Originally Posted by
dougmc
A standard bicycle generator setup charging a modest battery all the time with a few watts of power would be a lot simpler. Or skip the battery entirely and have the generator power your lights directly, perhaps with a capacitor to allow the lights to remain on for a minute or two after you stop moving.
But that's not the problem I'm trying to solve. If it was I'd just buy (or make) a system such as you describe. This project is as much about the intellectual challenge as the practicality, but I needed some technical info about types of generators, so I came to the experts.
If I conclude correctly from this discussion that bicycle "dynamos" are actually alternators, and therefore produce AC, and (in electrical terms) could rotate either way, then why are they labelled as LH/RH? Is it something about the drive mechanism that will only rotate in one direction?