Could connecting treadmills and other exercise machines to generators help provide electricity?
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dead leaves raked in a pile
ANSWERS: 2
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Well, it's not that it "couldn't" be done, because certainly it's technologically feasible. But it sure is impractical. After all, we're not talking about just wiring treadmills together (as if "just wiring treadmills together" is nothing at all), but creating some kind of mechanical linkage from multiple treadmills to a generator which would produce the electricity, getting enough people to work out on the treadmills 24 x 7 (in all kinds of weather, holiday, national emergency, feast or famine) with enough regularity and predictability to assure some constant minimum baseline of generation. Not likely. What's more likely, perhaps, is a self-contained treadmill / generator set that could produce small amounts of electricity to power, say, lights for a few hours, or TV for a few minutes at a time, maybe. Still, it would cost more in initial product cost and maintenance than it would save you over any reasonable time frame. It might actually make some sense for an emergency generator, but still wouldn't provide enough power to keep your refrigerator going during a blackout, for example.
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they could provide electricity, but probably not more than what is required to power the machine itself. it is more likely that treadmills could become self powered - the belt could operate a small generator that, after initial power-up, would keep the treadmill going. the problem here would be getting the generator to a small enough size to not get in the way.
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