Using an electric motor on rollers

A light bike doesn't replace good fitness.

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wlbm
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri Aug 31, 2018 9:00 pm

by wlbm

Hello forum,

Today I was mulling over how to get better training on my rollers, and suddenly had a brainwave about grabbing an old electric motor from work and coupling it to the front roller via a belt.
It seems to my simple brain that I should be able to generate electricity and read off the amount generated on a meter for some idea of the volume of work I'm doing. Maybe even feed it to a phone charger or a battery and inverter to do something useful. Maybe even vary the load dynamically based on a program?
Is this something others have attempted? I've seen articles on making bike-based generators, but nothing to do with training on rollers.

Or am I crazy?

RTW
in the industry
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Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2005 2:32 pm

by RTW

You're probably crazy, but I am interested in what you come up with.

It annoys me that I have to plug in and switch on a computer, and a smart trainer, drawing power to nulify the power I am putting out.

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PokojniToza
Posts: 202
Joined: Mon Nov 26, 2018 10:41 pm

by PokojniToza

Not 100% pertinent, but I belive one of the mid-range Elite trainers runs on the power you generate.

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ms6073
Posts: 4288
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2004 8:24 pm
Location: Houston, Texas

by ms6073

The legacy Tacx Genius was designed to return excess energy to the grid when the users power output exceeded the input. Also, the Tacx Flux/Flux S/Neo/Neo 2 can all be used un-plugged with only a Garmin or Wahoo head unit.
- Michael
"People should stop expecting normal from me... seriously, we all know it's never going to happen"

jfranci3
Posts: 1571
Joined: Tue Jul 26, 2016 5:21 pm

by jfranci3

wlbm wrote:
Mon Feb 18, 2019 8:38 am
Hello forum,

Today I was mulling over how to get better training on my rollers, and suddenly had a brainwave about grabbing an old electric motor from work and coupling it to the front roller via a belt.
It seems to my simple brain that I should be able to generate electricity and read off the amount generated on a meter for some idea of the volume of work I'm doing. Maybe even feed it to a phone charger or a battery and inverter to do something useful. Maybe even vary the load dynamically based on a program?
Is this something others have attempted? I've seen articles on making bike-based generators, but nothing to do with training on rollers.

Or am I crazy?
It'll give you something to think about while you're on the rollers. If you had a fixed trainer you could actually fiddle with it while you exercised. . Seems like it'd be easier to just grab a smart trainer resistance unit and cable that up to the roller - https://www.ebay.com/itm/TACX-RECONDITI ... :rk:5:pf:0 You'd then have resistance too.

I think this is just a hall effect sensor you could try - https://amzn.to/2EfuXvF It is said to work with Elite's rollers - https://www.probikekit.com/turbo-traine ... lsrc=aw.ds

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