permaculture

[Robyn Francis <erda@nor.com.au>]

Most wash machines operate with a mechanical belt drive - the key thing with
conversion to pedal power is to rig up the bike to turn/drive the belt and
have the appropriate gearing to provide the required number of revolutions
per minute.
Different machines have different requirements for gearing (blender, stone
mill, juicer, wash machine, spin dryer etc)
Found this short article below. Rainbow Power sell designs for DIY
pedal-powered machines.
Robyn

http://www.rpc.com.au/news/newsletters/25octo99.html

Pedal Power: We are sometimes asked about pedal power devices, so I've asked
Peter Pedals to give us a short article:

I have done a number of experiments with pedal washing machines and
concluded that to convert a standard washing machine or build a pedal
washing machine from scratch using the same washing principles was probably
not a very cost effective exercise. A pedal washing machine of this type
ends up not being a labour saving device where you cannot do anything else
but pedal for the entire duration of the wash. You could achieve a similar
result by throwing your washing into a bathtub and walking on it without
incurring the expense.

It is possible to charge a battery with pedal power where an achievable
charging current may be about 10 Amps into a 12 Volt battery. To keep this
up for an hour would be very hard work to put 10Ah into the battery over
that time. An 80W solar panel would give you 25Ah each day at a similar
set-up cost and no hard work.

It is very inefficient to use a pedal generator to generate electricity and
then convert that stored electrical energy to power an electric motor
driving an appliance. You can purchase a set of photocopies giving
information on how various pedal machines work and how to make your own
pedal machines including directly mechanically driven appliances which end
up being many times more efficient than converting mechanical energy into
electrical energy, storing it as chemical energy, reconverting back into
electrical energy and finally back into mechanical energy with the electric
appliance.


On 7/9/07 8:46 PM, "tom" <tom@honeychrome.com> wrote:

> Anyone know of attempts to convert an older washing machine to
> bicycle power?  I spotted one in a local used appliance place- the
> kind with a built in wringer.  Seems very sturdy and I wonder if
> because it is older it may be much simpler and more easily converted
> than a newer model.  For sure the 'tub' is smaller than modern units,
> so loads would be more modest.  If its cheap I may just get it and
> have a go.
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