Creative Uses for Pullback Motors?

[xenologer]

Yes, Racers.

Every once in a while one will have some nice parts or wheels that I just Must Have.

Unfortunatly, each time I do this... I get stuck with a big useless pullback motor brick. |-/

I actually don't like using the motors to make other racecars... because they take away from the playability... can't push the car around while making 'vroom vroom' noises, since the motor prevents going in reverse and tries to get away from you and whatnot...

So, has anyone ever seen a way to make these things useful?

I'd love to see some innovations... *y*

So far my only idea is.. Wind-Up toys. :-D

[Zaktan of the Shadows]

I don't think there are any uses for them....

-ZotS

[Brickthus]

Yes, Racers.

Every once in a while one will have some nice parts or wheels that I just Must Have.

Unfortunatly, each time I do this... I get stuck with a big useless pullback motor brick. |-/

I actually don't like using the motors to make other racecars... because they take away from the playability... can't push the car around while making 'vroom vroom' noises, since the motor prevents going in reverse and tries to get away from you and whatnot...

So, has anyone ever seen a way to make these things useful?

I'd love to see some innovations... *y*

So far my only idea is.. Wind-Up toys. :-D

One thing I tried was using the pull-back motor to pull along a horse on a string that was pulling a railway wagon in a siding.

Horses used to do the railway shunting at small branch line stations in the UK in the early part of the 20th century. The train would uncouple the last wagon (often of coal) and the horse would pull it into the siding.

Unfortunately most of the pull-back motors give out more rotations forward than reverse, so the LEGO horse might get a bit wound up ;-)

Mark

[xenologer]

Unfortunately most of the pull-back motors give out more rotations forward than reverse, so the LEGO horse might get a bit wound up ;-)

I was thinking (along the lines of the windup toy) that you could use a differential and ratchet so the motor windup crank and the output are along different shafts. Potentially you could give them different gear ratios, to help with the backward/forward unbalance.

Not sure exactly what you mean by the horse though...

I'm sure you remember those little tin walking windup toys? where they have two oversized feet and a windup key on the back? usually resembling a frog or something that hop/walks along...

Another idea, what about using the pullback to store mechanical energy?

Suppose you've got a mindstorms robot with electric motors... maybe you could have a slow yet powerful motor, be used to wind up the pullback, and have a release mechanism so that the pullback could be used to power a fast acting device.

quick example: robotic scorpion's fast tail strike.

for some applications, this could potentially be simpler than gearing the motor for higher speed; in the hypothetical scorpion example, you'd also be decoupling the expensive electric motor from a potentially damaging motion when the tail actually hits someting....