Wind Up Torch bit used as a Dynamo:- any one tried it

[sbwhart]

This may be way off beam as an Idea so shoot me down if it can't be done.

I recently stripped down a wind up torch (as you do)  that had stopped holding the charge, it only worked when you wound it. And found  the little generator gismo, this set me thinking if it would power a small light when hooking up to one of my engines.

And before any ask no I don't want to light my workshop with it,

I'm thinking of using for a model generator set:- as any one tired this ?

Stew

[Roger B]

In general it should work. You may need to play around with gear ratios to get a reasonable match to your engine. If the ratio is too low the generator won't turn fast enough and if it's too high go engine will stall/be unable to start. A hand crank system is probably optimized around 60 rpm which will be a bit too slow to get any useful output from a small engine. Maybe you should try with the first gear set removed 

Both of my IC engines drive small generators and others on here have done similar things (airmodel, Chuck Fellows, Ian S C to name a few that I can think of at the moment).

[Ian S C]

It a depends on the size of your engine as to what size of motor/generator you use.  Rather than "Toy motors" (rev too fast), motors from printers, VHS tape machines are good.  One of the best that I use is the motor out of a kitchen stick type mixer.  Not too sure about adapting a wind up torch.  Even a bike dynamo is quite good if you don't mind AC volts, or a stepper motor.
Ian S C