuit
>>> design. Some of this can probably be simplified, at least initially ---
>>> e.g., with a clean 14v supply, we could power batteries directly and
>>> monitor charge level manually.
>>>
>>> Ted
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 2:06 PM, Amos Blanton <amos.blanton at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>> Here are some thoughts on strategies for standardizing / improving our
>>>> pedal power infrastructure.
>>>>
>>>> *TLDR; Use 12 volt cigarette lighter sockets / plugs as a standard
>>>> interface, focus engineering efforts on making a cheap open-source power
>>>> regulator that lots of different pedal generators can use.*
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> [image: PedalPowerstandards.png]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *This diagram breaks things down into two categories: supplies and
>>>> loads*
>>>> Supplies are things you can plug stuff into to get power: generators
>>>> (pedal and wind), and power / battery packs. Loads are things that use the
>>>> power they supply.
>>>>
>>>> *It would be useful to declare some standards - 12 volt being the
>>>> first one*. One could imagine a scenario where all the occupies agree
>>>> on a standard and an interface for things that create power and things that
>>>> use it. If OWS needs more power for an event, Boston can send them a few of
>>>> their generators for a couple days, and / or vice versa. You get all kinds
>>>> of emergence and unexpected benefits when you standardize the interface as
>>>> a constraint and then let people innovate what's behind it.
>>>>
>>>> *If we're using 12 volts, then we might as well use the cigarette
>>>> lighter plug as the interface* because there are lots of things that
>>>> work with them out of the box. Aside from the many cell phone chargers, usb
>>>> octopai, etc, you can get for your car, there are also a lot of cool
>>>> electrical things made for RVs and boats, like coffee pots, slow cookers,
>>>> refrigerators, and what have you. And marine grade 12 V cigarette sockets /
>>>> plugs will actually lock in place.
>>>>
>>>> This approach suggests we should focus our efforts in two places.
>>>>
>>>> *1. Make universal power regulators that can be used with (almost) any
>>>> pedal generator*
>>>>
>>>> It doesn't take a deep understanding of electrical engineering to make
>>>> a pedal generator: you just have to figure out how to turn a motor
>>>> backwards. The difficult part is what to do with the unregulated, dirty, DC
>>>> electricity that comes out of the generator wires in order to make it
>>>> consistent, safe, and usable, so it can interoperate with all the things we
>>>> might want to connect it to. Once a cheap power regulator is designed and
>>>> made available, lots of people can then make pedal generators. They can
>>>> order the assembled power regulator from sparkfun, or DIY it from plans
>>>> made available, and then they're golden: hook up the two wires from the
>>>> generator to the in, and then hook up the two wires for the out to a
>>>> cigarette lighter socket. It doesn't matter that their generator looks or
>>>> works differently than all the rest, as long as the output conforms to the
>>>> standards.
>>>>
>>>> A thumbnail first draft of a spec for the power regulator:
>>>>
>>>> - Contains a bridge rectifier so you can't pedal backwards and
>>>> generate negative voltage
>>>> - Takes in power ranging from - 30V to +30V and consistently
>>>> outputs clean 14.5 volts ( which most 12 volt things can accept, and the
>>>> extra couple volts are useful if you are charging a battery pack)
>>>> - Consider using a largish capacitor so one can slow down pedaling
>>>> or even switch riders for a second and still put out consistent power.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *2. Build Power packs with charge controllers*
>>>>
>>>> 12 volts won't travel far on a wire without losing its oomph, and we
>>>> can't put generators everywhere. So that means we need portable power packs
>>>> to distribute power to where its needed on site. Batteries need charge
>>>> controllers with simple interfaces to be usable by the masses. They should
>>>> prevent over charge or undercharge, and they should tell the user when they
>>>> are being charged or discharged, and approx. how much juice they have left.
>>>> And it should make difficult to lick the terminals or short the leads, or
>>>> otherwise do something dangerous.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *User Stories:*
>>>>
>>>> Here are some user stories of how I could imagine this working as we
>>>> scale up:
>>>>
>>>> - The cook notices the light is getting dim, so the next morning
>>>> someone takes the power pack to the pedal tent, where they charge it for an
>>>> hour or so. They bring it back, plug it in, and the lights are good for
>>>> another few days.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> - One of the people in the media tent needs to work on their laptop
>>>> all night, so they go the pedal tent and "sign out" a power pack and and AC
>>>> 120 volt inverter (and possibly leave some kind of collateral). The next
>>>> morning they return both to the pedal tent coordinator, who places the
>>>> power pack in the "dead" queue. Legions of healthy young pedalers stop by
>>>> throughout the day and charge it and the rest of packs back up, under the
>>>> watchful eye of the coordinator / pedal power team.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> ________________________________
>>>
>>> Theodore Moallem, Ph.D.
>>> moallem at mit.edu
>>>
>>> http://BlindLead.mit.edu
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Tim Robertson II
> MIT 2011
> Mechanical Engineering
>
>
>
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