Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Clockwork R/C Car

 could run for longer with less battery power?
 
(0) 		  [vote for,
against]

Hows about this one then...

as we all know, all toy radio controlled cars, (and other new pressies), run out of main motor drive power long before the radio kit does....

so how about fitting a CLOCKWORK main motor?

a basic one could be, a simple drive system, with only forward and reverse, this inturn could drive a simple skid steer system. or who remembers the old 'Sonic controlled cars' where the reverse gave us a turning action...

if the car radio battery was a permenantly installed nicad, this could be charged by the wind up transmitter's own generator circuit, giveing total freedom from the mains,(given that it may take a while to charge both batts simultaneously).maybe this one will still be running on boxing day... Mandy

—Mandy2, Dec 09 2002

Freeplay technology http://www.freeplay...echnology/hist.html
Perhaps adaptable? [krelnik, Oct 17 2004]

[link]






       So what did you do with mandy(1)? Forget to type in lower case?   

       And every clockwork motor I ever had ran down in less than a minute, so I don't see this being much use to anyone.
—dalek, Dec 09 2002
   

       You can get flashlights and radios that are recharged by cranking a crank which stores potential energy in a spring. This is then doled out through a generator. See link for details. Of course it takes lots more energy to run a car around than it does to operate a flashlight, so maybe this wouldn't be too practical.
—krelnik, Dec 09 2002
   

       Not useful. Batteries have a much higher energy density than springs.
—egnor, Dec 09 2002
   

       I think it is useful. For two reasons:   

       1. batteries have higher energy density but springs are more quickly rewound than batteries recharged. Well, except with BIG springs and very expensive batteries.   

       2. No more "DAD/MOM I need new batteries- NOW!" which is what the author was probably getting at with the boxing day comment. BTW IANAP (parent)   

       Besides, I like the niftyness factor
—brewer, May 18 2004
   
      
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