Let's Build a Hybrid Cycle

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

No....I don't see any practical manner in which you could make that work, efficiently or otherwise. you could filter the exhaust and collect the oil in a separate tank but that's about it and will cost you big in back pressure and lost propulsive force.....and BTW you'll still lose oil to the atmosphere...of course in a completely sealed system it wouldn't matter....hence my fondness for R134A and other refrigerants...lower pressure in liquid state than air (a couple hundred psi vs thousands psi), low boiling point, and lubricative properties To get a 4500psi tank filled to pressure would take one hell of a compressor an create one hell of a bomb...R134A can be readily compressed by relatively small and efficient motors like those found on a typical electric scooter powering a typical automotive A/C compressor....properly set up you'd be lookin at a few minutes of battery time to a few minutes on cold power...possibly double or triple range in a hot day.

[belovelife]

so using the present pnumatics would not only be inneficient, but also polluting
well i looked at that link posted earlier
mabe it would be cheaper to buy one of those

plus why doesn't that company in france offer to sell their engins individually
instead of having to buy the whole vehicle
i know weight of the vehicle is one of their varyables
but it would be nice just to be able to adapt their motor to my transmission
replace my gas tank with a compressed air tank
and be on my way

wow, we are off topic here

so it would be easier to machine a pnumatic motor then adapt current tool teck
that makes a huge difference

[CraigD]

This talk of compressed air motors on bicycles reminds me of an odd one a bike collector friend of mine showed me.

The precise origin of the bike was uncertain – it had a head badge listing a no-longer-existant Baltimore, MD, USA store, but likely wasn’t built there. Its wheels, rims, crankset and 3-speed hub was from an 1950s Raleigh. It’s frame, which was steel, appeared handmade. Best guess dated it at from the late ‘50s to early ‘60s.

The bike had an air compressor/motor driven by a wheel that could be engaged and disengaged from the side of the front tire. It looked much like an oversize electric generator, an accessory commonly used to power lights on bikes through the ‘70s. Two air hoses attached it to a thumb-operated valve on the handlebar that allowed the rider to select a compressor (brake), closed, and motor position, another hose connected to the frame’s top tube, via a hand-removable coupling.

Compressed air was stored in the frame’s top and down tubes, which were larger diameter than usual, but not extremely, looking about like a modern-day Cannondale. A small metal line behind the head tube made an air connection between the top and down tubes.

You could flip the compressor to engage the front wheel with the thumb switch in compressor mode to use it as a brake, compressing air in the frame. Switching to motor mode gave you 10-20 seconds of a low-speed “hill climbing assist”. You could also detach the hose to the compressor/motor from the frame, and replace it with a hose with an air chuck on one end to use to inflate the tires.

It was fairly quiet in compressor mode, ear-splittingly loud in motor mode. Opened the thumb valve with the motor disengaged from the wheel made it to spin like mad. The valves and hose couplings got too hot to handle, but never to cold to handle. Overpressuring the frame-tank appeared to be prevented by the compressor leaking when it reached a maximum pressure.

The compressor/motor was lubricated with ordinary light machine oil, through uncapped holes.

I’ve not been able to find any mention of this bike on the internet, other than occasional forum posts claiming either to have seen it or similar bikes, or claiming that their existence is a myth.

My other favorite compressed air-powered vehicles are my dear, departed Air Hog toy airplane, and various of the vehicles in existence today (see the wikipedia article “compressed air car”). The tiny Air Hog engine was expecially nice, because it was made of clear plastic, so you could see how its piston, crank, and valves worked.

[belovelife]

wow that is cool
say you had a carbon fibre frame @ 2"diameter
and you had a total 15' in length
you would have 47.1 cubic inches of space

@ 5000psi, you could go quite a few miles on it

[alexander]

Firstly, it woud be 4500PSI, recommended pressure, secondly the pumping systems to create the pressure are, while not super efficient, fairly readily available. It may cost you 3-4bucks of electric energy to fill the air tank, but it's not even as polluting as an electric engine, and it takes literally less then a minute to fill the tank. Another thing, you want to have a tank that is not built into the frame, reason for that is safety, you dont want to put stress on a tank of air at 4500psi, it's just not at all a smart idea, but in a bycicle, the frame needs to have some give, otehrwise in a bad accident, it will snap, and if a tank like that ruptures, it's MAJOR bad trouble, that's aside from having to custom mold the darn thing, and pressure test it... best bet is a carbon fiber frame and a separate carbon fiber tank.

now, to oil, DD, i hope you have gotten to look through this: www.engineair.com.au, there are no oil lines, nor any ports for oil in there, the stater rides on a film of air, i really think there's hardly any, if any at all, lubrication in this sucker, highly abrasion resistant materials, perhaps plastics like teflon or ceramics...

Now i have some friends that make custom bikes (i mean other then the engines, and they could manufacture the engine they just dont have anyone who can design one, everything else is custom, custom brake calipers, forks, body, frame, wheels, everything) , i wanna see if i can talk them into making a fully air-powered bike, rather convert a street bike to be fully air powered, with one 600cc rotary air engine or something (tell me that wont be a fun project)

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

http://www.engineair.com.au/images/engineairbro.jpg I'm seein wear points...lots of 'em.....sadly no mention of lube or lack thereof...really cool though.