I'm moving into a new flat in september which has an external garage. It has no power whatsoever so I was wondering what alternatives I might have for some portable power?

Ideally I'd like to be able to run a proper work light for after dark maintenance and possibly a pedestal fan for roller sessions.

Any suggestions?

cheers

Ed

solar? would take a big ass battery to power a pedestal fan (or get a 12v one for trucks) but i've solar'd up my shed for £50 and it works really well. its a bit "niche" as technically uou could run a cable from the house but it was a fun project.

and i dont have a beard btw.

see more solar nerdage here

noisey, expensive to run (relativly) not what i would choose.

can you not connect a dynamo to the roller? 😉

or just connect a fan to the roller with a dibnah-esque system of belts and pullys?

…or drive chain spares….

As above, seems a shame (and almost ridiculous) not to take power from the turbo

Davidrussel – thats interesting, I'll look into that.

I could run power from the flat buts its a second floor and quite some way from the garage!

(and I couldn't grow a proper beard if I tried so I'm safe on that front)

Olly – if you sketch me out a proposal for a roller driven fan I would certainly try it!

I guess it would require something along the lines of another belt from the front roller driving a horizontal gear…that would have to be run through some more gears to drive a vertical shaft….and then again to drive the fan itself….

Generators are noisy and cost is prohibitive circa half a litre to a litre of fuel per hour in use. For what you need solar + battery and 12 volt lights/fan is a far better option. Depending on how often you use ot I would just use one leisure battery personally.
Depending on fan power the light with LED will be minimal.
Rememeber to calculate power for winter not summer!

I've got a 80Ah leisure batt + inverter + 3 x fluro tubes in my car-building den (council rented lock-up half a mile from the house). Charge the batt up at home every couple of weeks when using it most nights, must have been circa £120 all in. Could you charge the batt off the roller with a car alternator?

Can you drive a fan directly off the wheel and then duct the airflow rather than trying to build gear boxes?

Your garage is going to look like Wallace and Grommits place……..!

Why not just go out and ride your bike…… cooling breezes for free……. 😉

Ham

IIRC screwfix do some big ass battery run strip lights, you plug them in to recharge in the flat when necessary. I also have an unpowered garage and that'd what I'm getting when I get round to it.

Fan like this: http://www.powertri.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=221

Our new house-to-be has a second garage/barn at the bottom of the garden. It's 300' from the house, so I'll not be running power down to it, so will probably go for solar at some point. Some useful links here, thanks.

That's if the flooding from the river isn't too bad/frequent, anyway.

joemarshall, that's awesome. Certainly worthwhile looking at something vented. The geared thing was more tongue in cheek than anything else.

I reckon I can easily rig something like that up.

As for charging batteries from alternators etc I'm no electrical engineer,but my future father in law is….

If it's not a big walk I'd use a leisure battery as spandex_bob suggested. Use some 12v LED spots and/or 12v tubes. Just keep the battery on charge in the house and take it down with you.