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Eleptical Machines Generating Energy

Posted June 25, 2008 at 01:30 PM by Megan Hueter

Section: In The News, His Fitness, Cardio Training, His Gear & Apparel, Equipment, His Health, Physical Health, Lifestyle Health

eliptical Apparently, it’s more than just human energy that elliptical machines can generate. Thats Fit featured a post recently that says elliptical machines at Gainesville Health & Fitness Center are being used for more than health and fitness. They’re being used to convert the energy spent exercising into electrical power. When I saw this, I thought, “Wow, what a great idea! Why didn’t I think of this?”

According to That’s Fit, “Hudson Harr, the 22-year-old who came up with the ReCardio system—a patent-pending technology currently wired to 15 elliptical machines and working to convert the kinetic energy from pushing pedals into electricity. The power produced by the machines is plugged straight into the utility grid, which helps produce power for the gym and offsets utility costs.”

I can’t help but think that if they found a way to harness ALL of the energy created from elliptical machines everywhere, think of what a different that could make in terms of conservation.

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Tags: electricity, elliptical, elliptical machines, fitness, gainesville health & fitness center, health, hudson harr, kinetic energy, men, mens health, recardio system

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3 Responses to “Eleptical Machines Generating Energy” (Leave a reply)

Alexa said:

I’m sorry if this is a dumb question. Why does the title of your article have elliptical spelled “eleptical”? Thanks.
June 25, 2008 at 09:16 PM
Banks Armstrong from Sarasota said:

These stories always make me laugh. There was a part of the movie Soylent Green where the hero offers to take a turn on a bike generator to charge a battery for his friend who read using an electric bulb.

Some form of bicycle generator has been in use, well, since Edison.

If you look at the gym bike it is a marvel of pulleys and gearing. That is the first necessary component of the “wiring” for any generator. The problem, you see, is to spin a copper field within a magnetic field or spin a magnet inside some copper wire coil.

Now, the extra electricity needs to be stored and there is a capacitor for this which as it overloads, trikles the overflow into a battery, or inverter which takes the electricity to the grid.

So, whether a patent will be granted is really up for grabs as far as any “woirning” is concerned.

The Recardio system also converts heat into electricity and that is always interesting because the only way to do that is a Rankin engine, so what I think is really happening is that the heat is reduced in some novel fashion to increase the eficiency, hence, electric output.

If one cares to, they just need to magnetize the balast wheel where the pedals are. Then even the flimsiest copper wiring interfering with the resulting magnetic field will produce a lot of power.

Why do I say a lot? That ballast wheel is a marvel. It turns so darn fast for the amount of human effort. Anyone thinking generators would have to marvel at that.

So, it begs the question, why not connect one of these devices at a scale of, say 4x, to a water wheel and try to produce 50 to 100 kilowatts a day?
July 17, 2008 at 10:13 AM
Toby - Schwinn Elliptical Trainers said:

That would be crazy generating power from elliptical trainers. I would give a big long scientific explanation but I think Banks Armstrong has it covered ;)

Toby
July 20, 2008 at 11:29 AM