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usrusr 2 days ago [-]
Needs "2011" in the title. For example the section about friction drive hasn't been true for about a decade now
rgmerk 2 days ago [-]
Not to mention they’re talking about lead-acid batteries, which have been replaced for pretty much every application, except (for now) starter motor batteries for combustion vehicles, by the various lithium batteries.
chihuahua 2 days ago [-]
To be fair (as a joke), it's from Low Tech Magazine. Lithium batteries are too high-tech for them. They want you to power your mechanical blender, mixer, and other machines with a drive belt. Turn the drum of your washing machine with a wood fire heating the water.
Gibbon1 2 days ago [-]
Solar panels I think are too high tech for them.
I remember reading about low tech efficient cook stoves for poor countries and thinking the misses would rather have an induction burner, microwave, and an ice chest running off a solar panel.
rgmerk 2 days ago [-]
I would too...but an off-grid solar and battery setup sufficient to run the induction stove and microwave is still well into four figures - cheap for a developed country resident who wants some basic comforts in their wilderness lodge, but still well out of reach for a subsistence farmer in the poorest parts of the world.
eru 2 days ago [-]
Increasingly becoming more affordable. Especially as financing becomes easier. And you don't have to buy everything all at once.
Gibbon1 2 days ago [-]
That's the thing, like the used to be very expensive swing compressor ice chests that you can buy in the US for $150. You'd only need a 100 amp hour battery and a 100W solar panel to power it.
eru 1 days ago [-]
And you can probably share it between a few families, or even use it to run a small business.
getpokedagain 2 days ago [-]
The server the article is being hosted on is battery powered via solar. You can see it's charge percent on any page the server sends back to you.
> the misses would rather have an induction burner, microwave, and an ice chest running off a solar panel.
Those would definitely be hits.
Also, solar panels are old. Bell Labs demonstrated the first practical silicon solar cell in 1954. At some point, you're just trying to split (possibly nonexistent) hairs for an aesthetic, as opposed to making a principled stand against technology.
even EVs still have lead acid batteries, not all, but most
alex_young 2 days ago [-]
"have" is doing most of the work here. Most EVs have a small 12v battery to power 12v components. But the driving the car to the store part is done with lithium.
allenrb 2 days ago [-]
Nobody would (or should, at least) be using a lead-acid battery for this in 2026, either.
Full-cycle efficiency should be higher now. And the inverter. And the generator.
allenrb 2 days ago [-]
Huh? Was I wrong about something here? If so, please educate me.
I thought he was posting about some retro product until I saw the USB ports in the energy delivery. Weird that he edited his photos to look like that, and used retro components otherwise.
sunshinesnacks 2 days ago [-]
I think the photos look like that to achieve a very small file size. The whole site is hosted and a small solar and battery powered server, so every MB matters.
mrob 2 days ago [-]
For photographic images, dithered PNGs have worse quality:size ratio than JPEGs. If you want small files and are willing to sacrifice quality you can turn the JPEG compression up or reduce the resolution.
physicalecon 2 days ago [-]
The author does all sorts of odd-looking optimizations in order to make the web page run on a single host of cheap battery/solar powered compute.
It does seem a bit extreme, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating: this website has been featured on the HN front page many times and I’ve not seen it ever falter. The same cannot be said for the many run of the mill “infinite scalability” cloud based SPA’s that make the front page – even those maintained by sizable organizations with hefty cloud budgets.
thenthenthen 2 days ago [-]
It is an experiment, over the years various people have contributed “odd-looking” optimisations, its a great project!
IMO the only optimization they 'missed' is to pre-compress the static files and images on disk, since it's cheaper to decompress on-the-fly if the client doesn't support gzip. The could use zopfli to "extra compress" the most frequently accessed files, and use this as a solar dump load to usefully burn extra power when the batteries are full (perhaps compressing with gzip -1 when Pelican re-builds the static site, or even avoid pre-compression altogether during the build process.
> Our dashboard also includes a 220V circuit. That makes it compatible with grid-powered devices (110V in the US, 240V in the UK).
Retro-look nit: all are outdated nominal voltages. The US is 120 V (since the 1960s), while the UK and EU are 230 V (since the mid-1990s).
bityard 1 days ago [-]
If we are picking nits, almost every panel in the US and Canada is _both_ 120v and 240v. But even electricians here commonly say "two-twenty" instead of "two-forty."
KennyBlanken 2 days ago [-]
[flagged]
dendrite9 2 days ago [-]
Were people doing much with Li in 2011? I don't remember them being all that accessible until a few years later but maybe that's just when they filtered into the worlds I was in at the time.
pocksuppet 2 days ago [-]
When did lead-acid stop being cheaper than any version of lithium?
stephen_g 2 days ago [-]
Pretty recently, maybe in the last year or so?. It's pretty crazy to see it - CATL have started selling LiFePO4 cells as low as US$63/kWh while lead acid tends to cost more than US$100 per kWh! Obviously a finished battery + retail margin is going to cost more than those figures but we're coming to the point where it will just be cheaper than lead acid on an amp-hour to amp-hour basis.
Of course, on a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) basis, it was already cheaper quite a while ago (for the last 5 years I'd guess). It was a combination of LiFePO4 batteries having such longer cycle lives than any lead-acid chemistry, and the greater depth of discharge meaning you could use a lot more of the energy. So if you build a new lead-acid based system, you'd need almost double the amp-hours of batteries to supply the same amount of energy with a safe depth of discharge, and you'd still have to replace them much sooner. So you'd not only have to factor buying a lot more batteries with lead acid but also replacing all the lead acid batteries at least once while a LiFePO4 system would continue to operate.
emj 2 days ago [-]
Lead acid is cheaper because they are really easy to recycle so in a low tech env they are preferable.
stephen_g 2 days ago [-]
I don’t know about that - yes it’s simpler to recycle but the cycle life is at least four times longer (I had accidentally understated in my post, did some more reading and lead acid is worse than I remembered), but apparently advanced LiFePO4 cells are getting potentially more like eight or nine times the cycle count!
So if you think about the amount of materials - lead acid are almost double the weight vs. lithium batteries per amp hour to start with, then multiply by two because of the usable capacity difference, times four to eight for the cycle life… So you’re talking having to recycle something like sixteen to thirty-two times the weight of the lithium batteries in lead, before the LiFePO4 batteries would have even reached their end of life!
It’s really almost unbelievable how much better and cheaper the lithium batteries have become!
idiotsecant 2 days ago [-]
>Nobody is using lead-acid anymore, which shows how out of touch these idiots are with reality. For 5, if not 10 years LiFePO4 batteries have been the best option even for DIY systems
Ok, but they often are lead acid batteries. I just bought an inverter off a guy with lead acid batteries. They exist like crazy all over the place because lead acid can be reconditioned effectively forever with proper equalization. If you have lots of solar and you value repairability with simple tools and simple skills lead acid still has a niche
rgmerk 2 days ago [-]
This arguably had some relevance in 2011. In 2026, cheap solar and batteries make human-powered static devices that would benefit from the extra power of a stationary cyclist completely redundant.
tocs3 6 days ago [-]
Some things I would like to see are pedal controlled devices. Something like a pedal controlled wheelchair, not powered by the pedals just control the forward and back motion. My mother with sever arthritis can still pedal but has a very hard time walking. It would be a little exercise doing something that needs to be done (getting around). A pedal controlled remote control lawnmower would be nifty also.
grebc 2 days ago [-]
Where I used to live an elderly gent rode a very low to ground bike. Looked a lot like the silly motorbikes some peeps do. I imagine they’re out there for sale.
Tanoc 2 days ago [-]
A recumbent bicycle perhaps? Often has pedals ahead of the front wheel, where you lay down in a hammock or moulded seat?
analog31 2 days ago [-]
Yes, there are electric recumbent trikes out there, such as the Tadpole. A friend of mine got one after he recovered from a stroke and could no longer balance on a conventional bike. He rode it to work. It got him outdoors, with "anything is better than nothing" level of exercise.
grebc 2 days ago [-]
That's it!
Sorry I lacked the proper name, but yes they are about. And definitely look like they could help people certain health issues. Although getting down into it would be something to consider for older peeps.
Have you seen what people are doing with hoverboards + wheelchairs? Carer- & user-operated variations. Not professional solutions, but certainly fill a need.
micromacrofoot 2 days ago [-]
many ebikes work this way, pedaling and the chain more or less signal the motor rather than provide meaningful power... though afaik none of them do backwards for obvious reasons
she might enjoy an etrike, though more for recreation than normal day to day
fergie 2 days ago [-]
I'm suprised that the author didn't consider dynohubs which were also a thing in back in 2011, and are getting slightly better all the time.
lostlogin 2 days ago [-]
> dynohub
Thanks, I learned something. I’m suprised how little drag they seem to add.
Are there options that don't limit the output power? Typically the light power is limited, so dynamos only provide around 5 W or so, which already makes them not so attractive even for charging your phone on a bike.
Zambyte 1 days ago [-]
I think the problem with having a higher wattage is that you can't have a substantial amount without introducing what would generally be an undesirable amount of drag. It would certainly be useful to be able to engage / disengage a dynamo hub at a higher wattage though.
Mugshelf 2 days ago [-]
Tried one at a demo; you put in a ton of work for minimal wattage. Much better off with a decent power bank, honestly.
scotty79 2 days ago [-]
You could attach pedals directly to motor axle and control charging power drawn precisely to ensure smooth rotation in absence of the flywheel. It could be really small.
KennyBlanken 2 days ago [-]
No, you can't. Most generators have to be spun at a thousand or several thousand RPMs to put out any sort of amount of power.
Your average inexperienced person can pedal at maybe 80rpm comfortably, but probably considers even that to be "fast."
A road cyclist with a year or so under their belt will do 100rpm if they put their mind to it and are positioned well biomechanically. Above that, to do it and be smooth and efficient, especially for any sort of sustained effort, you have to have a decent amount of experience/training.
That's well over 10x too slow.
And there's still the issue of your average person only being able to put out 100-200W past about 1-3 minutes.
2 days ago [-]
scotty79 2 days ago [-]
You can have a motor with planetary gearbox built in.
mmooss 2 days ago [-]
> An energy loss of 42 to 67.5 percent of naturally means that it takes 42 to 67.5 percent more effort or time to power a device (say, a blender) via electricity compared to powering the same device mechanically.
Nope. If input is 100W, loss is 60%, and resulting in output of 40W, then to increase output to 100W you don't need 60% more input (which would output 64W) you need 150% more input.
I remember reading about low tech efficient cook stoves for poor countries and thinking the misses would rather have an induction burner, microwave, and an ice chest running off a solar panel.
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/power/
Those would definitely be hits.
Also, solar panels are old. Bell Labs demonstrated the first practical silicon solar cell in 1954. At some point, you're just trying to split (possibly nonexistent) hairs for an aesthetic, as opposed to making a principled stand against technology.
https://www.aps.org/apsnews/2009/04/bell-labs-silicon-solar-...
Full-cycle efficiency should be higher now. And the inverter. And the generator.
It does seem a bit extreme, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating: this website has been featured on the HN front page many times and I’ve not seen it ever falter. The same cannot be said for the many run of the mill “infinite scalability” cloud based SPA’s that make the front page – even those maintained by sizable organizations with hefty cloud budgets.
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/about/the-solar-website/#h...
https://github.com/lowtechmag/solar/wiki/Solar-Web-Design
https://homebrewserver.club/low-tech-website-howto.html
IMO the only optimization they 'missed' is to pre-compress the static files and images on disk, since it's cheaper to decompress on-the-fly if the client doesn't support gzip. The could use zopfli to "extra compress" the most frequently accessed files, and use this as a solar dump load to usefully burn extra power when the batteries are full (perhaps compressing with gzip -1 when Pelican re-builds the static site, or even avoid pre-compression altogether during the build process.
https://blog.llandsmeer.com/tech/2019/08/29/precompression.h...
https://github.com/google/zopfli
https://github.com/kurtmckee/pelican-precompress
Retro-look nit: all are outdated nominal voltages. The US is 120 V (since the 1960s), while the UK and EU are 230 V (since the mid-1990s).
Of course, on a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) basis, it was already cheaper quite a while ago (for the last 5 years I'd guess). It was a combination of LiFePO4 batteries having such longer cycle lives than any lead-acid chemistry, and the greater depth of discharge meaning you could use a lot more of the energy. So if you build a new lead-acid based system, you'd need almost double the amp-hours of batteries to supply the same amount of energy with a safe depth of discharge, and you'd still have to replace them much sooner. So you'd not only have to factor buying a lot more batteries with lead acid but also replacing all the lead acid batteries at least once while a LiFePO4 system would continue to operate.
So if you think about the amount of materials - lead acid are almost double the weight vs. lithium batteries per amp hour to start with, then multiply by two because of the usable capacity difference, times four to eight for the cycle life… So you’re talking having to recycle something like sixteen to thirty-two times the weight of the lithium batteries in lead, before the LiFePO4 batteries would have even reached their end of life!
It’s really almost unbelievable how much better and cheaper the lithium batteries have become!
Ok, but they often are lead acid batteries. I just bought an inverter off a guy with lead acid batteries. They exist like crazy all over the place because lead acid can be reconditioned effectively forever with proper equalization. If you have lots of solar and you value repairability with simple tools and simple skills lead acid still has a niche
Sorry I lacked the proper name, but yes they are about. And definitely look like they could help people certain health issues. Although getting down into it would be something to consider for older peeps.
she might enjoy an etrike, though more for recreation than normal day to day
Thanks, I learned something. I’m suprised how little drag they seem to add.
https://www.cyclingabout.com/dynamo-hub-power-drag-testing-s...
Your average inexperienced person can pedal at maybe 80rpm comfortably, but probably considers even that to be "fast."
A road cyclist with a year or so under their belt will do 100rpm if they put their mind to it and are positioned well biomechanically. Above that, to do it and be smooth and efficient, especially for any sort of sustained effort, you have to have a decent amount of experience/training.
That's well over 10x too slow.
And there's still the issue of your average person only being able to put out 100-200W past about 1-3 minutes.
Nope. If input is 100W, loss is 60%, and resulting in output of 40W, then to increase output to 100W you don't need 60% more input (which would output 64W) you need 150% more input.