[WJW]

It's not very high, obviously: energy is conserved and humans are not particularly efficient in converting food into energy. It's also not very effective: the article itself mentions that boiling the water for a single cup of tea took almost an hour at 60 Watts. Imagine how long you'd need to pedal to power a microwave with this, or a clothes dryer. Each of those would need at least 10x more power, so you'd be looking at 10 hours of pedaling for a single load of laundry. At that rate it's quicker to just do away with electricity entirely and wash your clothes by hand.

It could be useful in an emergency situation where you have more food than electricity though, or if you really really need something small that can only work on electricity like a HAM radio.

[toast0]

For a washing machine especially, the inefficiencies of turning mechanical energy to electrical energy and then back are going to be be pretty bad. If you could work out gearing to spin the tub mechanically, it might be better, although the back and forth motion of agitation isn't something I'd know how to do. Pumping the water and spin dry should be relatively simple, although getting enough speed for effective spinning may be a challenge.

[pitaj]

> although the back and forth motion of agitation isn't something I'd know how to do

A smaller wheel linked to a larger wheel, where the smaller wheel is driven by the bike. As the smaller wheel spins, the linkage will move back and forth. If the second wheel is sufficiently larger, it won't be rotated enough on the push stroke for the pull stroke to complete a rotation, and will oscillate instead.

https://imgur.com/B1ykmpB

[kube-system]

This still assumes, however, the perspective that a spinning tub is ideal. It's convenient when you're starting with rotational motion, like with a motor. But if we're looking for the most efficient way a human could power it, I'd suspect moving the clothes across a washboard with a static tub is way more efficient. It also has zero moving parts, outside of the human itself.

[masklinn]

Mechanical washing machines were a thing before ww2. You might be better off finding one in an old barn and replacing whatever it uses (likely a crank) with a PTO you can link to a bike. Adapting a modern washing machine would likely be quite a bit more difficult.

[aliswe]

a bit perhaps. but the drum is always connected to a belt that has a motor on the other end. and a washing machine is full of metal framing which you can drill and screw stuff to.

the hardest part would perhaps be to reenact the water cycle?

[rolph]

>>back and forth motion of agitation<<

apply torque in bursts, let the inertia help you.

start turning the drum and contents stay in place, while drum turns, until contents match speed.

then stop torque , so the drum slows suddenly and contents continue to spin until they slow down.

the drum doesnt change direction, only the direction of momentum, and the mass transfering the force does

[aliswe]

I'm more into the lines of "how would this be improved with least amount of effort and most value"?

[WJW]

Honestly as long as it remains human-powered I don't see a lot of value to be gained. Humans just don't generate a lot of raw power.

The quickest way to improve this system would probably be to attach it to a set of wind turbine blades or a waterwheel, but "how to build a very poor wind turbine" is not nearly as catchy as a blog post title.