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Oh, Boy! A homemade, high-speed flywheel rotating just beneath my groin!
Yay!
The sound alone is harrowing. It's like something out of Greek mythology. (Still awesome, though, in a mad scientist kind of way.)
Needs more jagged edges. Use a dia-tipped Sawblade...
If you want your boys snipped, look no further!
ok
Achievement Unlocked: Tom Stanton has advanced into the Iron Age
Metal
Advancement Made! Aquire Hardware
@@spod2998 lol
Lol
from pla
The sound coming from these gears made me appreciate how well made bicycles are
Follow JIesus and you will not be ashamed.fwef
That's why bicycles have chains and not gears ;) they are much more efficient, have much less wear and takes a lot less maintenance than gears. It's no just a matter of noise. Let's all just take a second and thank the guy that invented the chain.
@flymali691 ...what are you thinking bicycle chains are typically attached to? Upon a second glance, the noise here seems to be coming from the chain making poor contact with the front gear just due to the lack of chain slack. He could have gotten rid of his weird excuse for a chain tensioner, since it's a single gear ratio, then just actually tensioned the chain directly. But given everything I've seen, I don't think this guy has a working relationship with bicycles
@@tay-lore A gear is specifically something that interlocks with other gears whereas a sprocket is specifically designed to work with chains. Sprockets and chains go together.
@@TheInfectous ah, I see. This guy's sprockets sound shit
Tip for the flywheel: Because the mass at the outside of the flywheel has more rotational inertia you would have better performance using a thin central disk, and welding or bolting thick rings on both sides to make the cross section an I beam. For the same volume/mass you would have a much higher rotational energy saved up at the same RPM. :)
Hmmm yes yes🥸
Adding razor blades would deter thieves and make it safer.
@@ghlibisk67 sure it would keep it safe for the rest of your life.... which happens to be about 3 minutes longer than it takes for the glue to fail launching the razor into your femoral artery.
Science bitch!
IT willl not work. Try to hold bicycle by the hotizontal axis , put it in Rotation and try to tilt it. You will feel a strong force that tries to move the axis in a vertical position. The Same will happen with the flywheel when you change the direction in a bend. And why all this effort? We already have the E-Bike and we can use Rekuperation like an a car
Amazing, I love a bike build/project and this was spot on
Woah sup Colin!
I found you first I guess
definitely need a Colin and Tom Collab project
High praise right here!
You'd use fireworks to spin up a flywheel to make a bike boost
"However, you can't charge and discharge this batterys not nearly as fast as this flywheel..." Sounds like a new Super Capacitor Project :-)
Agree
Or could motors be used to create a electric infinite transmission between the wheel and flywheel?
@@TheNateDawg94 That was my first thought actually. Clutches are very wasteful.
@@nrdesign1991 especially if you need power but the flywheel is spinning slower than the chain...
I was going to make the same comment! I immediately thought the same thing upon hearing that exact quote.
You need a 19lbs plate and a transmission to a higher gear ratio to get more value out of the discharge. You'll see a dramatic change in how aggressive the takeoff will be. A sort of tapping of the clutch can get you up to a pretty high speed. I'd recommend doing the transmission from the other side of the bike. A sort of 2chainz bike if you will.
Ok. The stupid joke made me smile.
My preference is the Spec Clutch. Only cause Mitsubishi Evo. :) You could change the Clutch to a better one. I'd also recommend Volk Racing Rims for bikes like yours :D. I've also heard Corbeau makes really awesome bike seats!
Would it affect how hard it is to pedal the bike?
If so, how much more would it possibly be?
Tity bike
Going down a hill you could get the RPMs up really high, then use it to help with going up the hill on the other side.
Isn’t the emount of energy the same? The flawheel stores some energy but you also have to carry more mass climbing up
@@ImadogGarcia Yeah, presumably -- but it's so much fun zooming down a hill that you can pedal fast and not notice.
Also this would be the best in stop and go traffic and is far more efficient than electrical regenerative braking
@@ImadogGarcia Theoretically but due to the laws of physics it's unlikely you'd get even halfway up the hill with just the flywheel
Lube. Lube those gears. You’re losing a tremendous amount of energy in friction on those chunky cogs.
Everything can be fixed with more lube. everything.
@@100acatfishandwillbreakyou2 No, not everything… around half. The rest being solved by duct tape.
Big difference when you lube a chain. Feels like the bike is 25 lbs. lighter!
@@thelakeman5207 I agree. I build high speed gearboxes for a living, not only will it turn with far less effort, the teeth will last 1000x longer. A wet gearbox is a happy gearbox.
@@Whiskypapa what about flex tape
Hey, that sounds like an amazing Sack Shredder
You'd be LUCKY if it ONLY cut into your nuts and NOT the sac getting CAUGHT and WRAPPED around that terrifying *Infertility Wheel* at full spin...
It reminds me of when I rode a Yamaha Virago motorcycle which had a mono-shock rear suspension. The one shock absorber was positioned oriented horizontally front to back under the seat. And it was filled with nitrogen at a pressure of 150 to 200 psi.
I found myself nodding in understanding multiple times through this video lmao you're so good at explaining these things without having to dumb down the concepts
I think a viable use-case for a flywheel is on a trike. You pedal at a constant speed more or less, not exhaustingly hard (< 200W), including while stopped. Then you have hopefully cached up enough energy while sitting at traffic lights to have decent accelleration without needing a lot of Li batteries that are too expensive for their service life. A flywheel applied this way should last forever. Probably there is a known name for this concept.
who tf sitting at a traffic light on a trike?
@@JustKhari You'd be surprised.
@@JustKhariI would. I used to commute, train, and race from 1986-2012. In 2001, I had my neck broken in 3 places, C3, C5, & C6. My neck is fused from C3-C7 (entire visible part of your neck). For me, what would be a normal fall for you, could be potentially disastrous for me, quite possibly the next break would be at C2-C3, or C7-T1. Best case scenario for C2-C3 is quadriplegic, but more likely killed. C7-T1, best case paralyzed from the waist up, but most likely quadriplegic. So, if I want to ride again (and I miss it terribly) my only option is a trike. That’s who tf, would ride a trike.
@@JustKhari literally anyone who uses a trike and has to cross intersections, what else do you want them to do? blow through the intersection while cars are crossing?
@@JustKharijesus christ what do you think a traffic light is for? I cant think of a single vehicle(including a bicycle) which is exempt from traffic stops. you must be from the bayou.
"from breaking loose at high rpm" - he means: "from slicing me in half"
I’d still be scared of the flywheel that close to my genitals…..
its pretty dull. so maybe "grinding" is more likely :D
The grinding is there to scare you genitals.
Getting your Prince Albert piercing caught in the mechanism probably isn't gonna end well...
has the added bonus of sounding like a TIE fighter as you ride by your friends.
Thanks Tom. I'm glad to have found your channel. As a wannabe engineer, it's fun to live vicariously. This project brings to mind an idea I had long ago when I learned about angular momentum: it would be cool to design a bike with weights that ran along the spokes that you could adjust radially to affect your speed. Cheers!
Your videos are truly inspiring... You try and learn. Truly a role model for young people venturing into engineering
Get the flywheel up to high speed when going down hill, then use that energy to assist when climbing the next hill.
Sadly it doesn't work like that
Ya so basically if you were going down a hill you would normally use breaks on, you can recover some of that energy into the fly wheel. But if you would not normally use breaks to go down the hill you would be better to just let your inertia handle it. Less steps less loss The most practical application for that sort of system would be something where there is an overall drop in elevation with steep hills down where you have some reason that you cant just let your speed go up and down as you pass over the hills that youd likely already clear with the overall downward slope
@@squirrelspown My city has a ton of relatively steep hills with regulated crossings at the bottom, so the use case is very real sometimes. If only the implementation wasn't mediocre at best with a flywheel
@@nonnodacciaio704 If you'd have to use your brakes to slow yourself down under normal circumstances, yes it does. Not having an infinitely variable gear doesn't help but it should still work. Clearly it won't get you all (or probably very far of) the way up the hill, it will get some of the way up for free.
@@MrCh0o Ya that makes sense but....like he described in the video though, one might infer that the best case scenario is if you never come to a full stop. At best reducing speed by up to half before you lose your storage. so if you need to stop at cross walks you may loose alot of the theoretical benefit by dumping a bunch of energy into breaks So im just spit balling here....let me know what you think I imagine the optimal workflow would be leaving it engaged and peddeling with assistance the whole way so all you need to do is overcome friction losses and any positive delta and the flywheel sort of governs your speed sort of just acting for you as if you had the inertia of a large object even though you are a small one.....but you dont get the potential energy benifits of being a large object Does anyone know how the math works out on that? if speeding up and slowing down is required i imagine you would peddle hard on the way down to charge it diss engage completely while you look if you need to slow down or do slow down.... try to get back up to a solid portion of the disengagement speed and use it to push up maybe 1/3 of the hill?
0.086mm error when drilling holes, 2cm error when hanging pictures on the wall ;-) priorities!
@Peter Evans lame
Super cool! Not sure what settings you have on your fusion 360 CAM setup but if you haven’t already, adding a finish pass after the rough cutouts for all the CNC router parts would likely improve the circularity of the bores and overall accuracy. Having an aluminum sub plate vs MDF would also help with the overall rigidity and improve surface finishes. Keep it up!
I had an idea like that before, but have never been disciplined enough to invent things. My main idea was for the gyroscopy to help with balance at red lights, but releasing the power for a head start is pretty clever too.
UK Guy: I found people selling steel discs on eBay. US Guy: targets. You bought targets.
Lol
UK guy: i needed to make a plate which was pretty wasteful of material US guy: i got this huge piece of billet to make a small washer
What is this "tar-jet" that you speak of?
Steel discs for targets? Not even
That is exactly what they are for
There's a HUGE problem with flywheels, as a large mass rotating at high speed introduces unpredictable changes in behavior of the entire system, when turning left or right.
I mean, its gonna keep the bike up a lot harder, though only when spinning. It would be interesting to feel the difference
Seem like you'd have to practically stop to make anything more than a slight turn. I would think that the energy to turn the flywheel has to come from somewhere, too, which means more effort for the rider. But I am totally out of my element with physics so I could be completely wrong on that. Would be interesting to see how it compares to riding an actual bike with some of the physics explained.
@@tastybluecrayon the drive train (engine, gearbox, etc) on a motorcycle is like a big flywheel in the middle of the bike, and when you're maneuvering with the engine fully engaged to the wheel vs the clutch pulled in and the engine idling there is a noticeable difference in how it handles. I don't think that turning on this bicycle would be as hard as you're saying, but it would feel heavier to lean left or right.
@@MortimerJones99 Its harder to turn due to the gyroscopic forces of the wheels, not due to the engine. The flywheel is between the engine and the clutch, clutching in and out only disconnects the gearbox and front sprocket, way less gyroscopic force than even the crankshaft itself. You could however solve this problem with bicycles by having two flywheels, one on the front axle and one on the rear. Will feel weird when stopped or going slow, but shouldnt impair turning, in fact i think it would apmlify it
@@SportSoulLife He means when your driving, with the engine up at its running RPM vs having the clutch disengaged and the engine idling all while rolling along at the same speed. Your bike is moving at the same speed, but the engine isn't turning anywhere near as fast. Thus less gyroscopic stabilization.
Cool concept! What if you used a torsion spring instead of a flywheel? Might be lighter, plus there would be no time limit on stored energy. Could add some kind of ratcheting mechanism so that it can’t propel the bike backwards while tensioning the spring, and then probably another handle would be needed to engage some kind of reversing gear and release the spring tension 🤷♀️
A bolt on kit could probably be made or combined with an existing engine based design to help improve efficiency. It is quite impressive that you've managed this with simple machining tolerances limiting you. You should try a design with the flywheel weighted towards its edges (i.e. thicker towards the edge or with a heavier metal bracketed around the circumference of the flywheel!
I can already imagine V2 of this bike: Tom pedaling next to you at a red light. You look at him weird. Then green light > clutch engage > zoom away. You in dust.
I think the bike would work great on hills. You can store all the excess energy from riding downhill into the flywheel. Imagine Toms smirky grin at the red light on the foot of a hill. Then he goes rattle rattle SWOOSH. Until he has to carry the extra 6kg back up the hill by muscle.
Hehe. "Too soon, junior." SCREEECHHH
You just have to hope. That the red light ain't to long.
Honestly this one seems weird. Cool idea, but acceleration is already the one thing bikes excel at. Any cyclist who uses their gears well can smoke cars at an intersection. Wind and hills are the primary enemies of a bike.
@@unything2696 yes, you could also spin up the flywheel using a motor and use it as launch control.
KZheadr: talking about raid- Literally every soul in this planet: *SKIP 10S SKIP 10S SKIP10S**
Don’t give away our best secrets
Yeah, not a good advertising partner.
Me: Installs SponsorBlock
i highly recommend setting the skip time to 5 seconds to make rewatching faster :)
@SyzTeMaTiC only 1k? That’s a laughable amount of cash for larger youtubers I’d imagine and they still take the sponorship
My full respect for all your experimenting and doing such things.
wow... I love the thinking and work that went into it.
That’s great. Now I know why bikes never use flywheels.
They use it (sort off) but more to have a bigger impulse and make it harder to slow down, and not to break/accelerate easier
This is not worth the noise and effort.
I wonder how it will influence the bike's handling when doing a quick turn with the flywheel at full rev.😬 Great project b.t.w.
@@ottonormalverbrauch3794 yes it most certainly will. Gyroscopes are nothing to hyuck with
Needs a sprag clutch on the flywheel in series with the clutch, so that when decelerating it automatically disengages when the flywheel exceeds the bikes speed.
There's a slight issue with that. You would go from decelerating at a fair rate to instantly freewheeling. I was thinking the same thing but I reckon it would be a bit hairy having that occur.
@@Alan_Hans__ How about in tandem (if there is space enough) with a centrifugal clutch?
A centrifugal clutch linked to a centrifugal variator is kinda what is needed. Someone posted some info in a comment about a super simple ball CVT by “funtastyx” that could possibly be integrated somehow. With a 3D printer and a NC router there's a lot that could be done. I also reckon a car flywheel would be a better option as well as more of it's weight is further from it's axis which make it a more efficient use of the weight.
@@Alan_Hans__ it would an already is a deminishing braking effect, as the speeds begin to match it brakes less and less, wouldnt go from all to nothing itd be gradual.. the issue with the sprag clutch is youd need a way to put the energy back to the ground, either a whole seperate clutch and lever or some way to take the sprag out of the system for acceleration.. i think itd be a fine system if the flywheel weight alot more, with it weighing less than the bike the speeds match each other far to quickly and theres not much energy in the flywheel to accelerate you, and if you dont use the energy after a stop it doesnt have much braking effort left for the next stop either, with a heavier fly wheel and a higher gear ratio for it to spin it far faster than 2300rpms.. like 10k-15k rpms youd be able to store multiple stops, long descents down hills where it isnt safe to just build max speed you need to brake.. might be able to store enough energy in it to actually propel you to cruising speed or assist meaninfully in hills at that point
I saw this video a couple years ago and I always wondered if it would work better if you put a heavier flywheel in the rear wheel between the spokes and use a clutch to engage it. Spin it up with the pedals once you’re moving and then engage the clutch when it gets up to speed to either accelerate or cruise.
This was so cool to watch , obviously could be improved in many ways but damn its fun to watch this type of prototyping kinda stuff. Well bloody done !
While I'm sure it's perfectly safe, I'm not entirely sold on the fast spinning metal positioned under my nuts.
At under 3000 rpm, that is way less than 11,000 some engines turn. What are you afraid of?
@@420frankp Those engines aren't homemade, they have a bulkhead and casing protecting me, and aren't placed under my nuts.
@@420frankp yeah okay 11k rpm in what stock car? an rx-7/8 with rotary only redlines at like 9-10k. Also a flywheel is much more dangerous than an engine, the entirety of energy stored is stored as kinetic energy. An engine has al little rotating mass as possible, and therefore little kinetic energya. Go back to 1st grade physics bud
@@henrygaraffa5439 Probably thinking of some motorbikes there. 11k rpm redline is fairly common, plus the engine will still be right under your nuts. That said, flyweels are scarier.
@@henrygaraffa5439 my ninja 250 redlined at 16k
That floppy chain kills me
He even said “man these gears are loud”..... I think that’s the chain about to fall off
@@jocaleb0236either way, he is loosing energy. A lot.
kzhead.info/sun/eqWTipSSmHWCZqM/bejne.html
@@jocaleb0236 it's more likely that his diy sprockets were less than perfect, the profile matters greatly and even a slight error can cause all kinds of issues. Noise being all but guaranteed.
I like it. I have a downhill mountain bike. Imagine this concept on the downhiller. You brake all the time. Could use the flywheel to boost off jumps or when it’s time for a short pedal between downhills. I think you got something here if you refined this. Although I wonder about gyroscopic forces on the bike and how it will effect turning and stability.
My personal opinion is that you are onto something. Even thought it may not have worked out exactly as you had hoped, mad props to the effort that went into this.
Tom, you need 2 gears for the fly-wheel, a high gear-ratio for slowing down and a low-gear-ratio for speeding up, think of this this way when equilibrium is reached you want fly wheel speed high relative to wheel speed, but when speeding up you want the wheel speed to be high relative to fly wheel, anything inbetween can "solved" with your clutch.
This is what I was thinking with 2 clutches... But probably has diminishing returns as the larger mismatch of speed across the clutch means more lost energy as heat.
@@JamesUKE92 I agree, 2 clutches with their own gearsets. Braking force will be much higher than acceleration force, but that's exactly what you want. You'll have a small assist accelerating up to a much higher speed.
The problem is not a lack of torque, it's a mismatch between the speed of the bike and the flywheel. All the time the clutch is slipping, it is wasting energy. But as soon as it engages, it is no longer transferring power because the speeds match. As he says a couple of times, he needs a continuously variable transmission so the flywheel can accelerate as the bike decelerates.
Maybe CVT actuated by hydraulic brake levers may be solution. That would give variable ratio gearing. Also clutch mechanism functionality could be achieved by undertensioning belt between CVT wheels.
@@vyrukas2 The simplest solution and probably the most energy efficient on small scale is to use an electric generator and motor (or ofc ditch the flywheel and use ultracaps or high amperage batteries).
Must be nerve wracking knowing there's a heavy metal disc rotating at thousands of rpm right below your nuts.
No worse than a motorbike :))))
@@cbwcjw Ya really id rather that spinning disc let go than a V twin blow up under my wedding tackle.
The burst strength of even a 300 series stainless flywheel would be impressive. Also it's under the top tube.
There's worse things.
..I thought he said "nerve wacking".. nevermind.
I can see this being part of an enduro bike. When going down the hill, with gravity the energy from the rpm of the wheels is stored at the bottom of the hill, and when you start to go up, you can release it and get quite a boost to get up to speed
Cool. i did this too in 2003. My flywheel was a 26" mtb wheel with 6 guage copper wire wrapped around to evenly distribute weight. I removed the top tube and installed a split top tube for the wheel to slip thru to fit it on a mtb. I left the cassette hub with 7 speeds on it so I could really get it up to speed. So Yes I had a pair of grip shifters and an extra thumb shifter on the bars.I did not use a clutch, though my friend wanted me to do that to do "burn outs". The end result was it was too much of a workout. It did seem to help getting up a hill after running down a hill.
When he began to say "because steel", there was a small stop, so I was honestly expecting for second for the sentence to continue with "because steel is heavier that feathers"
"but they both a kilogramme"
@@paxreal oh no, no you're not...
@@Nicoviceful I don' get it
@@ThompYT just search KZhead for "limmy what's heavier"
@@dogbot55 I think he gets it
Adds heavy disc to capture energy when stopping. Increases mass of bike so it takes more energy to accelerate again.
do you shit first before you ride a bike ?
Everything here screams waste....
@@Deontjie Other than it being a project to further one's skills and understanding. I liked what he did in the middle, ignoring the braking part and just seeing whether the flywheel at maximum speed could even accelerate him much.
@@Deontjie Yes a car engine flywheel screeam waste, engineers are assholes.. and you a genius... 😑
@@nopochoclos Yes, you got most of it right.
This is a righteous design totally saving those valuable energies my dude
love to see you combine the magnets from the gearless magnet bike idea, with this some how
Why not use a circular spring to store rotational energy while braking, so you can store the energy for a large amount of time without the flywheel slowing down? That'll come with the added advantage that you're not adding as much mass to the bike, you only need engage the mechanism while braking, and it won't be as noisy.
Thats an interesting idea... so a spring, like a mouse trap!... and it launches you forward... as long as it doesn't launch you backward! :)
It might not have the torque to get you going again though, But good Idea.
Thats called elastic energy and is much more limited in the amount of energy that you can 'store' in the spring. Compared to a flywheel. Its all old idea's in a new jacket. Has been done centuries ago. Not very effective.
@@Reach3DPrinters more like a big clock spring.
@@SuperUltimateLP Beat me to it.
I think I would LOVE this arrangement on particularly hilly rides. I'd use gravity on the downhills to spin-up the flywheel then release that energy for a boost at the base of the hill and the start of the next climb.
creative
*Yeah. It will be a real pleasure lugging that heavy flywheel up the hill. it weighs more than an bike-sized lithium storage battery. I'll go for the battery, thanks.*
The weight of the flywheel would more than offset any benefits on a climb.
@@JoeOvercoat Good point. In the end, energy is never free.
I was thinking the same thing, but also to act like a engine brake on a car to slow you down, but it will store energy like an e-car
This is awesome! I'd like to see the difference in amount of time it takes to accelerate a certain distance with and without the flywheel being charged while accelerating.
When I was a kid a imagined a bicycle with a big flywheel with a clutch. The back tire would have been a flat square Dragster type tire conmen on a 20 inch 1970s bicycle. My idea was to spin up the flywheel with the pedals while stationary. Then when the light turns green you release the clutch and launch the bicycle. Make the distance a city block for drag racing . Gotta build two of them.
That's a nice idea. I quite like it. I imagine spinning the flywheel when going down a hill and then using it to help accelerate up the following hill again when I'm losing speed.
I was thinking of something similar except the flywheel is always engaged with one of the wheels. It would be harder to accelerate but might give an advantage thanks to the higher momentum
@@calebcoppin3497 if it was always engaged you'd just be losing energy from friction a bunch
I was waiting for him to do it, riding down the hill would be the most interesting part of this system.
@@TheKitMurkit why didn't he do it!
@@roonm90 Tom lives in Flatland (well not really but behind his house, his test stretch of lane is horizontal).
I'm actually curious as to how effective the flywheel could be in maintaining the speed while coasting rather than using the energy to take off from a start. Just a thought.
So whatever momentum stored in the flywheel, is taken from the momentum that would've been stored in the bike. But if its propelling the bike, the bike will coast almost as far as it did without the flywheel. A little less due to all the friction.
In order to get the energy into the flywheel it uses the momentum of the bike, so it causes the bike to slow down but the flywheel spins up to top speeds. It means any amount of momentum you use to spin up the flywheel slows the bike, so the only way to benefit from this is to use it for a brake, for only when you have to slow down or stop anyway. Otherwise if you tried to use it to coast you would first have to pedal up to speed, then engage the flywheel in order to get it spinning, but this will slow you down anyway, and all you would be accomplishing is going faster, then braking, then going faster, then braking, etc... It would be a waste of use, because you could just avoid it all and just keep pedaling and you will get their faster, and with less energy. The only way to use it to actually benefit, is the way the guy in the video plans to use it, as a brake. Hey, be happy, this is a awesome regen braking apparatus, all mechanical no electrochemical batteries..
@@TheRebelmanone the efficiency is comparable too! And he's just one man with not very precise equipment (according to him). I imagine it can be much more efficient (% wise, not compared to ebike) if it's industrialized
@@collinmckinney6952 ok lets make it turn on oil film.
Hi Tom, how about a clock spring (mainspring) placed within the rear wheel spoke area which gets wound by braking ,stores energy , which gets utilized when the brake is released.
Appreciated man 👍🏻 keep going this kind of creative things!
This seems like it would be useful on hills, gathering momentum in the flywheel downhill to help uphill
And when you're stopping at traffic lights, because you can get half of your speed back for more or less free
Unless there is some reason to brake, though, a flywheel system would be pretty much useless for retaining energy from hills. You *already* retain energy from hills as it is converted to KE at the bottom. The big difference between having a flywheel or not in the case of simply going down a hill and back up is what your max velocity at the bottom would be. This may save you some losses from aero drag, but the flywheel itself would add all sorts of mechanical drag in its own right. Just listen to the hellish clacking and screeching that Tom's rig produces, even when the clutch *isn't* engaged. All that is energy being lost from the bike. Not to mention the danger of a high-speed flywheel mounted on a bike and all the stress that would be experienced by the mounting and bearings due to gyroscopic precession in turns. The implementation of a flywheel system like this would only be useful for helping to retain substantial losses of energy, such as when braking or from aero at high speeds. In other words, what it's good for: Going down a hill, stopping, then going up a hill. Reducing max speed on large hills to save from aero drag. Bikes that are designed for slower speeds. Straight lines. What it is not good for: Your average ride across mild slopes. Any instance where you want to achieve high speeds. Bike designs that are already built for low aero drag. Sharp turns.
also worth to mention, that +5kg flywheel is not as small as if an avg bicycle is already around 10kg (a commuter is 15kg)
@@christopherbare9277 The flywheel will allow you to slow for junctions and corners at the bottom of the hill, but it is more efficient to store kinetic energy as your speed rather than the flywheel rotation.
@@hesterclapp9717 nope, more like only a quarter. Compare the graph: flighwheel meets bike speed halfway during breaking. And during acceleration bike meets flighwheel speed half way again. Without a clever gearbox this won't work out
For more efficiency, I think you need two different gears, one for decelerating, and one for accelerating.
Really, one for high speed operation and one for low speed operation. Brake using the high speed, then the low speed. Accelerate using the low speed, then the high speed.
Exactly what I was thinking. A small system that flops over depending on which way the energy is being sent.
Transmission weight should also be "in" flywheel weight. This way no additional weight to bike. So transmission should also be spinning. Pretty interesting mechanical challenge.
That's exactly what I was thinking. The design question becomes which solution is best? A second engageable system, a gear changer, something else...
You could try building it inside the rear bike Hub in between the spokes. You could also then put some of these aero plastic covers over on top of the spokes, making it basically invisible and also more aero dynamic and the flywheel wouldnt have to fight against as much air as it had to before. Im thinking of a mechanism somewhat similar to drum brakes they used to have inside of bike hubs
Really like the flywheel concept knowing that it can add some weight. i also like the air bike, some years ago I considered using the bike frame itself for the air can.
Now you need to design a CVT to transfer more more energy into the flywheel instead of wasting the remainder of the momentum in brake pad heat. Also, with a different spoke design you might be able to place a 26" flywheel concentric in the wheel. The larger size could store more energy at lower rotational speed.
@@lIIIIIllll Do you know how CVTs work? It wouldn't eliminate the need for a lever. You'd still need to manually operate a clutch to engage the system. What a CVT would do is massively increase the efficiency of the system. Tom made a little diagram showing how the flywheel and the bicycle wheel eventually reach the same speed, but with a CVT it would allow for the flywheel to reach speeds faster than the bicycle wheel.
@@XiuHang also variable ratio for powering the wheels back up to speed more efficiently
@@lIIIIIllll I'm going to be very straightforward here and try to be as not mean as I can. Your comment is quite literally the dumbest take possible on the use of a CVT in this scenario. The use of a clutch lever in this situation wouldn't be to actuate the transition of the CVT from lower gear ratios to higher gear ratios. The use of a clutch lever in this situation would be to engage the entire system. The KERS shouldn't be functioning at all times; it should only be functioning during stopping and starting, so you use a lever to engage the system when you're stopping and starting. Then if the CVT functions properly, you couldn't just use a CVT system from a scooter or car you'd have to design one for this specific use case, it would incredibly increase the efficiency of storing energy into the KERS and retrieving energy from the KERS.
@@lIIIIIllll I'm going to reply here then stop because at this point I think you're intentionally being obtuse. First, I never discussed anything near physics; I described the very simple mechanical reality of a single gear being less efficient than a CVT in regards to energy transfer from one rotating object to another. Second, I didn't even push the idea that Tom should design and build a CVT. I pointed out that a hypothetical CVT would still need a lever for engaging the KERS. Third, this hypothetical CVT wouldn't even be that complicated to build. You could almost entirely use scooter CVT design; you'd just have to tune the centrifugal spring mechanism to operate at bicycle speeds instead of scooter speeds. Finally, Tom literally build his own electric motor for a video. Would it really be that surprising if someone who enjoys building e-bikes and e-bike related things built a CVT for a KERS?
@@lIIIIIllll I genuinely thought I wouldn't respond to you again, and I've made a promise to myself to not respond again no matter how stupid your response, so this will absolutely be the last bit I type here: 1. You don't understand chronologically linear steps. (See your step 6) 2. The lever in question is to engage the KERS and start spinning the flywheel, I don't even understand what you think I'm talking about. Are you trying to imply that I'm referring to the internal clutch in the output? 3. KERS stands for Kinetic Energy Recovery System. Yes we are talking about a KERS even if it is purely mechanical and not electronic. 4. Your worry about slippage is genuinely stupid because we're working with a damn human as the load. Less load means less torque necessary. Less torque necessary means less friction needed on the CVT to prevent slippage. 5. The tuning would be to make the CVT work at bicycle speeds not "human size." 6. Your point 9 is accurate, but once again I wasn't the one who was suggesting actually building a CVT. I was pointing out the logistics of operation and hypothetical efficiency. 7. I'm now absolutely certain you're being intentionally obtuse because you've misquoted me, responded to points not made, arbitrarily tried to alter the definition of a term being used, and ascribed motive that wasn't there. If you're a troll, congratulations you got me. If you're not a troll you might want to pick up that mic and use it to ask someone to teach you how to read again because you have clearly not read the comments you've responded to.
So when your normal bike is not giving you enough exercise just add a flywheel to it.
Well it's a good idea if you want to make your legs work even when your commute is usually very flat terrain, also I'm guessing it's easier to control your bike on a descent with a flywheel as normally you either wear the hell out of your brakes or embrace the madness that's going way faster than it is safe.
@@cdgonepotatoes4219 Will only work on very small hills. The flywheel wil just keep spinning faster and not really do much
@@kaptein1247 yeah... still something though
@@cdgonepotatoes4219 I doubt it would be noticeable on e serious decent where you would need to break hard for a long time. The flywheel will just get up to speed in the first few seconds and not do anything after
Seen and talked to a bike rider who used extra rubber bands on the handbrake to add resistance to peddling for training propuses!
I make small engines and windmills for a hobby. I use compressed air as well as steam to spin up a flywheel, which doubles as a generator rotor, having permanent magnets press fit about its circumference and passing through a pickup coil. Doing this allows me to take advantage of steam when it's overpressured as well as when it's not. It works pretty good. I manufacture the steam from a tracking, concentrating solar mirror I designed and can generate free electricity on clear, sunny days.
Flywheel effect applied with electromagnetic force on the flywheel and on the bicycle rear wheel, and a dynamo to power the electromagnetic field should work. So you're pedaling is directly into a dynamo and the flywheel, and the energy from that goes into the electromagnetic force propelling the bike. Can use a clutch to disengage the dynamo.
Oh great, it's RAID season again. They must be losing money.
Yea
Bro my mind blanked for a good 10 seconds seeing your comment xD "Wait I didn't post any comments, the video just got out?" "Or is it actually an old video?" "Wtf is going on there!?"
You got a very epic pfp btw ^^
Everybody pays protection money to the Allpowerfull Lesbian Family street gang.
@@rpyrat SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEE
Love the bravery of this guy to test out an experimental, self-modified, imperfect prototype bike while not wearing any safety gear whatsoever. Engineers scare me.
that balls was made of steel.
it's just a bike what's the worst that could happen
@@Not_XenoVoid The flywheel could fly off and dislodge his groin from the rest of his body.
They have a faith in machinery on par with the Adeptus Mechanicus.
He is wearing jeans and shoes. That’s good enough right? Right?
This would be a great concept for those who live in a neighborhood full of hills where you would need to go up and down frequently. The flywheel could be used instead of the brakes when going downhill (for the most part), then the flywheel could be used to (somewhat) assist with going uphill, thus making the climb a touch easier.
And why dont you keep it fixed? Like the flywheel always connected to the bike wheel?
Just like the old friction, toy cars we had in the sixties………still a good idea if it works full scale.
I could see myself charging up the wheel going down hills and using it sparingly whenever
This thing weight 5 kg!
I assume by "using it sparingly" you mean launching off a ramp into orbit after having charged up the flywheel for several years
I think another issue (besides it just not having much energy) is that it won't speed you up if you're already going faster than it is. Then it will just slow you down more. So unfortunately it can't be used like a nitro or something. At least, not without including an extra gear shifting ability that could gear it up or down. Which would be cool, yeah. But still probably enough energy for much.
@I love you but I love the fact, that when I read your username and then the comment, it makes perfect sense
I've had this dream for over a decade! thank you for doing it!
There was a tractor that had those matched sloping spiral ramps on it, like the thing you built. It needed repair as the ramp steps got beat down over tyme. P.t.o. reverser it was called. Im sure you have heard this already, but methinks you need a machinist to make your dreams come true. Wonderful show, really. Well made
Haven’t heard your conclusions but mine would go something like, “In this video we learned there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
Heavily discounted lunch can still add up over time, my friend who rides a lie-down bike would probably want such a system to help in city traffic and to store some down-hill energy for later up-hills!
Yes and the stupid long commercial for some kids game.....NO THANKS
Milton Friedman reference?
@@andreassjoberg3145 but it's additional weight! Tho you can make it lighter with a big wheel that has most of the weight only around the edges. Like a small bike wheel with lead "tire".
Of course there is. You guys are providing it. Giving him patreon money, and YT ads plus his own ads. That is free breakfast, lunch and dinner. SUCKERS.
Our boy Stanton: "I heard you liked spinning wheels, so I put a spinning wheel between your spinning wheels so your wheels can make the wheel spin when they spin!"
Good old xzibit or whatever his name was! Your quote made my day 😂
@@skylined5534 Glad to be of service ;)
technically it's supposed to be the wheels make the singular wheel spin when they unspin, but yeah , something like that is kinda correct too, since it has to charge up from riding as well
Spinception.
That is what I like
A great concept and design. I had a similar idea but had thought it best to drive the flywheel from the crank and engage the drive sprocket to the flywheel. Of course, the flywheel would require more mass.
50 years back my dad built a bike with a flywheel mounted in the same orientation as the wheels but as you rode the back wheel spun the flywheel in the opposite direction via a chain and cogs. This bike was used as a party trick as it was nigh on impossible to ride.
When he said that the bike parts are cheap and easy availeble I really felt that.
This would probably only make sense when going up and down hills, as you wouldn't want to go down hill too fast, but would want some assistance going up
The only problem is all the added weight, the flywheel adds 12 lbs to the bike, that’s a lot of extra weight to use to get up a hill on. Though I think it would be interesting for higher speed cruising on road bikes since you could store energy without breaking when at high speeds by letting the bike coast and then use that energy to accelerate when getting hit by a gust of headwind that would typically slow you down by quite a lot
Or in towns, where you have to stop and start a lot. That's where the biggest gains of regenerative braking are in cars as well.
@@brisingrxm6022 you need a flywheel with big diameter and weight only on the edge. Like a small bike wheel with lead "tire". Less overall weight for the same capacity.
@@jubuttib you'd probably need to use coupled motors for that to be very usable
@@michaelharris679 Probably yeah.
This is awesome. You just got a subscriber, sir.. I can't wait to watch the ebike one tomorrow
With the flywheel spinning at a stop, how long were you able to balance before putting a foot down?
I would really like to see this when going down a large hill.
This would be good in hilly terrain where you can charge the flywheel downhill and get an assist uphill.
kzhead.info/sun/fMWrZah8rZ1umZ8/bejne.html
I think it might explode from too high rpm
That won't happen too soon. It rather would shake the clutch apart before that.
@@mikegutsch5769 Did you see the assist it got from just a standstill? Imagine going uphill. You just carrying 6kg of dead weight all the time for that miniscule of boost. You are better off drilling holes in your bike for saving weight and saving energy that way.
"I'm gonna pick up some speed and see what happens" famous last words, being the test dummy before doing a slow test too "Local man decapitated, from the crotch up, by bike fly wheel" lol
This explained SO much to me! Thnx!
Thank you! Interesting video, now, after years, I kind of understend what the KERS system is actually doing when Ferrari introduced it to their F1 cars.
An infinite CVT would enable you to minimize energy lost to friction within the clutch system. It would be REALLY awesome to see you design a compact CVT. You would also be able to transfer more energy into the flywheel than just matching your half initial velocity magnitude of the bike.
Yes it looks like most of the energy is still being lost in the friction from initial engagement of the clutch
Aye, though CVTs have traditionally suffered when it comes to efficiency themselves.
@@jubuttib true, nothing is perfect. Although, definitly would be an improvement. The 2008 Dodge Caliber uses them and boy oh boy are they great on fuel economy when compared with similar weight and power vehicles without CVTs (see comments later below, this argument was invalid)
@@timothysands5537 Really? Interesting, I've yet to ever see a CVT car match a manual in fuel economy (beating a traditional torque converter automatic is a different thing and shouldn't be held as any kind of "win" IMO), at most matching on average due to slightly better city economy, with worse highway performance. It has been a while since I dived down into CVTs, may need to have another look.
@jubuttib oops, you're right. That is a faulty comparison when compared to an automatic transmission. As far as the manual car goes, it has slippage in the clutch mechanism until the clutch's rpm matches the engine's flywheel rpm right? If Tom were to use something like the nuVinci hub seen on bicycles, wouldn't that be better (less frictional losses) than the clutch mechanism? Don't quote me on this, but I also believe CVTs are still able to outperform manual transmission vehicles by taking advantage of operating in the optimal power curve (or was it hp curve? There is a difference). Engine efficiency declines as rpm climbs. CVTs can vary their gearing constantly to maintain the engine rpm as the vehicle accelerates.
I'm here to see that good engineering shit
One potential would be to have the clutch engaged during normal operation, then disengage the clutch when the brake is pressed. This allows the energy to be saved for the startup, and having the benefit of a flywheel in normal use
worked very well on my grandma's wheelchair, thanks bro!
Braver man than me to have a home-made steel disc spinning in-between my legs near my tackle.
I would love to see how this might work in a situation where you have a downhill to uphill road segment, and see how the flywheel might assist and help propel you up the hill… by like engaging the flywheel to build up energy on the downhill segment and release that on uphill
That would also dramatically increase the efficiency since the clutch can be fully engaged and not slipping the whole time. I'm betting that's where most of the losses are.
Useful if you are in danger of going to fast downhill. Otherwise it's not going to be better than simply going as fast downhill as possible to assist with the uphill. Also it's an extra weight to cycle with.
@@daffyduck780 eh the extra weight not so much, say about 15 lb extra, not a lot on a rolling chassis situation, but you're right, speeding up going downhill is much more efficient, though if it is downhill to a flat plain then it could be very advantageous
If you used this design it would 'help' by most likely killing you. Storing enough energy to help in any way with a hill climb, even a very small percentage of what you lose in having to lift all that weight up the next hill, IF you could design a practical flywheel having the capability to do that, is a pipe dream. The only way it would help at all is if someone installed the entire system at the top of each hill and you jettisoned the entire contraption just beyond the bottom of each hill, where it ran out of steam. Other than that it would be totally practical (NOT).
@@daffyduck780 yeah lol the energy still has to come from somewhere so only use it instead of brake on hills
I love flywheels! I think I'll toy with the idea of using one on a rollercoaster :)
Dude I'm loving this
Sounds like you were losing an insane amount of energy from vibration and friction
this would be perfect in a descent followed by an ascent, you store the energy when descending then release it on the ascent
Thank you! Now I know this system worked on that Williams 2009 (if i remember it correctly)!
Love this video. Keep it up
I would imagine that the applications of this would be better in a more hilly area, to help with climbing using the declines to charge the fly wheel
Yeah it would help especially when those gear teeth would be lubed and engineered to perfectly fit each other. The gyroscopic effect of the flywheel would also improve balance
Also no since the bike is heavier and when it runs out of power its just a heavier bike
@@kajeralocse there is no gyroscope effect the way its mounted, if it was mounted horizontal it would though
It will not help with climbing. It only provides power when the flywheel is spinning faster than your speed would create. You would work harder climbing with it engaged. Wait till the down hill to use it as a brake or engaged all the way down for elec generation?
It will loose power as soon as an incline begins,
It requires quite a lot of energy to get going for standstill. KERS is more useful for storing energy from slowing down before going into a corner and then using that energy to recover momentum (or building up speed) as you are coming out of a corner.
Aka cruising
This would work for me coming home from work because the first half of that journey is downhill with breaking due to traffic lights. A lot of energy could be stored with no impact on my travel time or effort used. Then then I get to the bottom of the hill and need a little push up some rises, it would be sufficient. So it depends on the specific journey dynamics.
My boy is wicked smart! Good experiment!
Great video, This would be great for capturing energy going down a steep hill at high speed. You could engage the clutch near the bottom of the hill and get the flywheel moving. Then after it gets moving disengage it. Then using the stored energy to help move and get going again.
Don't bother slowing down and just coast up the hill. Take all the friction and recovered energy might get you 5' up the hill...
I mean, there's no point in spinning it up while pedaling. The entire idea is to recover the energy that would otherwise be wasted as heat by braking with conventional friction brakes. Instead, you're doing nearly 7 times as much work to store that energy as you would have used just to accelerate from the stop that much by pedaling, due to the 15% efficiency (a loss that isn't present in the pedal-only method). What this _could_ potentially be used for is for storing energy while coasting downhill while maintaining speed, to then be used to continue to maintain speed on the way back up the next hill... but I think you'd need a real CVT for that. And a much better flywheel that isn't quite such a rickety, terrifying mess, and that can preferably go to _much_ higher RPM to store a whole lot more energy. However, I think by the time you do all of that, just adding a regenerative braking system with a capacitor and either a large enough electric motor to reuse the energy, or a smaller motor driving a flywheel electronically, would be much simpler. The electronic systems would basically behave like a CVT but with a lot fewer wear parts and a lot less noise. Also, just FYI, tire weights are designed to go on the inner surface of rims, so centrifugal force helps keep them _on._ That adhesive is in no way designed to hold them against pure shear force like that! Finally, all that noise is also wasted energy. Not a significant quantity for the quick stop-go runs you were doing, but waiting at a stoplight or a crosswalk could see a rather large chunk of your hard-earned kinetic energy sapped away by parasitic friction effects.
Yes this is not free energy because extra effort is needed to pedal.... it appears there is a net loss because the effort to start from a normal standstill certainly looks like less then spooling up the flywheel by pedaling ...
CEO of "actually ☝️🤓"
What you'd probably actually use it for is capturing energy while going down a hill to reuse going up the next one.
@@laurenceperkins7468 would love to see him test this next
I have no idea what your talking about but I’ll research it
Raid: Shadow Legends follows me like a curse. Will I ever escape it?
You'll never escape it until someone got some sort of mental disease from raid shadow legends and sue them.
There's only one way to stop it: we'll all have to start playing it. Once the market is saturated, they can't advertise it anymore!
Raid: Shadow Legends is like corona, anyone can get it.
well, at least our lovely creator got some income for a future project or personal use... We can just ignore that 🤣
*THERES NO ESCAPE*
You always make videos worth watching. Thank You
Smart dude!! Great video!
I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near that bike if the flywheel broke or came loose. Good job as always on the build.
That was my first thought but the disc isn’t turning that fast and his family jewels should be safe.
Gotta fabricate a cover for it.
You have to think about the car behind and the innocent bystander as well, good proof of principle but stupid and not practical in reality, there simply isn't enough vehicle mass to make the stored energy any use, this is why regen on the ebike doesn't get you much back and isn't efficient, makes more sense in a car or truck.
@@thechumpsbeendumped.7797 2300 rpm is pretty fast.
@@eyesyt7571 It’s not going to explode at that speed.