Human powered electricity/light

I've recently become interested in creating power and light in the event that there is a long-term electrical outage; here's some of my search results.

[Mods, I will be providing links to products and devices, if this is against ATS rules please remove the thread (and not me!). I do not gain anything, commission, etc from any of these devices.]

The Pedal-a-watt stationary bike stand.
Very simple, just throw a bike on this stand and you can have pretty significant, versatile electrical power.
www.econvergence.net...


The Freeplay Jonta hand-held "torch" [flashlight]
"Wind it for 30 seconds and get 10 mins worth of light. Wind it for 40 min and get a full 24 hours! "
"It burns an efficient 1 Watt LED, which gives similiar output to a standard incandescent bulb but lasts 100,000 hours and has no delicate filament."
www.treehugger.com...


The Koolatron Dynamo 3 LED Emergency light
The search results were more like late night TV ads for this product but it seems to be a nice find.
"does not contain batteries or breakable bulbs and gives you up to 30 minutes of power by winding the handle for just one minute."
www.shopwiki.com...=Koolatron_Dynamo_3-LED_Emergency_Light/


Solar Power Torch Lamp
This small backyard type lamp is solar powered (duh...) and uses an LED so no replacement bulbs needed.
Seemed a little expensive at around $25
www.smarthome.com...


There seem to be myriad designs of emergency lamps that use LEDs so no extra bulbs needed, and dynamo so no batteries needed. I saw devices from $4 USD to over $50.

It would be great to hear people's personal recommendations on lighting and electricity products. Or links if this has been discusssed in-depth previously.




[edit on 27-4-2009 by notreallyalive]

Good suggestions notreallyalive!

I have one of those wind up radio's, which recieves AM, FM, and Shortwave. When the power went out due to a blizzard on sunday, we were able to monitor the channels to check when it was coming back. Good thing we did too, because this particular outage took out the entire PSTN (phone network) as well.

Star for you research!

Originally posted by notreallyalive

The Koolatron Dynamo 3 LED Emergency light
The search results were more like late night TV ads for this product but it seems to be a nice find.
"does not contain batteries or breakable bulbs and gives you up to 30 minutes of power by winding the handle for just one minute."
www.shopwiki.com...=Koolatron_Dynamo_3-LED_Emergency_Light/

I was gonna start a post on this dynamo light but since you already mentioned it, I'll just reply

I bought this light in Belgium last week, it only costs 1 euro (for the dutch ppl, you can buy it at Blokker stores.
It seems to work very well and easy to use aswell... I bought 10 of them at once since they are so cheap

I bought some wind up LED lights and radios this week. I was thinking about buying some of those solar powered garden LED lights. They're only about three dolars apiece, and could be brought inside at night as they usually will last about 8 hours after a full day in the sun.

Very interesting...I've always thought of using wheels to power a electrical generator. since there are 4 wheels on car...why can't you generate electricity while driving your vehicle? Seems like having a battery storage area in your trunk would do the trick...

That's exactly what a hybrid car does, takes the excess electricity generated while driving and stores it to run the engine later. It would be interesting if you could harness the power from the alternator on a regular engine and store it for other uses. I already use power invertors in my car to charge my laptop, AA batteries and cell phone, so the power is there. Why buy a gas generator, your car already is one.