New retro-fit dynamo design with USB socket

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Yellow7

Über Member
Location
Milton Keynes
Presently in Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur with need of some bike TLC I visited the shop ‘the Bisikal’ ( www.thebasikal.com ) whereby I stumble across this new design of bicycle dynamo. The immediate advantage being it can be retro fitted to most (not all – yet!) bicycles.

Seeing it’s made in Taiwan the inevitable ‘low quality’ alarm bells start to ring but the shop’s proprietor Akmal informed me as part of his commitment to supply only high quality parts to local (and passing!) cyclists that as one of their agents he was invited to the factory and pleasantly surprised to the level of quality. (He's a Rohloff and Schwalbe agent)

There are presently two versions available, the 3 watt (0.5 amps) and the 8 watt (1.33’ amps), although at high speed the datasheet graph shows an output of 2 amps. The dynamo comes complete with a USB output socket and a bare-ended AC output to feed to lights of other equipment.

At present the dynamo fixes to the rear wheel left side chain or seat-post stay – so will only fit bikes with rim brakes but with the product in its infancy and this it’s first release the managing director (with 20 years cycling industry experience) is working on other models, that will fit onto the front forks.

It differs greatly to a standard dynamo in that a 1:10 gearbox spins the generator 10 times faster than the bicycle wheel, which connects to the spokes by the large round plate /dish and is turned with very little force. As an engineer myself I’m really impressed with the product and will be keen to see how it progresses as it inevitably enters the western market place.

Here is the company's facebook page https://www.facebook.com/SunUpEco?fref=ts and a few photo's I took.

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If you play in your favourite search engine you will find they get a mention around the place. I cannot recall any really exciting reports on them, definitely nothing to justify going from a reasonably priced hub dynamo for sure but then it has been awhile since I have seen a post on them.

Andrew
 

Drago

Legendary Member
I'm not an engineer myself, but I've enough appreciation of the subject to know that using gearing to increase the speed at which the rotor turns is not the ideal way to generate more power, The physical losses aren't ideal, and it adds complexity and opportunities for wear and failure in a physically demanding environment.

More powerful magnets achieve the same result, but are fearfully expensive, but that's a commercial point rather than an engineering one.
 
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