Air drill go-cart/bike?

[bennelson]

I was talking with a kid today (a 12-year old?)

He was talking about making a go-cart that ran on compressed air.

After talking about it a bit, we hit on the idea of using an air drill running a sprocket and chain to a wheel.

This could be done on a go cart or possibly a bicycle. Does anyone have experience with compression and air tools and would be able to estimate how much air/ how much pressure/how big of a tank would be needed?

This is an interesting concept. I have heard about air cars in India. Might be fun to play with in a small/light vehicle.

Could use an off-board compressor kept in the garage.

[MetroMPG]

Something like this?

[bennelson]

Yes, similar to that, only with less bad techno music.

[justpassntime]

AirHog toys used this type of propulsion. On a larger scale would work excellent I think. An air compressor in reverse.

[ATaylorRacing]

Don Garlets Museum of Drag Racing in Ocala FL has a rail dragster that was built to run a V8 off a HUGE compressed air tank....it was a failure as far as its speed, but an interesting idea. All motors are actually air pumps...they may be powered by diesel or gas or other methods....the more air that gets pumped, the more the power. If they could have compressed air into the cylinders equal to the cylinder pressures shown when using racing fuel thet would hae been faster. Another problem was the added wt of that @ 20 yard long ctlinder was much heavier than their competitors fuel cells.
I think it could be made to work for very short distances.

[bennelson]

Here is what I was thinking!

Air powered bicycle.

[greenitup]

Originally Posted by bennelson

Here is what I was thinking!

Air powered bicycle.

that looks like a moving explosive bike, looks dangerous. (propane tank strapped to a bike, talk about nos)

[bennelson]

No, read the link - it's just using an old propane tank AS a compressed air tank. No propane involved at all.

Just using typical compressed air pressures.

[Ryland]

the air drills that I have used seem like they would run for less then a minute off a tank that size if you had it up o 120psi to start with, then at least my air compresser draws 550 watts to start out with and as pressure climes th watt draw climes, with a tank pressure of 40psi it's drawing 780 watts, 50psi 850 watts, 80psi 900 watts, 100psi 950 watts, after 6 minutes it has drawn .06kwh or 60 watt hours to bring a 28" long 12" across air compressor tank to 110psi, that is around 1.8 cubic feet of air that I put 60 watt hours of energy in to, then I hooked my air wrench to a generator and hooked meters up to it, about 20 seconds and 4 watt hours of electricity later and my air tank was empty, that same energy going in to the battery in my electric car would take it nearly a quarter mile, or my electric bike about half a mile, that air powered bike claims 4mph for one minute or about 350 feet on a fill.

[Johnny Mullet]

An air drill would suck that tank dry in less than 2 minutes.

[bennelson]

It would be interesting to have a "real-life" test of how much power you could get back out compared to what you put in.

Even if it wasn't super-efficient, electricity is pretty cheap, can be renewably-made, etc.

I think the main limiting factor is how much air you can bring with you.

Even if it wasn't a lot, it might still be fun on a bicycle, because you can always pedal anyways.

A person might also be able to design some sort of air piston or some other device that might use the air more efficiently than an air drill.

[justpassntime]

I think it's a good idea, but.......think about riding this past any federal building, ie court house, post office, air port, etc.

This looks like a suicide bombers dream. You might be able to sell plans on ebay and use the money for ecommoding. LOL

You would spend more time being detained and in cuffs than it would be worth. I would stay away from riding it in Milwaukee near anything that has security.

[Ryland]

Originally Posted by bennelson

Even if it wasn't super-efficient, electricity is pretty cheap, can be renewably-made, etc.

A person might also be able to design some sort of air piston or some other device that might use the air more efficiently than an air drill.

What you are talking about is basically a steam engine, I have a pile of books on how to make ones for powering model air planes (yes, steam powered model air planes), and yes, electricity is cheap but it should still be used wisely, from the figures I did yesterday that I posted about, I figure that the same electricity could take you 3-4 times farther on a bicycle if you used battery power, compared to compressed air, but with compressed air you are "running it on air", you are just using more electricity to do it.

[dann_04]

Why not just buy an air car?

Air-Powered Car Coming to U.S. in 2009 to 2010 - Zero Pollution Motors - 1000-Mile Range - Popular Mechanics

They're already selling them in india and supposedly plan to bring them to the u.s.