Hamster power!!!

[TARDIS Tara]

Here in the US, it's a running joke that small underpowered cars are supposedly powered by hamsters. All sorts of hamster powered jokes are out there.

So I'm intending to do some serious research into using hamster power.

There are several web pages and YouTube vids on using your hamster wheel as a generator for LED lights.

I intend to use a round of neo-dynium (super strong, rare earth) magnets, some copper wire rolls and a capacitor and see how many LEDs (or other things) I can power with it.

Any help or suggestions would be gratefully accepted!

[CMB]

See if you could design a hamster wheel recharger for a mobile phone. You could make a fortune selling them.

[laiyenha]

What an exciting idea! Sorry I can't suggest anything useful but my version is: I built a hamster wheel using the hub of a hard drive as the axle. The nice thing about this axle is it so smooth and silent - plus it behaves like a generator when spun (albeit only tiny voltage in the mV range). Currently I have wires from the hard drive axle running in the internal structure of the wheel support column down to the hollow base of the wheel - the wires are hidden so my little robo hamster can't chew them. In the future, I will salvage the gut of a cheap Multimeter to put the control circuitry in the base and the display way up high. The tiny voltage produced when the wheel is rotated will register in the LCD display like a digital speedometer. I hadn't built the speedometer yet because I haven't figured out how to automatically power up the Multimeter circuitry when the wheel turns; the Multimeter has auto power down so that part is already done for me.

[CMB]

Years ago I had a vast collection of Rotastack cages and tubes. I got a new Rotastack wheel and it had a speedometer. It would display how fast the hamster was running or the distance travelled.