K-TOR® products convert mechanical energy from human cranking or pedaling to electrical energy that can be used to recharge batteries.
You produce mechanical energy from your body eating food which fuels your muscles. This effort turns a hand crank or a pedal on our devices.
For our Pocket Socket hand crank generator you need to turn the hand crank two times per second. The biggest problem customers have is not cranking fast enough. We recommend you go as fast as you can and then slow down once continuous charging has been established to a slightly slower speed that still allows continuous charging. The hand over hand method is the best. Hold the unit with your hand up high inline with the rotating axis in the middle of your palm. This way there is the minimum amount of twisting in your hand and the least amount of force needed to hold it. Crank for at least three minutes and then take a break, change hands or have someone else crank and repeat.
The Power Box pedal generator should be cranked at 1.5 times per second. It is important that the base is stable for pedaling for long periods of time. We recommend screwing it down. There are four holes under the four pins in the feet for this purpose. If not screwed down you will need to provide downward force while using with the feet that are pedaling to keep the unit stable.
You should be able to pedal for long periods of time.
The power box product outputs 120 volts DC over a standard AC outlet. It has a universal power plug so it will work anywhere in the world. It will work with a wide range of portable electronics such as cell phones, tablets, portable DVD players, cameras, etc. These devices use high efficiency modern DC to DC converters for their charger circuits and K-Tor® uses the same high efficiency DC to DC technique to supply the high voltage DC they run on. These chargers do not have transformers in them and are lighter and work over a range of voltages. Typically they say they work from 100-240 volts and 50-60 Hz. You can plug the charger directly in.
The charger also needs to be less than 20 watts for the Power Box. To determine the wattage, multiply the output of the charger volts times amps. If the charger reads ma this means milliamps so put a decimal point in front of the number. Five volts times 800 milliamps is five times .8 or 4 watts. Divide by .7 for the efficiency of the charger so this will draw 5.7 watts from the power box. A fast charge cell phone charge these days will deliver 2.1 amps at 5 volts or 10.5 watts and will pull 15 watts from the Power Box. So this is okay but it can not do two fast chargers at the same time.
Plug your wall charger into your power box generator and crank
or pedal. It provides ample power to the charger so the charger charges your
device at the same rate as it would if plugged into a wall outlet.
The PS2 USB produces 1 amp at the 5 volts the USB standard voltage via a USB interface. It is regulated so that the USB cable can be plugged directly in and connected directly to your device so that it can be charged at one amp. There is no charge to go through and so no efficiency loss. The PS2 is the best most powerful pocket sized hand crank on the market. The smart chip in the PS2 has electronic current limiting and thermal overload protection.
The Power Box 50 delivers a regulated 14 volts 3 amps via a standard 12 volt socket. This is the correct voltage for direct charging of 12 volt batteries. A cable for this purpose is included. Devices that are intended to be plugged directly into a 12 volt that are within the power limit will also work. A number of these are carries on our store. As an example a 12 volt to dual 2.1 amp USB converter. So two cell phones and fast charge at the same time. The Power Box 50 also has a smart chip with current limiting and thermal overload protection.
If you have a dead cell phone, for example, it would bring it back to life so that you could make a call in a few minutes. To fully charge a cell from dead to 100% charged is over an hour. That’s a lot of hand cranking. We recommend three minutes at a time, take a break and repeat for 20-30 minutes a day. This will be enough to keep your cell working for extended periods of time.
Our Power Box pedal generator can be pedaled for long periods comfortably. So fully charging any device is possible.