I take it also quacks when it rides. It's the only way this would work.
Spring-powered wheel claims to be ‘E-bike alternative at lower cost’
31–40 of 79 posts
Re: Spring-powered wheel claims to be ‘E-bike alternative at lower cost’
#32I have trouble making sense of this. What is the mechanism at work here[0]? Is it maybe storing energy that otherwise would be lost (e.g. from shocks, jerks, up and down motion of bike and biker while pedalling?) in the springs to convert it into useful motion, like the Achilles tendon helps humans to walk more efficiently [1]? Being a physicist, the name of the tech ("Weight (Mass) to energy Conversion Technology" […
The idea seems to be you have a loaded spring at the top of the wheel as it’s rotating forward. The spring is loaded through some mechanism in the axle, which seems to be some sort of fixed axle that loads the spring through weight. As it rotates, the mechanism which forces the spring closed through downward gravitational force ceases to apply, allowing the fixed axle to unload that spring into the unfixed axle, which propels the wheel.
It’s no more than a rotational gas spring. The same principle that lets you open and close the hood or trunk of your car with ease. At least that’s how I’m understanding it...
Re: Spring-powered wheel claims to be ‘E-bike alternative at lower cost’
#33It looks like the ad for those meter-cheating gizmos from 25 years ago. "No one thought of using springs to save energy, but we did! Buy now and get our pro spring with extra winds for the price of a regular one!"
Re: Spring-powered wheel claims to be ‘E-bike alternative at lower cost’
#34While this particular instance looks a bit unbelievable (where does the stored energy come from?), I wonder if there's more unrealized potential for spring-based energy storage.
I'm reminiscent of a sci-fi book someone on HN recommended to me the other day[0], "The Windup Girl". In the post-climate-catastrophe world depicted there, there's scarcity of energy sources; no energy-dense fuels to power modern technological civilization. The society described in the book instead learned to rely on gravity and mechanical energy, stored in springs big and small[1]. Small springs were used as portable batteries, and everyday technology was ruthlessly optimized to be as energy-efficient as possible.
I wonder how much space for this kind of innovation is there to be have? And with modern electrical batteries, is there even a point to storing mechanical energy and avoiding the mechanical -> electrical -> mechanical conversion flow?
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[0] - As another biopunk novel to read after Change Agent.
[1] - Small springs are wound manually, but one biopunk part here is the use of beasts of burden, genetically engineered for maximum efficiency of converting food to mechanical energy, to wind up large springs and power other machinery.
Re: Spring-powered wheel claims to be ‘E-bike alternative at lower cost’
#35Initially I thought this was some kind of mechanical regenerative braking. I wonder if that's been attempted before. Applying the brakes would wind a spring and bring the bike to a stop. Then applying force to the pedals or manually pulling a lever would release the spring for an assisted start. Edit: Here's some mechanical regenerative braking projects: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yK7fyugbe6o https://m.youtube.com…
Spring regen is hard because you need a very big Spring to store the energy of 80kg of bike at 30mph.
Re: Spring-powered wheel claims to be ‘E-bike alternative at lower cost’
#36I expected mainspring based energy storage device but it looks like a typical perpetual motion machine fraud.
Re: Spring-powered wheel claims to be ‘E-bike alternative at lower cost’
#37Would love to hear the opinions of some actual mechanical engineers. Can these springs really passively get you +30% efficiency? What about weight? Cyclists are obsessive about reducing rotating mass, and these wheels seem to be seriously chunky. Is this actually a thing that could work?
No. There’s no 30% gain to be had. Losses in a properly maintained bicycle are already far lower than this.
> Losses in a properly maintained bicycle are already far lower than this.
Plainly not true. If I cycle a 1 mile lap and come to a stop, I have put in lots of energy yet am in exactly the same position I started in.
Bicycling (and most forms of transport) are 100% losses when considered in an "energy in Vs energy out" way.
Re: Spring-powered wheel claims to be ‘E-bike alternative at lower cost’
#38How can such unscientific stuff end up on first page of HN? Or did I miss the part where the inventor published a breakthrough technique that allows his system to break known laws of physics?
It's entertainment! I don't laugh often. But this made my day!
Re: Spring-powered wheel claims to be ‘E-bike alternative at lower cost’
#39This article has all the makings of a perpetual motion machine. Those are normally found by using either "springs", "magnets" or a combination of both. There is theoretically a way to use the roughness of the terrain (so the bike going up and down as it rides) to store that energy and then use that for propulsion. When finding a rough spot, the bike trades forward momentum for a vertical impulse, so it might be possi…
I concur, and this smells of bullshit. Unfortunately they don't show inside their magic box, so I can't see whats happening on the inside. I did notice that the springs were completely missing on one of their demos in the video though!
Re: Spring-powered wheel claims to be ‘E-bike alternative at lower cost’
#40I have trouble making sense of this. What is the mechanism at work here[0]? Is it maybe storing energy that otherwise would be lost (e.g. from shocks, jerks, up and down motion of bike and biker while pedalling?) in the springs to convert it into useful motion, like the Achilles tendon helps humans to walk more efficiently [1]? Being a physicist, the name of the tech ("Weight (Mass) to energy Conversion Technology" […
The idea seems to be you have a loaded spring at the top of the wheel as it’s rotating forward. The spring is loaded through some mechanism in the axle, which seems to be some sort of fixed axle that loads the spring through weight. As it rotates, the mechanism which forces the spring closed through downward gravitational force ceases to apply, allowing the fixed axle to unload that spring into the unfixed axle, whic…
There's something fundamentally missing from that explanation, because it doesn't explain where the energy is coming from. You can't load a spring without providing energy, and gravity cannot provide energy in a steady state system.