DIY Electricity Generating Shoes

Hey guys in this Instructables I will show you how i made use of the walking energy which otherwise will go in vain to a energy producing device.

No matter wherever you go we walk, whether it is for casual garden walk or a fresh morning jog, we walk or run

Have you ever thought of the unused power that you will be producing when you walk?

There are many devices which can tap the energy, the most common device/electronics used is the piezoelectric disc.

What is piezoelectric disc? A piezoelectric disc is a device that converts electrical energy to mechanical energy also known as a piezo actuators.

This works in such a way that when voltage is applied to the piezo ceramic disc, the piezoelectric material contracts or expands, deforming the piezo disc actuator and generating displacement.

This is the basic principle used behind this project, If you are planning to build this project i have given detailed instructions on building the same along with video tutorial.

It is going to be a fun along with educational project that will help you understand and have hands on experience on electronics and mechanical concepts.

Battery case

18650 battery

Diode

Piezoelectric plates I bought from here

Wires

Soldering gun

Hot glue gun and sticks

Shoes

Hot glue sticks

Charging Module

Sheet of paper and marker

Scissors

These discs generate dc power when some pressure is applied on them, The concept here is using more discs so that the setup will generate more and more power.

The discs can be found in buzzer, on the other hand if external power is applied to these buzzer it will act as a sound making buzzer.

I have made splits of the cable that i will be soldering later to these Discs, The center part is positive and the golden plate is negative and these may change if negative force is applied, On the first image of this step you cna see that when i connected an LED and applied some pressure it immediately glows up the LED.

The power generation is not stable since we are applying varying force and not the steady one, To fix this i will use diodes more on this in the coming step

The pressing part below the sole needs to be the size lesser than that of the sole, I have placed the white sheet of paper under the sole and traced a outline with my pencil.

Now after the tracing is done, outline a line smaller than that of the original line of the sole, After this is done trace the same line on a semi flexible sheet of plastic.

The thickness of the plastic sheet that i used was very thin, so for me scissors served well the purpose of cutting and the other advantage here is it will adjust to the movements without causing any harm to the user and the internal parts of the shoes.

I have made 2 different parts here, the pressure points that has more impact on the foot is the front and the rear part. So adding discs to these 2 will help us to have the most advantage.

I have made 2 divisions here, one is for the front part of the foot and the second is the rear part of the foot.

Here i added 3 discs for each part and i will connect them in series, Later these 2 will be combined to that we have 6 discs connected in total and because of this design we can tap out continuous energy.

I have made series connection and to get most out of the disc i made a small cushion thing from glue stick, i have glued this to the center and upon this i have added a plastic plate.

Repeat the same step for the other part too and now we can head over to tapping the alternating power to the stable DC power

Diodes here serve 2 purpose, The first is the regulating the voltage and the second purpose is converting alternating power to stable dc power.

The diodes are arranged in this manner and to the top and bottom connection i have connected power input pins of the battery charging module.

The other terminals are connected to the piezoelectric disc plates.

You can use thin wires to establish connections between all these components, Solder the joints and trim off the excess wires this may lead to misconnections and cause problems later

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This part of the step is very important, why because you should hide all the electronics keeping in mind about the safety of the electronics and the foot.

There should not be any parts that is peeping out which may cause discomfort to the walking person.

I installed all the electronics below the sole and tested the project by tapping my hands on the shoes, it was generating 5v with my light pressure from the hands, When i press the same on my foot it will generate close to 7v which is sufficient to charge the battery.

I will use battery case to hold the battery when its in charging and the double sided adhesive to hold the powerbank with the shoes.

You can also use different type of shoes too.

Using this is not a great deal, all you have to do is search for a good walking spot!

I recommend to wear socks whenever you are wearing the shoes, Connect the 18650 battery to the holder and start walking.

The charging board that I'm using comes with a blue LED when no battery is connected, and if the battery is connected and when you start walking the red led from board starts blinking.

This means that the battery is charging and your walking is generating electricity, You can use this power from the battery later to charge your other electronics.

That is all for now about this project, Thank you for showing interest and have a great build.

Here is the detailed working video of this project, you can see how it generates power even with gentle walking then you can just think how much power it generates when running.

That was all about this project, if you have any questions ask me in the comments, Thanks and happy making