Demo 03-16 Hand Cranked Generator

An electrical generator has two large weights attached to its shaft at a small distance from the shaft, as shown in Figure 1. It can be cranked by hand to a speed at which it contains a significant amount of rotational kinetic energy. When it is released after rotating it to a large angular speed with the generator not under a load, it slows down and stops in about five seconds. However, if a light bulb is connected to the output of the generator, the load on the generator consumes energy, which is obtained from the rotational kinetic energy of the weights, and the system slows down and stops in about one second