Power from a magneto for lights?

[bikejock]

I'm thinking of wiring up some motorcycle grade turn signals & lights up to my friction drive bike that uses the Honda GX35 4 stroke engine. I want to get directional lights as well as a good front and back light bright enough for daytime use.

I tried out one of those turn signal tail lights for bicycles that run for about $10 on amazon but they are just too dim to be seen during the day & I hate using hand signals especially on something with a motor. I would love to be able to just hook it up to the motor without the need for a a battery if possible.

I've heard of some people using similar engines as generators to power a whole house, So why not some lights on a bicycle? I'm sure these small 4 stroke engines are capable of doing this somehow but I'm still kinda new to electrical. So... thoughts?

 

[CrazyDan]

Almost any generator added will put resistance on the motor and lower power put to the ground, regardless if its something put on the flywheel, crankshaft, transfer case or wheels. The only thing I can think of is a neat invention made a few years back that generates electricity based on a temperature difference on either side of a wafer made sandwiching different conductive metals together. Its been used in the real world for generating electricity on your campfire or running refrigerator trucks overnight with minimal gas generator use by putting one of these on their hot exhaust stacks, those stay hot up to 7 hours. One of these wafers on your engine block or exhaust would generate electricity using waste heat without putting any additional load on our engines. A heatsink on the outside of it aimed to grab fresh cool air while moving would ensure a temperature difference at all times. Not sure why this thread made me finally think if this, I've been wracking my noodle trying to figure how I'll run lights myself without stealing power from my back wheel. Time to google things.

 

[bikejock]

Almost any generator added will put resistance on the motor and lower power put to the ground, regardless if its something put on the flywheel, crankshaft, transfer case or wheels. The only thing I can think of is a neat invention made a few years back that generates electricity based on a temperature difference on either side of a wafer made sandwiching different conductive metals together. Its been used in the real world for generating electricity on your campfire or running refrigerator trucks overnight with minimal gas generator use by putting one of these on their hot exhaust stacks, those stay hot up to 7 hours. One of these wafers on your engine block or exhaust would generate electricity using waste heat without putting any additional load on our engines. A heatsink on the outside of it aimed to grab fresh cool air while moving would ensure a temperature difference at all times. Not sure why this thread made me finally think if this, I've been wracking my noodle trying to figure how I'll run lights myself without stealing power from my back wheel. Time to google things.

Using waste heat for electrical power sounds like a great idea. I tried using google to see if anyone has attempted to gain electrical power from a Honda GX35 & hardly any info was of any use. But I would like to give the waste heat idea a try if I can get 12 volts out of it as most motorcycle lights run on 12 volt systems.

 

[KCvale]

Just cut that damn white wire off, it a useless fallacy of getting usable electric power from your engine, in fact it's just the second mag coil used to KILL the engine, new mags don't even have one.

If you want to sacrifice engine power to to generate electric power the actual 70c Jenda (SP) has that, and electric start.
If you want to pull power generation from you little engine best convert it to DC and store in a battery, otherwise you are just wasting performance for no gain of anything.