No Tech Reader #45: Housing

April 7, 2024 by kris de decker Filed Under: Architecture, Building materials, Buildings, DIY, Housing, Human power, No Tech Readers, Video

Structural issues: the cost of material and the value of labour. [The Architectural Review] “In an alternative future, taxes would protect human labour and punish excessive material use to stop wasteful practices.” (Thanks to David Bourgignon.)

How to Build an Iron Age Village. [YouTube] “In Argüeso (Cantabria) a group of young researchers and artisans recreated in 1999 a Cantabrian town from the Iron Age.” (Thanks to Adriana Parra.)

The Masons of Djenne. [YouTube/National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Inst.] “The film captures a unique and very old building technique using handmade masonry, perfected through multiple generations in Djenne, a small town in the West African country of Mali.”

Rammed Earth Construction: A Circular Solution For Sustainable Building. [Latin American Structural Engineering and Construction Conference 2024] “The low level of skill required for rammed earth buildings paves the way for self-built activities.”

Pedal-Powered Grain Mill

April 6, 2024 by kris de decker Filed Under: DIY, Human power, Pedal power, Pedal powered machines, Random

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Human Powered Fire Making

June 1, 2023 by kris de decker Filed Under: Fire, Human power, Random

People made fire by hand for many thousands of years. We improved the energy efficiency of the process by letting the legs do the work. Unlike modern lighters, the lighter bike does not use fossil fuels. Lighting a cigarette takes about a minute of brisk pedaling.

DIY: How to build your own bike generator.

Human Powered Record Player

May 19, 2023 by kris de decker Filed Under: Human power, Random

Low-tech Magazine’s bike generator powers a record player. No batteries are involved: a buck converter in the control panel keeps the voltage output constant at 12V. Power use is very low and pedaling is easy. Record: Jean-Jacques Perrey et son Ondioline.

Build your own bike generator.

We also published a video of our pedal powered video projector.

Human Powered Dot Matrix Printer

April 30, 2023 by kris de decker Filed Under: Human power, Random

Human-powered dot-matrix printer. Direct power. No batteries are involved. Directly powering a dot-matrix printer is challenging, especially when printing longer documents. The power demand is variable and can increase suddenly for a short time. You must pedal very fast to anticipate these peaks. If you fail, the voltage drops, the communication between the printer and the laptops breaks down, and the machine prints the document all over again. Capacitors could solve this. A laser printer has a very high power use during startup and is incompatible with a bike generator (or a small-scale solar installation).

DIY manual for the bike generator: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2022/03/how-to-build-bike-generator.html.

History of office equipment: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2016/11/why-the-office-needs-a-typewriter-revolution.html

Human Powered Electric Guitar

April 19, 2023 by kris de decker Filed Under: Human power, Instruments, Musical Instruments, Random

Musician Germán Canyelles uses Low-tech Magazine’s bike generator to power his electric guitar. The guitar amplifier and pedals are plugged into an inverter connected to the 12V circuit of the bike generator. No batteries are used. Recorded at Akasha Hub, Barcelona.