Can I get more energy out of my system by using two generators instead of one, or by using a flywheel, or using a bigger generator or higher gears?
The human body is limited too how much energy it can put out, no matter how you setup your generator system, the human body can only put out an average of 100 to 150 Watts during a one hour period. Putting a bigger generator on your system does not give you the ability to generate more energy. It may make your system a few percentage points more efficient like from 94% efficiency to 95% efficiency (Where efficiency is calculated by power out of the system divided by power into the system.)
We were recently asked to analyze a a pedal power system that an inventor had claimed would allow a person to generate well over 1,000 Watts of power. He had a fly wheel on the system and TWO generators. Dozens of investors had dumped in hundreds of thousands of dollars into this invention. The results of testing the system out by measuring current to the battery bank showed that this inventor had made a huge mistake in his claims. He had made two mistakes:
He had assumed that because his generator was rated for 1,000 Watts output that meant that a person could automatically put out 1,000 Watts on a bike generator
He had assumed that putting two of these on a pedal power system would automatically double his output to 2,000 Watts .
The rating on a generator or PMA (Permanent magnet alternator) simply states the max rated power output of the unit. There is no free lunch.
Some people have tried adding a fly wheel to the system to store the energy. This does nothing to increase power output. It simply stores your energy represented by the formula for kinetic energy stored in a rotating body which is:
Note: The inertia is calculated by taking the mass of the flywheel in kg and multiplying it by the square of the radius of the flywheel. And angular velocity is in radians per second. But you don’t need to be a scientist to understand all this. Just know that a fly wheel stores energy. IT DOES NOT INCREASE IT. So when you see the many misleading web pages on the internet claiming that fly wheels will increase energy output beware.