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Has anyone ever created a full-sized windup (clockwork-

powered) car?
I understand that it would be a monumental undertaking for most of us here, but still I
was wondering if anyone on the high-school engineering level or higher has ever
attempted to build a vehicle that could carry a minimum of two people sitting side by
side, travel for 50 miles at a speed of 35-40 mph over undulating terrain? How
practical would this be? How big or heavy would it be? How would you go about Times Duros na Queda
rewinding the mainspring so that you're not tiring yourself or your teammates out AND Invictos por mais tempo: veja times que
esqueceram o que perder uma partida de
not contributing too much to the current pollution levels?
futebol

If someone has attempted this, have you posted your results? I would love to see Saber Mais
them.
About This Topic

5,791 views Posted:

Jun 2, 2012

javajunkie1976
(/member/javajunkie1976
Follow 11

Seja Pop, seja Honda (/member/javajunkie1976/)

Bio: I enjoy a variety of things. I'm an
So parcelas acessveis e sem juros active volunteer since November of 2010 at
para voc sair de Pop 110i. Bunnyluv Rabbit Resource Center in Van
consorcionacionalhonda.com.br/Motos Nuys, CA where I help care for the shelter
and boarding bunnies. I love working
wi...read more (/member/javajunkie1976/)

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clockwork (/tag/type-id/category-technology/keyword-clockwork/)

car (/tag/type-id/category-technology/keyword-car/)

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Burf (/member/Burf/) 5 years ago Reply

Leonardo da Vinci designed a self propelled vehicle using a clockwork type

(/member/Burf/)
mainspring about 550 years ago. You can see his drawings online.

(https://cdn.instructables.com/F1N/KU41/H2WESNX7/F1NKU41H2WESNX7.LARGE.jpg)
 kel.ward.75 (/member/kel.ward.75/) 2 years ago Reply

just watch something on tv on this an Australian guy invented one years ago
and a some
(/member/kel.ward.75/) guys from the USA bought the patent and just shelved it going by
what I seen on tv it didn't go slow ether

javajunkie1976 (/member/javajunkie1976/) (author) 5 years ago Reply

Ok, new question, do we have any instructables on this site on MAKING clock
gears and arrangements?
(/member/javajunkie1976/) I found a couple of kids books at the library but
nothing on a college level.

dreiseratops (/member/dreiseratops/) 5 years ago Reply

Well where does the energy come from? You still have to wind it. May as well
just pedalright?
(/member/dreiseratops/)

I wonder if anyone has explored the idea of a spinning weight as a start assist
via inertia on a pedal powered vehicle.
Wouldnt that keep the input energy more even? You could go faster & farther
with a more focused power band right?
That would certainly help if you were going to do wind up too.

I like thinking about this... :)

Vyger (/member/Vyger/) dreiseratops 5 years ago Reply

They tried using flywheels for storing and releasing energy. In a

stationary
(/member/Vyger/) application they can work pretty good. In a moving
application there are a lot of problems. The inertia of the flywheel has
to be overcome in order to move a vehicle but even more important is
the angular momentum. Its the idea behind a gyroscope. The spinning
mass will resist any change in its direction of movement. Trying to steer
a vehicle with a rotating flywheel in it is not going to work. It will tend to
continue in a straight line and you can kiss your tires goodbye pretty
fast.

dreiseratops (/member/dreiseratops/) Vyger 5 years ago Reply

Quite right. Good call.

(/member/dreiseratops/)

Vyger (/member/Vyger/) Vyger 5 years ago Reply

I just had an interesting thought about this. You see them doing these
car jumps
(/member/Vyger/) in the movies which most of us know are not possible in real
life driving. The cars do not remain parallel to the ground but usually
nose dive into the pavement. If you put a large flywheel in a car with it
rotating parallel to the pavement then it would keep the car from diving
in a jump. It would keep it parallel to the pavement, so all you have to
deal with then is the tires exploding when it lands and the
undercarriage collapsing. But at least it would still be in line with the
pavement, just pancaked.

javajunkie1976 (/member/javajunkie1976/) (author) dreiseratops

5 years ago Reply
The problem with the pedal power solution is that
the original requirment I laid down was that it had to
(/member/javajunkie1976/)
be practical and I don't see your average person
getting something like this, a fitness or
environmental nut maybe... An electric flywheel has
a good potential.

Vyger (/member/Vyger/) 5 years ago Reply

Things that work in a small scale often do not work on a large scale. (And vise
versa)
(/member/Vyger/) It is in large part due to the square-cube law. What that says in a very
 simple explanation is that the surface area of something increases by the
square while the volume (and therefore weight or mass) increases by the
cube. As an example, a tiny water droplet will remain very close to a sphere
and can hold together with the surface tension of the water. But as you make
the drop bigger it starts to flatten out and past a certain point it will disintegrate
into smaller drops.

The ability to store energy in a spring will go down as the spring gets larger
because the springs mass increases faster than its ability to store energy
which is partly dependent on its surface area. The larger it becomes the less
efficient it becomes and overcoming its mass will eventually take up almost all
its stored energy. So, what works great as a kids toy doesn't work in large
scale. The energy requirements become greater much faster than the scale of
the model does.

For a more in depth discussion of the square-cube law see this article.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law)

(https://cdn.instructables.com/FYB/CGH8/GNJD0CFP/FYBCGH8GNJD0CFP.LARGE.jpg)

Re-design (/member/Re-design/) 5 years ago Reply

How would you wind it? It would take roughly the same amount of energy as if
a person
(/member/Re- was peddling it the same distance.
design/)

canucksgirl (/member/canucksgirl/) 5 years ago Reply

There was a "Full size wind-up toy car" posted on YouTube (but I suspect its
more of acosmetic joke)...
(/member/canucksgirl/)

Then there was an article (http://www.damninteresting.com/why-not-a-wind-up-

car/) posted a number of years ago, proposing the same idea, but I'm not sure
that they've explored it further.

Over here, our Engineering students are famous for their pranks (like putting
cars on top of local bridges)... There's links to many videos, images etc from
UBC Engineering.

javajunkie1976 (/member/javajunkie1976/) (author) canucksgirl

5 years ago Reply
Yeah, I saw that video when I was perusing youtube
in search of inspiration. It is a prank. I was thinking
(/member/javajunkie1976/)
more along the lines of something practical yet with
enough time and energy make it look like it would
belong in a Steampunk convention.
 canucksgirl (/member/canucksgirl/) javajunkie1976 5 years ago Reply

To do something like that, you'd have to start with a bare chassis, and
have an extremely
(/member/canucksgirl/) lightweight body. The mechanics of the design for
the wind-up portion would need to be a little different from the regular
wind-up mechanisms, so that a) it wasn't too stiff to turn b) the
mechanism didn't start un-winding like most toy cars, until you wanted
it to, and then you'd still have to have a steering and braking
mechanism. It's a cool concept, that could be done if you had the
means to do so, and with a lot of pre-planning. Maybe the way to go
(from the start), is with a go-kart chassis, and work through all the
difficulties before tackling a full size car?

rickharris (/member/rickharris/) 5 years ago Reply

various clockwork cars were made as demonstrations as were cars driven by

wound up elastic bands.
(/member/rickharris/)

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