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Spherical Wheels

jeez I should finish the thread before i post.:o

still cool as h*ll though:D


Globe
 
if one wants omnidrectional steering, (assumed to be the onus for spherical wheels) i would think that four distributed electric motors/axles inside horizontal ring mounts would be able to turn 360 and motivate fore and aft, drive by wire. and regular rubber tires would meet the road.

(now if they' perfect their electric cars we'd be halfway there)
 
shecky said:
Ahh, I see. (I haven't seen that movie)

What a odd idea. Seems like magnets, while possible, wouldn't be the ideal way to go about this. Wouldn't the wheel itself need to be significantly magnetized? Which would mean picking up all kinds of debris from the road. Braking and steering would demand some extremely strong magnetic fields. I think even if you somehow managed to come up with a non-magnetized sphere inside a magnetized wheelwell, debris from the road would end up getting wedged between the wheel and wheelwell.

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Not to mention that magnets that powerful might make it difficult to drive near fire-hydrants, other hunks of iron, and other cars which would be generating their own magnetic fields.
 
Ladewig said:
Not to mention that magnets that powerful might make it difficult to drive near fire-hydrants, other hunks of iron, and other cars which would be generating their own magnetic fields.
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that is easy enough to fix. all the vehicle needs is a high powered laser to destroy the offending objects before the car gets too close. that would make for pretty high taxes, though, what with having to install new fire hydrants, dumpsters, and phone booths 112 times every second. high insurance rates, too. the car companies would love it though. think about it, having to buy a new car every time someone drives buy! assuming you live through the laser blast, of course. man, i think i've created utopia! or dystopia. i always get those two mixed up.
 
Next you'll tell me you're magnetizing the blood in your body as well, and then it's truly gone all 'X-men bad' :rolleyes:
 
exarch said:
Next you'll tell me you're magnetizing the blood in your body as well, and then it's truly gone all 'X-men bad' :rolleyes:
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you can actually do that, with a powerful enough magnet. the mineral form of iron that is in the blood isn't magnetically active the way that metallic iron is, but it is as susceptible to large magnetic fields as anything else.
 
exarch said:
Next you'll tell me you're magnetizing the blood in your body as well, and then it's truly gone all 'X-men bad' :rolleyes:
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You must not have been paying attention. The bad guard had metal fillings or whatever injected into him earlier in the movie.
What isn't plausible is any lifeform of reasonable size being able to
generate magnetic fields that strong.
 
SkepticJ said:
You must not have been paying attention. The bad guard had metal fillings or whatever injected into him earlier in the movie.
What isn't plausible is any lifeform of reasonable size being able to
generate magnetic fields that strong.
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was nighcrawler or cyclops more realistic for you? ;) in the comics, magneto was able to manipulate people through the iron content in their blood. this wasn't because they made magneto to be able to produce super high strength magnetic fields, but because the writers didn't realize that the properties of mineral and magnetic iron are quite different.
 
EdipisReks said:
was nighcrawler or cyclops more realistic for you? ;)
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Nightcrawl's wall running is completely possible as are the acrobatics. Banfing from room to room isn't plausible in our current understanding of the universe. Psionic beams from the eyes? Nope. High powered miniature lasers in a visor? Why not?
Wolverine regrowing parts? Salamanders grow new arms and tails. Metal bones? Some people already have metal leg bones. Super sharp blades that slice through anything. Hmmmm, they'd need to be really thin. Maybe even 1-10 micrometers thick.
 
scribble said:
As for spherical wheels -- you'd get much worse acceleration and be horribly prone to slipping all over the road -- no traction, see. Much less surface area in contact with the road.
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Well others have already said the wheel would flatten out a bit on the bottom from the car's weight. But the tire could also have some kind of adhesive that would bond with the road and peal off again as the ball turns like those sticky toy walls that roll down walls. If only there was something like that. Safely driving on ice would be quite nice to.
 
SkepticJ said:
Well others have already said the wheel would flatten out a bit on the bottom from the car's weight. But the tire could also have some kind of adhesive that would bond with the road and peal off again as the ball turns like those sticky toy walls that roll down walls. If only there was something like that. Safely driving on ice would be quite nice to.
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I guess that would work fine until there was dust or dirt or debris in the road. So that would be, oh, from the garage to the end of the driveway?
 
Ladewig said:
I guess that would work fine until there was dust or dirt or debris in the road. So that would be, oh, from the garage to the end of the driveway?
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Did you even click the link? Somehow setae self clean. Otherwise geckos wouldn't be able to climb around since they live in dirty jungles.
 
Ok, what about Stweels for the car? Here's the link
A ball inside with round shafts coming off in all directions to support the outside rubber shell that has the hexagonal or triangle tread pattern? Maybe the inner ball could be inflated with air or filled with dense foam.
 
SkepticJ said:
Ok, what about Stweels for the car? Here's the link
A ball inside with round shafts coming off in all directions to support the outside rubber shell that has the hexagonal or triangle tread pattern? Maybe the inner ball could be inflated with air or filled with dense foam.
Click to expand...

You'd have a devil of a time connecting it to the car, and I don't know if it would still deform around the obsticles like a regular tweel does if it was spherical.
 
neutrino_cannon said:
You'd have a devil of a time connecting it to the car, and I don't know if it would still deform around the obsticles like a regular tweel does if it was spherical.
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You're not getting the idea are you? No matter, others on the thread haven't also. Turn your computer mouse upside down. See the ball? (I'm assuming you don't have an optical mouse or one of those large balls that you spin with your hand to move the mouse) That's how the tire would be, in an omnidirectional socket with a little less than half of the tire poking through the hole in the bottom of the car.
 
Wouldn't he get hit in the head by his own rockets?

(Edited to add: I'm looking at the Damnation Alley vehicle)
 
SkepticJ said:
You're not getting the idea are you? No matter, others on the thread haven't also. Turn your computer mouse upside down. See the ball? (I'm assuming you don't have an optical mouse or one of those large balls that you spin with your hand to move the mouse) That's how the tire would be, in an omnidirectional socket with a little less than half of the tire poking through the hole in the bottom of the car.
Click to expand...

I get that much, and have, problem is, with a tweel it's going to deform, yes? That's part of the deal. If it deforms, you're going to have a devil of a time containing the thing without loads of friction.
 
I just have this picture of these magnetically suspended ball wheels that fall off when the car is lifted on a jack or something.
 
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