Tag: dynamo

Lazyweb: Kinetic powered LED Diabolo

I have been thinking a lot, regarding the idea about kinetic powered LED diabolos,

A while ago I bought some inline skate wheels and they work exactly how I thought. However trying to attach them to the diabolo is more tricky that I thought.

Really I need to sit in a hackspace and just go at it for a day or so.

LED diabolo plan

In my head there are two ways to go about this.

  1. The standard diabolo route with a spinning axle.
    I could extend the diabolo axle and attach the inline wheel loose to the outside. In theory, the diabolo would spin as one piece and the loose inline wheel which has a bit of weight would generally spin far less than the diabolo axle. With this, the dynamo will light the wheel. Of course this might not work.
  2. The geared diabolo route with a static axle.
    This one is much more complex but a geared or bearing diabolo gets incredible speeds because the axle has a bearing within it. The big question is to either extend the bearing out to the inline wheel or add a bearings to the inline wheel’s dynamo?
    I also been wondering if the cups could be used to hold the inline wheel?

Ultimately it seems all possible but it just needs time. I write this encouraging others to give it a try. Maybe I’ll get some time off and get myself down to Hackspace Manchester (hacman) or DoES in Liverpool?

Someone tell me the physics don’t work one way or another, heck tell me how it could actually work…

Glow in the dark kinetic diabolo?

A little while ago I mentioned how I wanted to see if I could create a kinetic charged light up diabolo.

I have searched and searched and pretty much gave up till I saw a series of kinetic glowing skate wheels. The brightness is amazing, so I bought some as they were pretty cheap for what they are. I was also convinced there was a battery of some kind but absolutely wrong, no battery just two parts.

Getting them I understand how it works.

Light up wheels are powered by a dynamo that sits in the centre of the wheel. This needs to be firmly pressed by the bearings as when the wheel turns, it forms a temporary connection with each LED light, making it appear to flash. At faster speeds, the LED flashes so quickly, that it appears to be always on.

Great everything I needed and I knew it could work.

But the problem is its the opposite of what a Diabolo does. Without diagrams it became clearer that diabolos are one piece. If the axel moved it wouldn’t work. I thought about having the lights on the outside but there’s no guarantee the lights would actually turn?

There is a small light (ironically), with the triple axel/geared diabolos.but I need to really wrap my head around how to make the most of it, without making the diabolo super heavy or so clunky it doesn’t really spin at all. Luckily I have lots of diabolos which I can practice on and I guess retrofit if needed. Shame I don’t have a workshop and the time to do it.

Any thoughts are of course welcomed…