Lets say that I, an average sedentary western male set myself a new exercise regime. I purchase a PS4 but I can only play it when I’m powering it with my own muscle power via a recumbent exercise bike. The PS4 would be connected to a generator / battery that would give me 10 minutes grace time for toilet breaks and time to save my game but otherwise if I stopped I’d lose my progress. The LCD monitor will be on mains power so I’m only powering the PS4 unit via my own muscle.
Would I be able to keep the PS4 running consistently enough to finish Fall Out 4? Bonus question, how many KG’s would I lose in the time it takes me to finish FO4 if I otherwise eat my Caloriee TDEE each day?
Unless you are in excellent condition (unlikely if you play a lot of video games), you are not going to be able to maintain that kind of power output for the time it takes to play a long game (an hour or more).
there actually was a video game powered in just this fashion, the one I am familiar with looked a lot like a spin bike, well ok, is a spin bike. As I recall from the single one that I actually had anything to do with personally, it was used to power a PS2 I think (memory is really hazy on the specific details, it’s been a while). It seems to me that they never really did well, here in the US anyway.
Damn, it seemed like such a good exercise plan. I’m convinced that if someone made a black box that regulated gameplay in such a way it would be a great kickstarter. Go ahead, this idea is on me, if someone does it I will kick in $100 US.
Making such a black box would be rather trivial. It’s literally just a 120 volt relay in a box, connected to an arduino connected to an LCD, or some other extremely easy to get piece of hardware. I’d probably use an integration method - every second at a particular bike speed gets added to an accumulator, and every second the PS4 is drawing significant current (when idling, the ps4 probably doesn’t draw much power) you subtract from the same accumulator. Get below 0 and it shuts off the relay.
I think it would depend a lot on the efficiency of your dynamo, but with a little bit of training I think it might be achievable. Maybe start with a PS2 and work up. I’m an amateur cyclist (no formal training, mostly pleasure riding, too wimpy to enter races) and I can sustain ~200W for a few hours at a time, or 150W nearly indefinitely.
Granted, I don’t know if 200W of mechanical power to the pedals would be enough to supply 125W of sufficiently clean DC. Maybe not.
There’s no inherent reason your pedaling has to actually power the device. You just want it to stay on as long as you are pedaling, right? So hook it up with a relay switch. The power just goes to turning the switch on, not actually powering device. You can use resistors to force a minimum amount of power before it works, if you want to make sure you’re not just barely turning them.
But, yeah, don’t connect directly to the PS2 to avoid corruption. It’s not designed to be powered off by the mains. Hook it to the TV. I’d also suggest not letting it turn itself back on. Just use a capacitor to keep it running for a bit when you stop. You don’t want to have the system constantly turning off and on in starts.
I’m an amateur cyclist (no formal training, mostly pleasure riding, too wimpy to enter races) and I can sustain ~200W for a few hours at a time, or 150W nearly indefinitely.