Posted by Darren (208.143.232.66) on February 21, 2003 at 07:09:56:
In Reply to: Comments on the Liberotor wheel posted by John Lindsay on January 31, 2003 at 15:43:03:
Two fatal flaws I can see right from the start...
First, at the top of the wheel you show the rectangluar link change from hanging to the left of the arm to hanging to the right of the arm. If you calculated the position of the weights at each degree of rotation you'd see that the rectangluar link wouldn't flop to the right until the connector that attaches it to the arm rotated another 20-30 degrees, which would keep that weight from "helping" the wheel until it was too late. Its weight wouldn't be out to the right far enough soon enough and that would hurt you.
Second, the way you have drawn the links at the bottom isn't realistic. The links wouldn't swing out to the right like that if you built real ones. What would happen is that instead of the circular weights moving to the right you'd see them try their hardest to hang straight down.
The end result is that you'd have less weight pushed to the right at the bottom and more weight kept to the left for longer on the top... and it would not turn or behave the way you hope.
It is interesting, but unfortunately not "it"
Later :-)