Human-Powered Generator For Off-Grid Electricity - British Military Surplus Radio Power System
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 เม.ย. 2024
- This is a 1953 Pedal Generator, British Army surplus. I found it at a local estate sale and just had to hoard it! The thing still works, and I was able to charge up a small 12v battery with it.
The entire unit folds up into a backpack, and is surprisingly easy to carry around and to use. While I wouldn't want to pedal it all day it does juice up batteries as well as giving me a workout!
This might show up in some future videos where I'm doing off-grid radio and satellite stuff, I haven't quite decided yet. In the meantime it's going to become part of my fallout shelter artifact corner in the basement.
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I am a member of a amateur radio society in the Bromley area. Will be sharing this. Im sure some of the old boys will know all about it.
I know John (MNY) definitely will
I have been on( and off) CB since since 1974. I have purchased a 10M radio. Who do I contact around Minneapolis about a license to use it? I have a decent grasp of Ohm's law, parallel/series resistance/DC voltage and NEC grounding/bonding.
The white powder from the rubber cables is called bloom and its caused by excess material that is contained in the rubber after vulcanization. Its harmless and is usually just made of whatever additives they added to stabilize the rubber during the time.
"Whatever additives" in the 1950's could mean asbestos or uranium wahahaha!
No it's not. It's dried slurry. After the extruded rubber/conductors run through the cure-ovens it's ran though a slurry bath, then ran through the drying-section before it's wound onto the big bulk spools. The dried slurry keeps the cables from sticking together on the spools. The slurry has talc in it and that's what's on those cables. However back in the 50's before breathing suspended particulates was a concern, the cables may have ran through a shaker drum in a talc-booth before being wound on the spools.
Nothing in any cured rubber compounds leeches out like that. I worked for BTR and Goodyear for over 30yrs.
That’s great info thanks. I’ve seen this on old cords for computers I have.
@@MAGGOT_VOMIT i was just joking but thanks for the knowledge.
that's interesting, is it common for their the be that much? seemed like a lot of powder.
This was a trip down memory lane. I recall trying to use one of these on a QRP field day in the1970s. Less than successful, we just weren't fit enough to keep the thing providing enough power. Fine for receive but as soon as we transmitted the level of exertion really increased. I wouldn't worry about wearing it out, the British Army would have massively over engineered it, it will last forever.
The reason the circuit kicks in above 12v is because lead-acid batteries require more voltage to charge than their nominal output voltage. That is an awesome device!
That would also protect the device from being overloaded with electricity running from the battery to the charger.
I think there is a reason for the light on the generator. The unit is called 60 W - 15 V. Considering that I would guess going about full throttle on that generator would give you 4 amps at 15 volts which is too much for that battery 14.7V it would have absorbed most of it's capacity and thus light-on means battery at high capacity..
I have heard the Bowflex described as world's most expensive clothes hanger
7:14 Cat knows teleportation.
Cats know all secrets of universe.
Crap it sure does 😂
Same thing with K8MRD Ham Radio Tube's cat.
As someone who was born just down the road from Bromley, I approve of this video.
Ham Radio Field Day is coming up... this unit could do the Natural Power contacts, you get extra points for this! As you said, it needs a battery (or a super cap?) connected. To qualify for the Natural Power thing the battery would need to start as discharged. Nice find! We made a bicycle generator from a scooter motor and a big capacitor... this looks a lot easier to use.
Love the authenticity you bring us!
Gabe, that white powder is dried slurry. After the extruded rubber/conductors run through the cure-ovens it's ran though a slurry bath, then ran through the drying-section before it's wound onto the big bulk spools. The dried slurry keeps the cables from sticking together on the spools. The slurry has talc in it and that's what's on those cables. However back in the 50's before breathing suspended particulates was a concern, the cables may have ran through a shaker drum in a talc-booth before being wound on the spools.
I don't know where that guy in the comments got that bs "bloom" from. Nothing in any rubber compounds leeches out of cured rubber like that. I worked for BTR and Goodyear for over 30yrs.
you only get bloom when cooking chocolate
Great find! I love seeing old surplus gear like that
Battery tech here: LFP Batteries don't mind fluctuating power at all. In fact they're better at handling fluctuating power thanks to the higher charge efficiencies. With the power station you should be fine as long as you don't exceed the MPPT voltage range as that could start damaging things.
I can recommend gearless e-bike hub motors. Quiet and more efficient. Or the small hub motors from e-scooters, with just a handle and a 3-phase rectifier. The only thing you need to do is to connect the parallel windings in series.
I had no problem so far with li-ion batteries. I connect the generator directly to the battery, no charging circuit. Just watch volts and amps and you're fine. If the battery is big enough, you won't be able to exceed the max charging current.
Wipe the cables with some silicon oil, they will be like new. (not the spray, that's bad for rubber)😉
Quite a spectacular find! It's perfect for a power outage!
Cool. Bots in the comments. Video hasn't been up two minutes and there's three of them.
Yeah they auto-post as soon as a new video goes up, I try to keep on top of it :-P
They're as inevitable and harmful as bacteria in a wound
@@saveitforparts yeah and they out smart most of TH-cam filters, in my experience TH-cam will hold back perfectly normal and innocent comments but the bots will slip right through, spamming you about Jesus and God knows what...
@@rubenskiiiYeah. IIRC, they had their start testing the limits of the filtering awhile ago with old accounts that posted fake conversations about the scam. Then, I guess they just used that knowledge to imitate what annoying begging TH-camrs do in order to fit in better and get more clicks.
It also doesn't help that the TH-cam comments engagement algorithm shoves them in your face 24/7.
I have one of these car battery jump starter packs. You know the kind that you can plug in to charge off of household AC and it has the jumper cables on it. When you click the Switch to on it basically connects the jumper cables on it straight up to the lead acid battery that's inside the unit. You could possibly charge the lead acid battery directly off of this generator you have by hooking the output of Your generator their straight up to the clip ends of those jumper cables. The jump starter pack that I have actually has USB outputs on it. So you could use your generator to charge the jump starter pack, and then use the USB ports to charge your cell phones and other small devices after you've fully charged your jump starter pack.
Coincidentally, several U.S. states and parts of Canada were hit by a series of blackouts lasting up to 13 hours in the Northeast Blackout of November 1965.
Awesome vid 👍 off grid power gadgets are the best🏆
You could charge the LiFePO4 Batteries with that thing (at least if it's pure DC and not AC coming out). The changing current shouldn't bother the batterie so much but you should definetively take care of the voltage! You must not overvoltage them. They will be damaged permanently. Usually on the battery itself is written "max voltage 15V" or so. So you would need something like charger circuit although you COULD charge them directly if you take very much care of the voltage 👍🏻
Edit: If you charge the small lead-acid batterie you should take care of the current too. Usually these small lead-acid batteries have limited charging current (usually 1/10C, so 8Ah batterie has 0,8A max charging current). I don't know how much your bike outputs 😊
Like your content very much! Keep going!
Love the randomness! What about driving it with a wind turbine to charge bigger batteries and stuff? Some simple voltage regulator would probably be good.
tungsten bulbs are very nonlinear. When they are cold the resistance is low. When it gets hot the resistance goes up. That causes the power to go up which heats the bulb faster. So I think it's just the bulb.
You can feed this into an MPPT charge controller on the solar input with a battery to get a reliable constant voltage supply with optimized battery charging. I hope you see this comment! MPPT controllers are awesome for this sort of application, and they are inexpensive!
You would most likely hook that pedal gennie (dynamo) up to some kind of smoothing capacitors and use what those spits out...
This is a very useful generator, and I also appreciate that it works independently of the sun and wind. It's great that it provides 12 volts, making it usable for many mobile devices. I've built a 10 ampere USB power supply with a DC/DC converter, which allows me to charge USB devices with 12 volts, and a generator like this would complement such a setup. Of course, such a device is also very useful when hunting for Bigfoot if you're spending many days in the forest. The idea that the generator can be folded and carried on the back is brilliant.🤗
That linoleum matches your gadget as well as the rest of your collection perfectly. And that exact kitchen sheet vinyl is a flashback from about 40 odd years ago.
Voltage regulators, buck converters or boost converters are pretty cheap and easy.
so cool!!! I want one!!!! :) I'm still constantly amazed at all the cool stuff you have found.. amazing.
@SaveItForParts: 6:20 The PRC-320 has a hand crank generator. When you first start cranking the generator, the indicator bulb will start to light. When you get the RPMs up to proper speed, the bulb turns off, indicating that you are at the 28V required to recharge the battery bank. Inside the had crank generator is a 3-phase generator going through a bridge rectifier, which can be run in either direction. There is also a window comparator circuit connected to the indicator bulb that helps you find the target voltage. Cool video, and nice find!
Your intro, made me smile. Who said Americans can't do parody. 😆
There is not 'cut in' circuit. The circuit in the user manual, showed a compound wound DC motor. So the stator is an electromagnet. And sufficient speed is required for the residual magnetism in the armature, to create a voltage to build a magnetic field in the stator, and as a current begins to flow, magnetic fields rapidly increase in a positive feedback (more magnetic field makes more voltage, caused more current to flow, resulting in stronger magnetic field, and so on). I didn't see any voltage limiting in the circuit diagram, and will probably be limited only by the magnetic field saturation, armature speed, and current draw (resistance losses). The motor/generator, is identical electrically, to the generators of older cars (the ignition light would often come on when the engine idles, and there isn't enough speed (rate of magnetic flux change of the armature windings, through the stater magnetic flux) to maintain enough voltage to sustain the stator's current demands, to maintain enough flux for generation). Only difference is, the vehicle generator, has the stator circuit current, controlled by a regulator.
DC generator and regulator explanation here; th-cam.com/video/BYOE8RyL1Sw/w-d-xo.html
Thats one of the coolest things ive ever seen i want one so bad!
Very cool and unique video. Thanks again ❤
This is a neat field unit and in very good condition!!
Awesome find!! Looks like I need to put out a BOLO in my local area for one.
If you want to charge a lipo battery, im thinking an mppt charge controller geared towards wind generators. I would measure the maximum voltage and current output and acquire your charge controller accordingly. Great video.
I have a pedal generator hooked up to my 200Ah LiFePO4 pack - it's mainly charged by solar, so my cranking adds perhaps 20W on top of the 50W the solar panels make even on an overcast day! But I have it as a way of exercising while sat at my desk (in video calls) that puts the energy somewhere useful. Given how the solar power fluctuates when little clouds are scudding across the sky, I think it's barely worse than solar from a voltage/current regulation perspective, especially as I usually crank at a steady pace for a half hour meeting!
I should add: the voltage made by the thing is kinda dependent on how fast you pedal, and the resistance you feel is kinda dependent on the current drawn - so when charging batteries I feel minimal resistance until I'm pedalling quite fast then it suddenly bogs down as the battery starts to draw current. I think my unit could do with a slightly higher gear ratio so I don't need to pedal quite as fast to get to battery charging voltages, but it's OK. However if you connect a resistive load (I have a big heatsinked 1 ohm resistor), you get a nice smooth increase in load as you pedal harder. I also tried hooking up an electronic load and playing with the different modes - constant voltage mode (where it draws nothing until it reaches the target voltage, then draws as much current as it can to try and keep that voltage down) was the most comfortable for using it as an exercise device as I could just dial the constant voltage of the load to provide a comfortable resistance at a comfortable pedalling speed!
You need a power regulator circuit for charging a modern battery, like some capacitors at least...
Hi Gabe, amazing to see old issued kit still in great condition. Although this was before the time of my career in the British Royal Navy you would occasionally come across random items that had been sat on storage shelves from various eras. The inspection tally is very similar to ones that were still being used prior to me finishing my time so that made me smile 😊
I’d be interested to find out how this item found it’s way over to your side of the ‘pond’.
Thank you for sharing this excellent video, best wishes to you and your family and of course the feline overlords 🏴🇺🇸🐈
I think this was one of those surplus catalog items, it still had some of the original mailing labels for the prior owner. We still have one or two stores like Sportsman's Guide who buy surplus in bulk from other countries and sell it mail-order in the US. Fleet Farm was another local store that used to sell foreign surplus, I saw UK police and post office uniforms there. Sadly they stopped doing that :-(
@@saveitforparts that’s good to hear there’s a couple of shops that do that sort thing. There are quite a number of uk military stores shops up and down the country, though with the amount of kit I left with I could probably start my own one lol 😂
Cool find, especially with the manual!
I really want one of these human-powered generators. They're so cool!
hi Gabe, You mentioned 12volt a bit... But the manual says 60watt 15volt output on it.
a voltage regulator on a british car would often operate at 14.4v to charge a typical 12v battery.
if donny has a scamper wheel, you could hook this up to the drive shaft and charge from moggy power
Yeah, when people say "12 volt" they almost always mean "10-15V because it's meant to be run from what's sold as a 12v lead acid battery, which is more like 12.8v when fully charged down to 10v when you're starting to kill the battery, and charging is done at 14.8v down to 13.5v"
That paper may be VPI paper. Vapor Phase Inhibiting. You used to be able to buy it and put a piece in your silverware drawer to inhibit tarnishing. A lot of old military surplus used to be packed in cosmoline, a nasty gel like substance used for the same purpose. When you buy Chinese power tools directly, it often come coated with something similar to prevent rusting during the boat trip.
Now I wanna buy some Chinesium
That looks like a real uncomfortable qrp only field day solution. Thanks for sharing!
Fifteen minutes of that pedal generator should get you a good 6-12 hours operating CW or SSB out of most QRP rigs.
I've done 3hr or 4 hours digital(FT8) with my 705 using only on the stock battery (14wH)
Fine to charge the lipo like that. It has an internal BMS
Thanks for sharing 👍
I love how you didn't even flinch and just unwrapped it brother. I'd be conflicted about opening that!
It wasn't completely sealed, it looks like someone had started to open it. Plus I wanted to see what was in there!
You can hook up a cheap solar charge Controller.. this will smoothen out the overvoltage spikes
i love this man
During the 1948 Israel War of Independence Kibbutz Yehi'am in Western Galilee was under siege and isolated. Each day at a certain time a kibbutz member would take a turn cranking a *British army field generator* just like the one you are having fun with. This powered the radio receiver. Each day at a certain time they would listen to the broadcast directed to Western Galilee in case there was a message for them at Yehi'am in particular and also to hear the news about the war and what else might be happening in the new State of Israel. And when that broadcast finished, they would turned the radio off to save the tube filaments and stopped cranking. (There were no rechargeable batteries.)
You could always use a simple zener shunt regulator to eliminate the over voltage spikes. This would increase the presperation factor for the power unit.
That's the kind of guy you describe as a "chap".
Also, to make something like this work with modern battery chargers you'd just need something to stabilise the voltage between slow pedals. So a big capacitor and a regulator before the charging circuit would do. I wouldn't use it to charge anything more than 6-8v though like that. As for running something off it, same deal, as long as there's something in the power supply circuitry to take smooth the surges it'll run fine.
Yeah it would be fine to hook in series for battery and then out from there. The battery would level out the system. There was probably a whole training session on proper usage 😊
You should definitely connect that thing to an electrically quiet solar charge controller (like a Genasun), and then to a battery with a meter (to see how much charge your machine provides) and then use a radio on the battery for field day. You might not need the charge controller, but including something like that so that you don't have to think about how fast you peddle would be nifty. I suppose it depends on what voltages your battery will accept for charging.
So you're right in that the lithium cells won't like the constant variable power from the cranking of the generator- Lead Acids will always be around because they really take shock and variable DC power well. Worse is that it clearly has a kind of cutoff to 12 volts and above as seen by the increase in pedaling difficulty, and also because lead acids are really 13-14.4 volts natively. Thankfully you could do something with a bank of capacitors- or even a supercap- that would both "fix" your DC voltage like a surge tank, but also lower the electrical noise to where things like modern LEDs and phones could be charged (the constant Rrrr-Rrr-Rrrrr can even be seen in an oscilioscope, electronics don't like that kind of stuff). Cool find! Wish I had one too.
You would be fine with a larger LiFePo battery as well. It would behave similarly to the Lead Acid you tried. The battery ends up clamping down the voltage of the generator assuming it can handle the current you are providing, and realistically you're not going to generate more than 10 amps or so without heroic pedaling efforts. It would also probably work well with the power banks you have tested that have 12v PV charging inputs.
Big cycling athletes can do 400w, you and me, maybe 50w continuous, but we are going to sweat! Need a team to keep that radio on air!
You could probably have some kind of buck/boost voltage regulator between it and the modern battery bank. I'm pretty sure they have a pretty wide input range.
I foresee a regenerative break of some sort coming to life soon...paired with some bicycle gears.....
you find the coolest things
That's freakin' neat!
Thank you, keep working.
Awesome
Gabe -- you find the coolest stuff!. Also, those floor tiles might contain asbestos.
Yeah they're definitely asbestos, I try not to damage them 😅
@@saveitforparts Well at least you know :)
@@saveitforparts Yeah, they're fine. I survey buildings for asbestos and always liked the look of the classic old 9 x 9 tiles. Heck, our local hospital has tons of them. Intact, they pose no hazard.
i bet it would survive an emp
I've had the modern bicycle adapter version of this sitting around for years, I should force myself to use it as my only source of screen power.
Dude! I am so envious! I need one of those! I'm a BSA Radio merit badge counselor. That would be awesome at summer camp. Maybe the little scampers really work for that badge.
By the way, how can you have a fallout shelter display without at least one nuka-Cola sign? Not even one Vault Boy bobblehead in sight.
Just started watching the Fallout series, haven't actually played any of the games!
@@saveitforparts I'm only half joking about getting one of these and putting my Scouts to work. I'm trying to design a field station that I could take to a remote location wherever there wouldn't be any power. Like a Boy Scout summer camp.
Come to think of it, I have an idea of what I want in my head, but it would be interesting to see what you designed. Possibly a future video?
There may or may not be a homemade satellite receiver in my future as well. Anything to catch these kids attention these days.
Number whatever mark whatever is also a good indication of it being british
Get that at Ax-Man? I bought there, an old orange striped (Brannif?) window seat from a jetliner. It was featured in a local cable access (MPS) show in the early 1990s for a Sart Rtek spoof.
This one came from an estate sale!
Charging lead acid batteries usually requires 13 to 14 volts anyway. The bloom (white powder) can be cleaned off with some rubber vinyl protectant for car interiors.
at least it is a cool outdoor workout-tool😂
And you should be able to charge basically everything off that If you wire up some type of capacitor/regulator I think you’re very useful piece of kit
Put that in your boat and power your trolling motor 😂
you could use it to run an electric boat moter ?
I want those surplus tools SO bad. I'd use those at work and then when my coworkers ask about it, I'll say it's British military surplus so they can all awkwardly stare at me.
From the diagram it looks like the bulb is supposed to glow when there is a load pulling power. Looks like some kind of indicator to say if battery is charging or full
Who needs an excersize bike when you can charge a lead acid battery? :p
I wonder if you could build a sort of pip-boy thing with all of the spare parts you have. It would go well with those fallout shelter signs.
Seems like a flywheel could help smooth out the RPM. I'm sure this wasn't included for weight reasons. But if it was on the fast-spinning part, it wouldn't need to be that heavy.
Yeah, a nice big heavy flywheel would make it much more fun to carry on your back all day too
Hmm, got any spare power conditioning units around? If so, put one between the generator, and whatever you're either charging or trying to run, and see if that helps keep the power a bit more stable. Nicely done as always, Gabe :)
Oh hey, my notifications actually worked! ...First?
Hook it up to a 12 volt fan. Point the fan at yourself. Want to be cooler? Just go faster. Which will make you work up a sweat. So you'll have to peddle faster yet. Ad infinium. (Or however it's spelled)
I don’t think that assessment of exercise equipment applies solely to the USA. I’ve seen many an exercise bike with clothes hung on it here in the UK.
looking trim. you must be generating some power lately.
Next project in this series - try and find someone's old exercise bike, one with an inertia wheel, and see if you can couple it to a car alternator to produce a more efficient version if this machine...
imagine doing some POTA QRP work with this lol.
I watched a video on that night vision binocular you had a few videos ago and now you have another cool military surplus I think I could do more than what you think it can I would build a little battery back up just for that machine I like to know what it’s going good roughly how long it would take to charge up a car battery Don’t you think sometimes we’re pissing away old technology just because it’s old not knowing what we’re doing
i think in england we used Red and Black but now its Blue and Brown
but also some older wiring was fabric i found some cables under my floor years ago and it was wrapped in fabric.
i was thinking you could have it hooked to a stabilizer so the power stays at 12volts max for charging a newer battery
Red and Black are still DC, Blue & Brown are AC
ill send this to the press
Hi, keep hearing an echo as if one of the microphone channels is not in sync with the other (if stereo recorded).
will need a voltage controller like a solar controller .
Goofy question, but would the strength of the power generated be enough to power any modern day electric bike engines?
The kid in me imagined putting that in place of a bikes pedals and connecting the wires to a chain driven electric engine, but the adult in me is telling me there's not enough power there to make it happen.
Capacitors are awesome. Also you keep saying 12v, but the manual said 15
60w 15v that's fairly standard. Even cars now are still 14.4
You got to watch out for that asbestinite! LOL
I imagine the white powder is talc to stop the rubber from sticking to itself.
That thing's great! I wonder if there are civilian versions available. It would be great to charge batteries for free, while getting some exercise.
Thats some Fall Out PiPboy stuff if i have ever seen it😂😂😂
Much like solar panels, you would need a charge regulator.
I have heard of these
Maybe hook it up to a low or medium power wind charge controller, or maybe even a solar charge controller to see if it takes less exertion to recharge the battery
That is really neet I want one, but where did you get that Kool-aid lamp shade?
I think the Kool-Aid pitcher came from a garage sale, and we stuck it on a lamp.
All batteries are negatively impacted by over charge,over discharge and irregular charge rates. At $/lb led acid batteries are the cheapest option but would require significantly more cranking to charge the electrolyte past surface charge with a stationary setup. With faster charging and discharging, lighter weight, and at most cost LiFePO4 would be the best option for a stationary setup at the cost of their lifespan. Luckily MPPT charge controllers exist and would mostly solve the issues with the irregular charge pattern for both batteries, when connected between the battery and the generator.
Out of the two options you proposed.
huh. must have been hard to carry another soldier and a genny on your back
It looks like it needs rotor blades on top, hey presto, a man powered helicopter!
It's definitely a cool gadget though, it certainly smacks of 'Cold War' doom and gloom.