Hamster Power

[audioguru]

They calculated that the hampster wheel can generate 200mA at 2V. That is 0.4W. It is AC. It needs a rectifier and voltage stepup circuit to charge the battery in an MP3 player. The charging will take months.

 

[ClydeCrashKop]

This was in EDN magazine.
**broken link removed**
Maybe the wheel could ping a tuning fork at the resonant frequency of the piezo???

 

[Hank Fletcher]

No, no, no. What you want is one of those over-unity hamsters...

 

[killivolt]

Multi Hamster. Male + Female == soon you have multi tap.

I just have to add this is a funny thread too. I can see the little guy go and go and ...........

 

[Hero999]

Use Schottky rectifiers to do the rectification, some can drop as little as 200mV, especially if you grossly oversize them.

You could also add more phases which will reduce the ripple and increase the power output.