Mechanical Designs Using a Flywheel

Mechanical Designs Using a Flywheel

aleph 1170050232|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Hi Aleph, here is the picture of the latest revision of my zapper design, sorry for the stripy appearance of the picture, my scanner is playing up. The spring is a cord return spring from a weed eater about .25 " high. It gives around 8 rotations to the drum in less than a second. Two more pairs of magnets could be placed on the other side of the drum to triple the number of pulses. This unit should then give around 24 to 30 HZ . You have to be really cranking on the Wade Machine to get that many pulses. There are notches around the drum to act as a ratchet to hold the drum in the wound up position, I have not shown the spring loaded lever which engages these notches and acts as the release. This will allow one person to use the device on themselves, something which is very difficult at best with the Wade Machine. It will be at least as powerful as the Wade machine but in a smaller package. One of these days I must knock one up. The long arm of the coil has an addition which is iron or steel, that redirects the field of the arm to the magnet. This enables the small size of the flywheel.

Let me know your thoughts,
Tim.

last edited on 1170081770|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by aleph + show more

Re: Mechanical Designs Using a Flywheel

aleph 1170050257|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Conceptually your design has a lot going for it. I like that you are thinking about making it a one person operation. That is important. If ever the general public started believing in this, and a demand for mechanical zappers developed, then I think your design would be a great place to start.

I will share the one thing that has come up for us when we have tried to mock up some of our flywheel designs. The magnetic attraction is really strong and there is considerable forces trying to pull the magnets on the flywheel to the coil. Through precise machining Wade Teague was able to get a flywheel to rotate on a shaft that was only attached at one end. It has been hard for us to come up with a design that takes less machining that Wade's deisgn and still works as well as his did. Then again, we aren't machinest by trade.

Because of our lack of a machine shop and a mechanical design team, we have been looking more at designs that can use existing equipment that can be purchased cheaply in bulk.
The cheapest gas powered trimmer/weed eater I have seen is new for about $70. These are so cheap that when they break, they aren't worth fixing so there are a lot of them around in small engine repair shops.

Imagine taking an old trimmer and removing the gas tank and carburator. The trimming head as well as the cable that rotates and takes takes the power from the engine to the trimming head would also be removed. Then the shaft that goes to the trimming head would be cut off about an inch from the engine. Now we would have a good spark generator but it wouldn't have the 'one person operation feature'.

We could design a 'spring/ratched/trigger' mechanism that would plug into the engine right where we cut the shaft off at and would mechanically connect to the drive shaft of the engine. Then, when we pulled the crank cord, we would be winding our new spring mechanism. The spring mechanism would have a built in ratcheing and triggering system so as you continued to pull the cord, the spring could keep winding up. Once the spring was all wound up, it would be ready for action.

Also, like you suggested in your design, we could add more magnets to the flywheel. Most flywheels have magnets on one side and a counter balance on the other. I bet two holes in the counter balance could be drilled and then the small super magnets glued or pressed into the flywheel. That would give more pulses.

If we came up with a good design, we might be able to purchase just the parts of the engine we used from China. Or, our 'Spring,ratched,trigger' system could be retro fitted on old trimmers.

Thanks
Aleph

last edited on 1170080510|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by aleph + show more

Re: Mechanical Designs Using a Flywheel

aleph 1170080181|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Hey Aleph,

It is possible to add more magnets on some flywheels but care must be taken, in order to match the fields on the magneto. It would be difficult to make one device which would attach to most flywheels. The one problem I see with staying with the small engine flywheel is that it is not easily portable. The benefit of the small engine flywheels are that they are readily available.

I think that although 20 hz may be ideal, a little less is fine. The windup attachment would probably give around 12 to 15 hz with no modification and that is close to what you would get from pulling the cord on a lawn mower. And we know that that is what many people have used. The Wade Machine gives 16 hz when it is being cranked at 2.5 turns per second (really cranking). My little mechanical zapper gives right at 16 pulses per second also ( I just ran out and did some tests). So I really think that no modification is needed to the flywheel to obtain something equivalent to the Wade Machine.

Regards,
Tim.