Free energy generator!  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: Undweeber
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2015, 09:54:07 pm
content: Hey everyone, I have taken apart my printer/scanner and got a nice powerful electric motor, 3 of them, anyway, how do I make a dynamo out of it?I would prefer the output to be bottle-necked, one motor produces 15V, and max load it produces is 250mA I believe, I might have to check again (analog multimeter)I used a rectifier to be able to spin the motor both ways with a rod and gears (similar to fire starting technique), but the voltage keeps jumping, very uneven, probably unsafe to charge anything. It burned an incandescent bulb from Christmas tree, but lights up the scanner tube LED rod thing brightly, i found it best works through a capacitor, softly dims down instead of rapidly.anyway if there are any projects done with a motor already please link me in, I couldn't find any, wouldn't want to throw the motors out, i have no other needs for them

author: max666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2015, 10:13:17 pm
content: What ecaxtly are you trying to say with the subject title "Free energy generator!"? Or are you just click baiting?The motors you got areStepper Motors. Not sure how well they'll work as dynamos, because they are designed to somewhat lock into position at every step. Will be a bumpy ride.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2015, 10:18:49 pm
content: Quote from: max666 on April 07, 2015, 10:13:17 pmYes, at first I thought he was trolling but then I realised he meant free as in he got the motor for free from an old scrap printer/scanner.Perhaps the beginners section would've been a better choice?

author: Undweeber
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2015, 11:02:03 pm
content: Quote from: max666 on April 07, 2015, 10:13:17 pmits not a stepper motor it has no extra plastic part for gears, the gears i speak of are separate outside, they do not step up or down they are fixed, one rod revolution makes 6-7 motor revolutions through the rubber belt. Would this not work like a dynamo?

author: max666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2015, 11:35:40 pm
content: Yes it's aStepper MotorAnd yes, it will "work" as a dynamo ... actually I think we shouldn't say dynamo, since it doesn't have a commutator ... it will work as an alternator. I'm just questioning how smooth it will rotate and its overall performance as an electric generator. But you will get current out of it, if you turn it.

author: Undweeber
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 04, 2015, 09:38:14 pm
content: anyway, is there a way to charge the capacitor to 90V with this and then slowly discharge it at 5V to be able to charge a cellphone? so far the max i can charge the cap to is 15V, how do i make it keep accumulating charge?

author: Len
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 04, 2015, 09:55:12 pm
content: See Dave's latest video for an amusing demonstration of "free energy generation" from stepper motors.

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 04, 2015, 09:57:49 pm
content: A capacitor generally holds very little charge, not enough to even start the charging process of a phone.You need to convert what comes from the stepper motors down to the voltage a phone wants, which is 5v. For that, you need a dc-dc converter. However, the dc-dc converter would constantly start and stop depending on how fast the stepper motor works, so it would make sense to add an energy reservoir before this dc-dc converter, so that when the motor spins slower, the dc-dc converter will continue to pull energy from this reservoir and when the motor spins fast enough, it can directly use that energy to feed the phone.Capacitors are used as "energy reservoirs" but when charging, phones take in so much energy that a regular capacitor would discharge in less than a second.If you go with supercapacitors, something like a 25-50 Farads 2.7v would store enough energy to continue charging a phone for maybe 10-30 seconds without the motor spinning at all. So even such a large supercapacitor would still need to be constantly refilled by spinning the motor.In addition, as these supercapacitors can only handle low voltages, you would have to either have an additional dc-dc converter to make sure only voltages less than 2.7v go into the supercapacitor, or put several such supercapacitors in series to increase the voltage (which is expensive)Shahriar from "The Signal Path Blog" made a video recently about energy harvesting ICs which may be a bit over your head (yet still worth watching) but in the video he uses the energy stored in a supercapacitor to try to charge a phone, so you may understand a bit more about what it takes to charge a phone:

author: Undweeber
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 04, 2015, 11:33:02 pm
content: Quote from: Len on May 04, 2015, 09:55:12 pmi watched that today it reminded me of this topic i started lol..Quote from: mariush on May 04, 2015, 09:57:49 pma lot of useful info thank you! ill get back to this with conclusion will watch the video

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 04, 2015, 11:38:18 pm
content: Quote from: max666 on April 07, 2015, 10:13:17 pmThe only steppers used in the majority of modern (inkjet) printers are a thin flat one driving the scan head. All other motors are normal DC motors with optical encoders of various descriptions (the carriage uses an encoder strip, the rest use encoder discs, either printed on transparent plastic or a solid plastic wheel with spokes if the resolution is lower).With that said, steppers are often used for small generator projects :-)

author: Undweeber
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2015, 12:59:06 am
content: stepper motors from what i understand have more than 2 wires, my motors have 2 connectors, they are simple DC motors, not stepper motors, i can generate pretty good voltage with them as i have stated

author: max666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2015, 08:39:39 pm
content: Ok, I was wrong then, you got simple DC motors then ... I guess it's been a long long time since I last opened up a printer and the cost cutting hammer has struck hard since then.But I guess simple DC motors with permanent magnets will work even better as dynamos.

author: eneuro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2015, 09:26:21 pm
content: Wow, but this is my free (sun) energy generator: 85Wp 131W/m2 costs ~70 USD/m2Of course, covering house roof with such panels could be wasting of free (sun) energy, and destroying architectural design (nice red roof) so... my plan is cover 4m in diameter dish with such panels, so I could get ~10m2 (10 square meters of PV) and... yep point it directly into the sun using my SUN tracker softwareIt should be above 1kW of electricity at peak hours if its 13% datasheet efficiency isn't a joke