Turn Yourself Into a Battery: How to Make a Small Hand Crank Generator for $2

Did you know that your body is an engine? An engine is defined by a machine that converts energy into work. Your energy is ATP (your biological energy source) acts as your battery. To exert your energy, you run, jump, blink, breathe, and even think! Normally a battery exerts electrical energy with an internal chemical reaction, but the crazy thing is you can too! To do this you need something like a dynamo or a motor, and you would need to turn it from the shaft to output energy. That energy can be used in lots of ways; the possibilities are endless! In this tutorial you'll learn how to make a simple hand crank generator that can power LED's, charge a battery, or even turn on a microcontroller! With that that, let's get started.

You will need:

TT Motors (pack of 4) -- Amazon.com: Diann 4pcs TT Motor DC 3-6V Gearbox Motor 200RPM Ratio 1:48 Shaft Motor with 2.54mm Wire for DIY Smart Car Robot : Automotive

3D printer

Hot glue Gun

3D printed parts

print all these parts in a 3d printer, make sure the wheel (EngineeringGibberish) is the same diameter as the knob. If all parts are in the correct orientation the print should take about 1.8 hours.

the parts needed are a crank, handle, and tube.

Glue your crank wheel to the wheel, keep the edges aligned for the most comfort.

Press fit your wheel onto the axle of your TT motor, it should go on smoothly and stay on. I printed my crank and wheel in different colors so you could see them better.

place the handle on the motor with hot glue (as shown above)

put your tube over the crank, make sure it rotates smoothly and remove supports carefully, the tube is fragile.

To make sure you are producing a voltage from the 2 wires that come out from the TT motor, you should insert them in a multimeter and check out the electricity flowing. notice how when the crank is spined in 1 direction it posts a positive voltage reading (~3.5-5V), but when spun in the counteracting direction, it posts a negative voltage!

If you see the voltage on the multimeter, you're ready to start powering things without a power cable. 1. Try turning on an LED -- connect the led terminals to the generator and just spin the crank! If it doesn't work, SPIN THE OTHER WAY! This is the science of polarization! 2. You can actually power a microcontroller with the crank -- try this: connect the red wire to the 5v pin of an Arduino Uno, as soon as the crank is spun in the correct direction, you can see the on led as well as some other indicators lighting up. But if you

This simple hand crank generator is great for demonstrating energy conversion, electromagnetic induction, Load effects, and so much more! It's a fun classroom project, or just something you can experiment with at home, I hope you enjoyed this simple project as much as I did. feel free to check out some of my other projects at Support Arihant Nag, or feel free to help me out a little!

Thank you for viewing, have a nice day!