> You read me wrong. By braking I ment that some of the wheel’s energy
> will go not into propelling me forward, but into moving the pistons in
> the engine. That’s an engine’s natural braking.
The braking action of an engine is much less powerful than its
foreward power. I understood John’s message to mean he thinks the
engine brake will be ineffective at making backwards control
corrections on a unicycle.
> I never said that
> releasing the throttle would be an insta stop, but that it’d come closer
> to what you’re doing when balancing on a unicycle. You’re either putting
> extra energy in the wheel (pushing the pedals the same way as the wheel
> is going) , or taking it out (providing slight pressure the other way).
Unless you are accelerating, your forward corrections have energy
approximately equal to the backwards corrections, the difference being
due to friction. It may prove tricky to control your unicycle with
asymetric power and braking.
My assumption is that it is likely easier to control the uni by
holding the throttle constant and modulating the brake. I’ll be
interested to hear how it works out when it is actually built.
that’s made me think, loads of people can wheelie a motorbike without any particular technique, foot pedals or anything else, just twist grip throttle and brake lever. This is exactly the same, jut not in such a difficult balance position, it should be relatively easy. One wonders why Mr. Chabanais had such problems with it seeing as he can wheelie a bike in all sorts of poses.
A spindle is a quick and dirty fix. Especially on something that needs as much correction in throttle as a unicycle does. No, I’m going to do this with a 1:16 gear ratio, using a jackshaft. Now I just need to get this engine working, and I need to design the thing.
I look at it from the other way. If Mr. Chabanais has such a hard time on his unicycle, when he’s so amazingly good on his two-wheelers, he is either insisting on using a super-difficult design, or it really is hard. Or he’s exaggerating, which may be part of it, but you’ll be amazed how different it is to balance a unicycle-like vehicle than a motorcycle with all that extra mass to work with. The extra mass is actually used as sort of a lever in the balancing process.
The same is true in bicycle Trials. Bike Trials riders can jump higher than the unicyclists, even though their cycles weigh more, because of the levering effect.
So I would think brakes are a must. A clutch would be real nice. Perhaps Mr. Chabanais also chose to do without one, which is why his wheel is so hard to ride.
The only real successful motorized unicycle (not monocycle) I’ve ever seen in action (in film, not live) was the ones made by Frank Malick in the late 60s. He was an engineer of some sort, and the key to his design was an electromagnetic brake/clutch mechanism that apparently allowed for full control over wheel movement in both directions. Or at least full throttle control going forward. It was operated by a thumb control, where you moved your thumb side to side to control wheel speed. A gasoline engine was used.
Consider the lack of motorized unicycles out there. What does this mean? They’re hard to make work. So be prepared for a fascinating engineering challenge!
man, this will be awesome if it works, cant wait to see some videos of you, even if it doesnt work.
would a centrifugal clutch work? you could snake one of them off a whipper snipper engine (if u trust them). only problem is that they tend to kick in pretty hard if u rev to hard, which would make it really hard to balance on take off.
this means that u really would need a brake though. just a reliable one cos wont have any engine braking.
i might have en idear or 2. maby puting a oh whats it called? the thing that controlls the speed well anyway put a switch that makes it speed up or slow down under the handle so you cant just reach down like your going to jump or somthing and slow down or speed up good ideah? or bad ideah? AND WHAT WOULD BE THE BERST SIZE UNICYCLE? like 20 inch 24 inch 26 inch im thinking maby 24 or 26 inch would be pretty good. what do you think?
The moment I got the chainsaw motor out I was going to use, and started it up, I knew this was a challenge that was too big for me. The engine is 5HP and 60cc, and trying to get this to work on one wheel, and actually controlling it (Remember, a gasoline engine has a delayed kind of throttle), would be a little too much.