wrote in message
...
I live near an Amish community. They are required to use lights on
their horse drawn buggies at night. They use 12V marine batteries
which last about 7 to 10 hours. Then they have the non-Amish
neighbors charge them, or use a gas generator. I was talking to one
of them and he said he would like to connect a car alternator to the
wheels. I told him that seems doable. That got me thinking. Wiring
a delco with built in regulator is easy. There are two problems.

1. Mounting it so a pulley can be connected to the wooden spoke wheel
hub. I can sort of see a means to attach a belt pulley, but the belt
would have to connect to a shaft or it would be outside too far.

2. Alternators will not charge until they reach a specific RPM. I
doubt the buggy wheels would reach that. This means a gear assembly
would be needed to increase the rpm. I also heard that some tractor
alternators charge at a lower RPM, so I have to check into that.

Anyone have any suggestions? What could I steal a simple gear unit
from? How do I attach a pulley to a wooden hub, spoke wheel? Has
anyone ever done anything like this?

I'm having fun with this project....

Remember those bicycle lights that have a generator that rubs on the tire to
light the light? They might be AC output, so you'd need some diodes to charge
batteries, but they could be a good starting point. Add a "tire" to the
generator if the buggy wheels are not rubber. Obviously, the output current is
limited, so you either need small bulbs or multiple generators.

Bob