Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerys
I am not sure. My original idea was a free wheel like on a bicycle. IE spins freely when no force is applied. I figure "heavy duty" version of that must exist??
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You might get away with using 1 or 2 good bicycle free wheels, my rough calcs say one deals with 400ft/lbs of torque quite well. Me at 220lb mashing down one pedal while pulling up on the bars must be around 400lbs of force, doubled by the crank arm diameter vs the sprocket diameter into an equal rear sprocket diameter, heck maybe its 800 ft/lbs but that sounds a bit high.
Do all of your torque multiplication after the freewheel and you should be ok. They might not like high rpm though, bike wheels are big and don't see 50mph very often. If you can't find a heavy duty free wheel right away these might be good enough for proof of concept anyways.
Cool idea!
Ian