1124 A DIY Kinetic Energy Recovery System - KERS

[jimbodee]

Robert is a Boss when it comes to this style of idea execution.

[j.rumbleseed]

KERS was the name I gave to my invention which landed in the Porsche GT3 in 2007! Love your demo!

[ArcanusLibero]

A brilliant application of principles. I think we got the same deal on motors. Thanks for sharing your experiences with the world.... Another impressive project.

[OverlandOne]

I really enjoy watching your videos. You always create such interesting projects and explain them very well. I believe the fly wheel is also a battery for storing mechanical energy. Many years ago (1960's I believe) they were experimenting on running transit busses on huge, heavy flywheels. They were designed to use a much smaller engine than was usually used in busses because, all it had to do was run at a constant speed where it was the most efficient and the bus driver simply engaged a clutch and gearbox to tap into the energy stored in this flywheel. When the bus was stopped like at a red light, the engine had plenty of time to get the flywheel back up to max. speed. The flywheel, of course, did not add any energy to the system, it only stored it but, it took advantage of the time factor. The bus could wait a few minutes, when first started in the morning, to get the flywheel up to speed before driving off so the small engine was simply using more time to store the same energy that could be used to operate the bus that the larger engine provided. From what I remember, the prototype worked great but it obviously never went into production. Maybe because, as I remember, gas was like $.15/gallon then? (Diesel was also cheaper than gas was back then too.)

[nameismetatoo]

Great idea with the supercapacitor. I think we're going to start seeing them used more often in regen braking systems as their price goes down and their capacity goes up. They're perfectly suited for capturing large current spikes and frequent charge/discharge cycles (not to mention their superior safety over Lithium batteries).

You should try experimenting with putting multiple supercapacitors on the output, and test their efficiency in parallel vs series (or combinations of the two). It would be easier to test the efficiency by feeding the power back into the motor after all the usable energy is recovered, then measuring the maximum speed of the flywheel after discharging.

[The_Unobtainium]

I really like the way you're talking about science stuff:) thank you

[MrAnderson]

Hey Luke, I modified that motor you used in your scooter, there was too much resistance under load for me, the delivery wires got hot. I disassembled it and found 4 brush points around the commutator, I rewired the inside to 4 separate power leads of a bit heavier gage, and installed some 300 volt electrolytic condensers in non polarized configuration across the power leads to lower the arcing on commutator help with loss and temperature. I also ported the end cap in between the brushes to help with the poor air flow. then it was run over voltage by twice, a nice addition would have been a dc squirrel cage cooling fan to run the air through the commentator brush area to help keep the temperature down, although it didn't need it in the race, have fun👍

[htmagic]

RMS, put a sheet metal skin over the concrete and tack weld to rim. Add a neo magnet nearby. Now you have a homopolar generator on top of the other generator.

[EnterTheRealm]

That would be awesome rigged up to one of those hoverboard wheels as a generator or on of the direct drive motors from a new generation washing machine. They produce ac St a high voltage and high amperage.

[neontv]

I've seen this they make the wheel very heavy to get more. Cool experiment.

[William_Hada]

Wow, you practically stole those motors for that price! What a score!

[montynorth]

How about fixing a propeller directly to either the hand wheel or the flywheel and letting the wind do the work?
Using this method you could genuinely power a cart to go faster than the following wind!

[qkitselectronics]

This is something Adam Savage just could not understand. The small pully at the center is the key to this working.

[stevetobias]

Couldn't see the multimeter with my old eyes on the phone but obviously it was good. With the right gearing this has tremendous opportunities, be it on a waterwheel or anything with unused momentum.

[valveman]

That's one heavy smartphone charger😁 Looking forward to what you are going to do with it next.

[overunityresearchchannel]

works great i really like how inexpensive the concrete flywheel idea is to me that sthe best idea of this build also that big dc motor is very good i have one just like it i think the rim is 1550 to get max volts generation if you put a really big sprocket or pulley on the flywheel for the generator i know you know this but yeah it would really give you some power like 12 or more volts also i really really liked that you implemented the joule thief circuit great work as always Robert Cheers i think that flywheel setup can have many many awesome configurations man if you would make it into an bedini pulse motor that would be rea;;y really awesome :) or some kind of back emf mechanical system like Joseph Newman

[colleenforrest]

This is the way bicycle power should work. Much better than trying to power the motor directly

[wazittuyoo]

Take a drink every time Robert says wacking.

[abhaysuriya]

Hi Robert Murray!! May I know what have you connected the dc motor to? 
Is it direct current supply??

[Owlsrayne]

That would make a pretty cool survivalist generator.