Would a wheel like this prevent faceplants?

[RooMiniPro]

We all know that the only thing preventing us from being slammed down into the ground and potentially breaking bones, losing teeth, breaking noses and being disfigured for life is a piece of  circuit board, an electric motor and a lithium battery with plastic connectors.  Electric bicycles, skateboards and kick scooters do not have this inherent risk and reliance on the electric components working correctly 100% of the time.  When I ride my EUC I don't often forget that I am relying on these components to keep me from disaster.  There has got to be a way to implement a safety feature that would prevent a face-plant in the event of an electrical failure. 

[LewisF]

Nice image! Funnily enough I was thinking about this the other day too. EUC is the only vehicle that isn't stable without 'drive', so it's effectiveness as practical transport is entirely down to its reliability/failure rate. Because EUC doesn't 'freewheel' when no power and because rider is standing & already pretty vulnerable in terms of stability, I'd imagine that even with a stabilising front wheel a cutout would likely be too jarring to control in many cases & especially at higher speeds. Could be wrong there though!  

[The Fat Unicyclist]

I think a wheel like this would be worse...Assuming the runner wheel is toward the front (as it would be pointless behind) then the smaller diameter makes it much more likely that the wheel would "catch" on a pothole or bump and dump you.

The only benefit this might have would be to allow "coasting" to a stop following a power failure - assuming you weren't going downhill at the time.

Of course, making the runner wheel the same size would resolve the issues caused by the small diameter (though you may also need to add a steering handle  to allow cornering). I guess that would make it electric bi-unicycle!

[WARPed1701D]

I think this guy is into something. Overkill, yes. But a wheel as part of the palm on a wrist guard may allow you to arrest the rotational Energy of the fall without your hands slowing the horizontal movement. Better the brake be your knee pads to slow you from the rear rather than the front.

[LanghamP]

Something like this is available, although in a non-motorized version but the concept is there. It is undoubtedly safer than an EUC.

Interestingly enough, I think all four have nearly the ideal body position and movement for an EUC, as if all four of members of the dork squad were trained by someone who had actually thought carefully about EUC like vehicle dynamics. I would, however, recommend keeping your arms well behind your body so that when you faceplant (not if, from personal experience), you can throw your arms to your front and thereby give yourself just that split second to get your feet underneath you.

Maybe not to this extreme but close (first minute).

 

[RooMiniPro]

1 hour ago, The Fat Unicyclist said:

I think a wheel like this would be worse...Assuming the runner wheel is toward the front (as it would be pointless behind) then the smaller diameter makes it much more likely that the wheel would "catch" on a pothole or bump and dump you.

The only benefit this might have would be to allow "coasting" to a stop following a power failure - assuming you weren't going downhill at the time.

Of course, making the runner wheel the same size would resolve the issues caused by the small diameter (though you may also need to add a steering handle  to allow cornering). I guess that would make it electric bi-unicycle!

If you look at the photoshopped image carefully you can see that the front wheel is not at ground level but up a couple of inches.  This means it would only touch the ground in the event of a cut-out, allowing you to coast to a safe stop, in theory.  It is not meant to be rolling along the ground under normal operation, but there only for emergencies.  So there would be no worries about potholes or bumps.

[RooMiniPro]

20 minutes ago, LanghamP said:

Something like this is available, although in a non-motorized version but the concept is there. It is undoubtedly safer than an EUC.

Interestingly enough, I think all four have nearly the ideal body position and movement for an EUC, as if all four of members of the dork squad were trained by someone who had actually thought carefully about EUC like vehicle dynamics. I would, however, recommend keeping your arms well behind your body so that when you faceplant (not if, from personal experience), you can throw your arms to your front and thereby give yourself just that split second to get your feet underneath you.

Maybe not to this extreme but close (first minute).

 

Thanks for sharing that first video.  It demonstrates that a small wheel out in front would in fact work just fine at preventing a face-plant and keep the vehicle controllable until a safe stop is reached.  So the concept should work.  Now someone needs to MacGyver one together and test it on an old cheap wheel. 

 

There is a powered version on the market and there's a thread about it on this forum.  It has two equally sized wheels and a cable throttle. It's huge though and quite a far stretch from my reverse penny farthing concept.

 

As for the second video; why does that guy hold his arms so far back like wings?  I always thought that was weird when I watched that video.  How does that help you in the case of a face-plant?  Doesn't it just mean you'll hit the ground with your face rather than your hands and arms?

Edited July 1, 2017 by RooMiniPro

[esaj]

11 minutes ago, RooMiniPro said:

As for the second video; why does that guy hold his arms so far back like wings?  I always thought that was weird when I watched that video.  How does that help you in the case of a face-plant?  Doesn't it just mean you'll hit the ground with your face rather than your hands and arms?

No idea about the hands, but isn't "that guy" @Jason McNeil?

[RooMiniPro]

1 minute ago, esaj said:

No idea about the hands, but isn't "that guy" @Jason McNeil?

I don't know, but I thought he was trying to use aerodynamics to go faster.  Maybe there's some other practical reason, or he was just having fun and messing around.

[steve454]

3 minutes ago, RooMiniPro said:

I don't know, but I thought he was trying to use aerodynamics to go faster.  Maybe there's some other practical reason, or he was just having fun and messing around.

I thought he was trying to get a reaction out of the Chinese, to scare them into saying something that would tell him if they were confident in their product or not.  I think that was just before he started selling Inmotion.  Or, like you said, maybe he was just having fun and messing around.  He does seem to be a very confident rider.

[flass]

a large airbag that reacts when the wheel is losing power and blows up in front of you that you can land on.

Edited July 1, 2017 by flass

[The Fat Unicyclist]

50 minutes ago, RooMiniPro said:

If you look at the photoshopped image carefully you can see that the front wheel is not at ground level but up a couple of inches.  This means it would only touch the ground in the event of a cut-out, allowing you to coast to a safe stop, in theory.  It is not meant to be rolling along the ground under normal operation, but there only for emergencies.  So there would be no worries about potholes or bumps.

I still don't think it will work... The difference with the GausWheel is that the wheel is always in contact with the ground and there is a hand control.

As an EUC uses forward & back tilting to adjust speed, the runner wheel would have to be quite high up. And then if power failed and the wheel tips forward to "engage" it, the amount of the tilt combined with the stop / jolt when it reaches the ground would probably throw you off anyway. There is also the possibility that (if you were leaning back at the time) your wheel goes forward and you fall of backward.

The GausWheel video is interesting too... It is a nice smooth surface. It would be good to see it on something rougher.

[meepmeepmayer]

Neat idea. But I think this works counter to the principle of a self balancing vehicle.

So many things that can go wrong. Stops you from going up hills. Does not work if you fall backwards. Might be a problem in curves. If your wheel dies downhills, will you just roll faster and faster until you crash anyways? And it looks stupid and kills the small size practicality and simplicity of EUCs (carrying, trolleying, weaving between pedestrians, ...). Sure, you could have electronics that push down an extra small wheel wherever it is needed and have it out of the way otherwise, but that's a bit complicated.

But this isn't even the point. In the end, either you have a self balancing vehicle or you don't. 2 wheels, just get an e-bike, or this 2-wheeled non self-balancing thing that was mentioned. As for safety measures on actual self-balancing vehicles, I would prefer better quality wheels and protective clothing to god knows what backup appendages (how about an old people walking frame with rollers on it).

Worth exploring though

Edited July 2, 2017 by meepmeepmayer

[LanghamP]

1 hour ago, RooMiniPro said:

 

As for the second video; why does that guy hold his arms so far back like wings?  I always thought that was weird when I watched that video.  How does that help you in the case of a face-plant?  Doesn't it just mean you'll hit the ground with your face rather than your hands and arms?

It depends on how confident you are of your reaction speed. You start with about .2 seconds and each decade of life adds about .1 second to your reaction time. Most people get better at pattern recognition as they get older, so their timing and pattern recognition entirely masks their worsening reaction time until they get reaaaly old so long as they stay in shape by practicing.

That means you won't beat the old guy in racquetball until you give the gimp a sereptious kick in his gimpy knee.

Keeping your arms well back moves your center of gravity back.

Try this; with feet together and your arms fully extended in front of you, tip forward until you're off balance. Impossible to recover, eh?

Now try it with your arms as far back as you can. Pretty easy to recover, yes?

You can use this to get up hills; to me it feels like when my wheel gets caught, I shoot my arms forward and "drag" the wheel over where it got stuck. Yeah it feels odd having your arms raised away from danger, the exact opposite of what is natural, but it does give you that split second of possibly recovering.

I think this French guy shows a more reasonable arm position. Look very closely at how the wheel gets caught up, and how his arms move to make the wheel catch up. When he reverses/brakes his arms are out in front. This actually saved my ass a few weeks ago as I was braking, the wheel slipped out from under me and all I had to do was move my arms front to back to catch myself without the danger of doing a backflip. No danger at all.

 

[RooMiniPro]

1 hour ago, The Fat Unicyclist said:

I still don't think it will work... The difference with the GausWheel is that the wheel is always in contact with the ground and there is a hand control.

As an EUC uses forward & back tilting to adjust speed, the runner wheel would have to be quite high up. And then if power failed and the wheel tips forward to "engage" it, the amount of the tilt combined with the stop / jolt when it reaches the ground would probably throw you off anyway. There is also the possibility that (if you were leaning back at the time) your wheel goes forward and you fall of backward.

The GausWheel video is interesting too... It is a nice smooth surface. It would be good to see it on something rougher.

The hand control is just a brake so that's not too relevant to the argument here. 

I think in a power-cut, the front wheel dropping forward a couple of inches to touch the ground and, as you said, jolting you, would be less likely to throw you off than where things stand at the moment with our EUCS in a cut-out scenario, ie. 100% chance of being thrown off 100% of the time. So it may be progress at least.

If you're leaning back (ie. slowing down) at the time of a cut-out (which would be quite unlikely) the event of the wheel suddenly beginning to slow down due to loss of power plus the effect of magnetic cogging would push your body forward, not backward.  And the front wheel would be pushed down onto the ground, preventing the machine from rolling forward and dropping you down.

[The Fat Unicyclist]

5 minutes ago, RooMiniPro said:

The hand control is just a brake so that's not too relevant to the argument here. 

Ah, I see... I was thinking that it was powered, rather than just a downhill machine.

7 minutes ago, RooMiniPro said:

If you're leaning back (ie. slowing down) at the time of a cut-out (which would be quite unlikely) the event of the wheel suddenly beginning to slow down due to loss of power plus the effect of magnetic cogging would push your body forward, not backward.  And the front wheel would be pushed down onto the ground, preventing the machine from rolling forward and dropping you down.

No. I am a heavy rider in a hilly area... Which means I am often leaning back to ride downhill - And that is the time that a cutoff due to overcharging is quite likely.

[RooMiniPro]

13 minutes ago, meepmeepmayer said:

Neat idea. But I think this works counter to the principle of a self balancing vehicle.

So many things that can go wrong. Stops you from going up hills. Does not work if you fall backwards. Might be a problem in curves. If your wheel dies downhills, will you just roll faster and faster until you crash anyways? And it looks stupid and kills the small size practicality and simplicity of EUCs (carrying, trolleying, weaving between pedestrians, ...). Sure, you could have electronics that push down an extra small wheel wherever it is needed and have it out of the way otherwise, but that's a bit complicated.

But this isn't even the point. In the end, either you have a self balancing vehicle or you don't. 2 wheels, just get an e-bike, or this 2-wheeled non self-balancing thing that was mentioned. As for safety measures on actual self-balancing vehicles, I would prefer better quality wheels and protective clothing to god knows what backup appendages (how about an old people walking frame with rollers on it).

Worth exploring though

I think it is worth exploring, yes.  To say it looks stupid, defeats the purpose, might as well get an e-bike etc. is perhaps being somewhat of a defeatist.  Giving up and thinking "there's nothing we can do...just wear protective gear and a good helmet" is giving up, accepting that things simply are what they are and this doesn't lead to progress.  EUCs have an inherent danger in that they rely on electronic components and software to keep us upright/safe/alive.  Electronic components and software fail/glitch/burn out and are not as reliable as simple mechanical components like for instance a bicycle.  And so, we should be looking at ways to improve the safety of EUCs.  Very few other land-based vehicles cause an instant and 100% guaranteed crash in the event of an electrical glitch.  Even aeroplanes can glide to safety if the engine fails entirely.  Helicopters can perform autorotation landings if their engines fail.  BUT EUCs just crash in a split second, with no way to prevent it.  My front wheel idea is not the best idea, and you mentioned some great reasons why it would not work (such as going up hills) but there has to be something at least similar that can be done and surely as this forum is full of great minds and technical thinkers we can come up with some viable ideas.

[RooMiniPro]

3 minutes ago, The Fat Unicyclist said:

Ah, I see... I was thinking that it was powered, rather than just a downhill machine.

No. I am a heavy rider in a hilly area... Which means I am often leaning back to ride downhill - And that is the time that a cutoff due to overcharging is quite likely.

Oh I see.  I never ride down hills on a full charge and so this scenario is very unlikely for me.  I recommend to avoid steep declines if your battery is fully charged.  It's better to at least burn off 10% or so of that juice before going down a steep hill.  You'll get some of that energy back on the way down anyway.

[dmethvin]

23 hours ago, RooMiniPro said:

I don't know, but I thought he was trying to use aerodynamics to go faster.  Maybe there's some other practical reason, or he was just having fun and messing around.

Often, your arms will get in the way of a perfect faceplant. If you hold them behind your back this solves the problem. However, I prefer "The Airplane" or "The Funky Chicken" poses myself.   

[LanghamP]

21 hours ago, RooMiniPro said:

And so, we should be looking at ways to improve the safety of EUCs.  Very few other land-based vehicles cause an instant and 100% guaranteed crash in the event of an electrical glitch.  

What if you had the EUC randomly partially fail at first? When the buyer received his EUC, under a certain mileage it is programed to fail a lot under really low speeds, and then at progressively higher speeds.

What kind of EUC rider would this result in?

[dmethvin]

1 hour ago, LanghamP said:

What if you had the EUC randomly partially fail at first? When the buyer received his EUC, under a certain mileage it is programed to fail a lot under really low speeds, and then at progressively higher speeds.

What kind of EUC rider would this result in?

A Gotway owner?

[The Fat Unicyclist]

2 hours ago, LanghamP said:

What kind of EUC rider would this result in?

[LanghamP]

1 hour ago, dmethvin said:

A Gotway owner?

Ah don't remind me: I have an MSuper...

What I am suggesting is training the rider may be more effective in preventing injuries.

[Chris Westland]

On 7/2/2017 at 2:39 AM, RooMiniPro said:

...There has got to be a way to implement a safety feature that would prevent a face-plant in the event of an electrical failure. 

Interesting discussion, but IMO misguided, resulting in potentially over-engineered (expensive, failure-prone) solutions.  I think you need first to identify the "why".  Riders who have had failures and done post-mortems (@esaj , @Marty Backe, @Jason McNeil@Rehab1,etc... forgive me if I've forgotten anyone) provide a list of insights on what needs fixing.  In general, it seems, sudden fluctuations or loss of power to the motor (FET failure, wiring melt, brown-out, etc) are behind most crashes.  EUC wheels would benefit from {power reserve (think super-capacitor) + low-pass filter + graceful degradation} systems before other engineering.  Segways use multiple redundant systems (expensive) to achieve safety.  I'm assuming the manufacturers mostly understand this, though maybe they aren't separately engineering such subsystems, and they have to engineer to a price point.  

Edited July 3, 2017 by Chris Westland

[Chris Westland]

13 hours ago, dmethvin said:

A Gotway owner?

I think many of Gotway's problems arise from increasing the power demands without corresponding major upgrades in components and systems. Power demands rise by the square of velocity and cube of aerodynamic drag, and EUC's forward and backward stabilization is achieved entirely through the motor (compare to bikes, GausWheel, etc) and thus which conceptually could demand infinite torque spikes.  The torque and power that make Gotway wheels attractive demands a similar scale up of components, which I think for price reasons they are not providing.  

You have similar problems with supercars ... if you create a Bugatti Chiron, you need entirely new parts for the power train to handle the 1500+ HP; otherwise you have a track/race car that might be good for only one race.

Edited July 3, 2017 by Chris Westland