Human Powered Domestic Lighting in Rural India

Kiva(.)org

you might look into aluminum can and copper pipe batteries in plastic bottles cut off. each produce a little over .5 volts. You can even us urine as the electrolyte. a large bank of these can charge nicad batteries.

I agree with you. I had two things in mind - to integrate the expended energy into the daily activities and to make it low cost. Bicycle parts helped in keeping the cost within $18, which is recovered shortly from the saving of kerosene. To minimize tire wear, a replaceable plastic cap on the tip of the dynamo is being used. I wish to see this for not only providing lights to many but also employment to some by way of assembly and maintenance of the units. Thanks for your appreciation.

He might be better off putting magnets on the spokes with pickup coils as friction
generators lose a lot of energy.. and wear
out the tire.

but great concept.

This idea is worthy of funding for more studies. Seems like it could be adapted to work in unlimited ways. This would benefit many many people around the world.

Not a bad idea, but I doubt its cost effectiveness. Have to take care of animal rights activists as well. The cost of the animal and its upkeep has to be considered unless the animal is already being used for turning something like a grindwheel or for drawing a cart. Using muscle power to produce electricity is not a new concept, so the primary objective of this project was to integrate this expenditure of human power into the daily chores of the users in a cost effective way.

I do want to have more such units installed. I am looking for some agency who could fund a project for installation of more units and a subsequent study of the performance and the socio-economic impact.

Good thing you were able to get the Firefly back! Do you plan to install more units on more cyclevans?

Hameed's van along with a cow that he was transporting was confiscated by the Border Security Force on the allegation that the cow was beeing smuggled across the Bangladesh border. The Firefly unit was dismantled from Hameed's van and fitted onto that of Goshto Das. Goshto happens to be a patient of arsenicosis.

What if you had some large animals generating energy? Instead of having cows just sitting around grazing or whatever, have them drive a generator.