fold up design

Here's a new design I have been working on.

 

the folding version.....

 

This is a detail of the rocker/stabilizer when vehicle is in use.

 

This detail shows the same area when folded.

internal hub cvt

Down the road (no pun intended) my hope is to install internal hub transmissions in the rear wheels of the vehicle. Kind of like those old "Sturmy Archer" 3 speed hubs that were very popular and seem to be making a bit of a comeback. The more I thought about it, I decided to come up with a cvt (continuously variable transmission) internal hub transmission. Cvts are being used in hybrid vehicles now like the Prius. They are very efficient and shifting is seamlessly smooth. So I spent all day Wednesday designing one. I am very happy with the results, and after doing a little search of patents, I don't think it has been invented yet. This internal hub cvt may overshadow the vehicle invention. My challenge is to not get to distracted though and keep on keepin on with the vehicle prototype.

Kickstarter

Have you heard about Kickstarter.com? It's a website that creative people post their projects on to raise funds to complete them. All the while offering various gifts for different donation levels. Kind of like public media fund drive only it's for artists/creators. Well, my project was accepted. I am trying to raise money to build a prototype of the human powered vehicle I invented. It's at http://bit.ly/17tAGR . For those of you who,like me, have a creative project but lack enough funds to carry it through to the next level, check it out for your own thing. They may accept your project.

HUMAN POWERED VEHICLE

  This is a human powered vehicle that I have been designing (mostly in my head) for the past 5 or so years. A Provisional Patent Application has been filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office and now thanks to my dads' help I can say it is now Patent Pending. I love coming up with new ideas. I spend a lot of my time thinking of ways to improve human powered vehicles, energy storage systems, etc.. These drawings were done to US patent Office standards with Autocad in 3D I am now learning how to use Solidworks to do my drawings and virtual prototyping. Also, these drawings are not at all the final design. They represent the concept only for the purpose of the patent application. And to help you in your grok process.

 

The way this vehicle works is by moving your legs back and forth. A cable wraps around the rear hub that is attached at the forward end to the frame or some other relatively fixed location on the vehicle... So when you push your leg back, the cable unravels and spins the wheel forward. If you ever had a gyroscope as a kid you can see how similar this kind of principle works. The rear wheels are like gyroscopes being pulled while the string is held in a fixed position. Figure 1A is an isometric view, 1B is the front view, 1C is the side view, 1D is the top view, 1E is a detailed sketch of the rear.

Top detail

Top detail sketch showing a rocker arm (38) that supports and allows limited movement of the slide bars (46 and 48).

Leaning into a turn

Leaning into a turn.

Detail 3

Here is a detail sketch of a rear wheel showing a large torsion spring (82) that coils up the cable each time that side is drawn forward. The constant tension that the cable would be under will also help assist the rider in returning the rear wheel forward.

Embodiment 2

Figures 2A and 2B show the second embodiment and a detail shot. The cables are anchored at the opposite slide bar to give the operator the ability to alter the speed of the vehicle by changing the pattern of movement of the legs. For example, if you were to operate the vehicle where the legs moved in constant opposition (just like walking or running)this would be low gear. If you were to leave one of the legs stationary while the other one pushes back, that would be high gear. Then if you were to push both legs back at the same time, that would be extremely high gear.

Embodiment 3

Figure 3 is the most simplistic of them all. Each rear wheel would be equipped with a freewheel (also known as an over-running clutch) that would be fixed at one side to a part of the frame. This would prevent each rear wheel from rolling backwards with each stroke.

embodiment 4

In Figure 4, the cable attachment is on the slide bar near the rear wheel. The cable goes over pulley 343 giving the vehicle a mechanical advantage of 2:1 over figure 1 and thereby doubling the speed of the vehicle.