Survival Wagon Idea - Recreation Or Reality TV

[Turtle]

Iiiiiiii like it!!!! Very detailed, very practical, veeeeerrrrry nice. I like the double-set tire height on the wheels; very clever! I like the detachable 3rd wheel, the fiber body shell, the multi-functional wheels, and pretty much the whole kit-n-kaboodle.

If you make those vanes on the wheels so you can set the pitch, then turning them 90º to the wheel gives you your paddle-wheels and no prop needed. Afterall, you're not talking about towing a skier here.

For the mud, take off the wheels and in the boat-form, drag it as you say.

Good one on the extendable mast too. Besides your wind mill, send up your camera or just run up a flag.

On the rally, I suspect the route is still closed, so no scouting again yet. We had a couple warm days, record warm in fact, but now it's back to cool and the snow level dropped and we have thunderstorms now to play with. Time for me to look into makin' some snow-shoes.

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by nkt

...The shape is something like a cross between a coracle and a wheelbarrow shaped rickshaw, and the whole thing is made from either carbon fibre or glass fibre, with steel or alloy struts and tubes. The wheels come off easily, and no jack is required, as you can simply walk the shape over onto the "roof" due to the progressive curve of the bottom. ...

An idea rang my bell on this business of shape and material. Get an already made 12 foot canoe [aluminium, fiberglass, or plastic] and cut it in half, put in a bulkhead at the new 'stern', slap on your wheels & go. If you want the front detachable, whack it off just the same as the first cut, add bulkheads to both pieces, and drill some bolt holes for attachment/detachment.

Since you have two identical pieces from cutting the whole boat at the middle, either make 2 wagons, or, use the second 1/2 as a cover/roof. Well, for what it's worth; another brain fart from the turtle's beak. .........

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

That's a good one. My first boat was half a canoe that I found burried in the weeds by dads barn. It was broken in the middle so I sawed it the rest of the way, caulked and screwed a piece of plywood where the yoke used to be for a transome I used it every summer from when I was 11 until I got an aluminum "duck" boat at 16. At 8' long and being made from ABS plastic it was just the ticket for the 185' near vertical ( / <that's pretty close to the incline) decent to the beach and the climb back up. (the duck boat was another story)

[nkt]

Thanks for the encouragement.

Today I was looking at a couple of pedalows, and trying to work out how those could be worked into the design! They are light, they float, and they have a drive underneath via the pedals.

I had already though of the idea of driving the wheels with the vanes set like waterwheels on a paddle steamer, but I'd rather not rely on the battery for the drive of them, since that could be an issue, especially if they battery died, as they would then act like a (pair of) sea anchor!

Driving them via a chain drive *or* the hub motors would be ideal. It would also allow pedal-power to recharge the battery should you need it! This is something I'd thought of as well, but without a way to add the drive in properly, it wasn't a good option.

Now however, I think I've got it. You see the main issue is that there will be stuff in the "boat" where you would otherwise put the drive stuff. And there is the bike part to consider. So, if we run the drive chain around the outside, and have the bike part more like a recumbent bicycle design, we can avoid this issue.

If this design can be worked out, it will also get rid of the front-wheel drive to the steering wheels, which removes the issues of turning the wheel and still pedalling neatly (just think of a tot's tricycle to see the steering under driving load issue!) and would also allow the use of a geared bike system with shifting gears. This in turn would give far, far greater efficiency, as the gears could be used for steeper up-hills, whilst for power generation it would be more effective on the downhills than the straight hub motor design.

Gar! It's all about the balance between one feature and the next, and there is the extra weight to consider too! But I think a chain drive system will be worth it, for the extra speed and the extra power generation, as well as the addition drive option. Wonder if I can make this thing fairly stable in the water, too?

[freeztar]

I like the "water-friendly" design, but what's seems most cool is the generator attached to the wheels/axle.

[nkt]

It's interesting trying to design something like this. It's a totally new idea from Turtle, and so it is a bit of a blank sheet of paper to start with.

I've no formal design background - my degree is a specialist one in aspects of laser physics, and I've worked in aerospace for a big company with no brains and no wit, and I'm now doing stuff that is completely unrelated to either of those areas!

However, I've been inventing and designing stuff since forever, and taking things apart to see how they (used to ) work. And it's in my blood, my dad's been a Maker since before anyone invented the word.

I love these "green field" challenges.

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

Originally Posted by freeztar

I like the "water-friendly" design, but what's seems most cool is the generator attached to the wheels/axle.

Hey!...
They've done it on passenger railcars for the past 100 years or so (successfully I might add)!


( just bustin em! sorry but it was just too tempting)

[DFINITLYDISTRUBD]

If this design can be worked out, it will also get rid of the front-wheel drive to the steering wheels, which removes the issues of turning the wheel and still pedalling neatly

Run your chain drive to the front (A shorter chain drive will save weight and reduce reliability issues) and your steering link to the rear wheels (which will give you a tighter turning radious).

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by DFINITLYDISTRUBD

Hey!...
They've done it on passenger railcars for the past 100 years or so (successfully I might add)!


( just bustin em! sorry but it was just too tempting)

I don't mind being called out and edumacated.

Do you have some links?

[nkt]

Originally Posted by DFINITLYDISTRUBD

Run your chain drive to the front (A shorter chain drive will save weight and reduce reliability issues) and your steering link to the rear wheels (which will give you a tighter turning radious).

I had that thought, but I don't think it will work. Steering the rear wheels would require a large radius turning circle underneath, which would require a big heavy joint, and be a probable cause of failure, as well as destroying the drag-ability and hydrodynamics of the underside when the wheels are taken off.

The original design has the front wheels steering and driven. This would allow for a very tight turning circle, but the drive, being direct would be very poor.

The more typical design of the bicycle is probably the best for the frame. If the design is changed a bit, so the rear wheels can be driven or drive under electronic control, it would be great. However, at the moment I think that having the gears on the underside axle, with a sort of locking system to capture the hub motors would be best.

In the perfect world, the hub motors could rotate with the wheels when "off", and then be toggled up or down to either drive the wheels in addition to the pedal/chain drive, or toggled down, to absorb pedal power back into the battery. This would be a great way to allow the hub motors to add a little to the going uphill parts, and also allow a way to recharge the battery quickly, by pedalling with the wheels chocked, unlike the first design where you would have to do something else entirely.
Sadly, I haven't really got any idea of how to do this part! Some sort of friction based clutch would work, but would be quite lossy. Perhaps magnets?