Originally Posted by ken cummings
Could one of you electronic gurus come up with a circuit that would take the current from a basic headlight generator and alter it to recharge your Ipods, phones, and other widgets?
Yep, but it would take about 200 miles to charge a phone; 500 for an iPod.
Are you speaking of the old headlight generator which mounted to one front fork and engaged by running against the side of the front wheel? Or a dynamo hub (which requires rebuilding your front wheel)? Neither produces much current, but the latter is certainly better. Shimano claims 6.0 volts @ 3.0 watts. That's Watts/Volts = Amps. This would produce 0.5 amps of current. Compare this to the Energizer 15 minute charger which uses 7.5 amps to charge up to four AA batteries. Yes, you could, theoretically, rig up a bike powered way to recharge your batteries, but you'd have to ride 20 hours a day to keep up.