5 ms·
I suspect they plan on recovering the power with a generator. So the input shaft to the generator has to rotate. With a deeper hole, you get more 'clicks' on th
by bsilvereagle 12y ago
I suspect they plan on recovering the power with a generator. So the input shaft to the generator has to rotate. With a deeper hole, you get more 'clicks' on the generator so you can produce power for a longer period of time before having to pull the weight back up.
- eknkc 12y agoDoes it really matter? You should be able to get millions of rotations from a single centimetre hole, given that the mass is large enough and you have a good gear ratio..
- grondilu 12y agoI suppose they plan on using a transmission mechanism that will turn one meter down to as many turns as you want anyway, so I guess the depth of the hole is at least partially determined by how good a transmission mechanism you can afford. But since they explicitly say the hole will be the most expensive part, I'm not so sure.
- bsilvereagle 12y agoYou're losing torque with every gear reduction, and I believe that current out of a generator is a function of torque. So there's some happy medium between hole depth & transmission ratio for the amount of power they want to generate.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Sorgam 12y agoYou're certainly losing torque with the gearing but that's not a problem. The problem is losing energy. Energy loss can be made arbitrarily small at increasing cost to build the transmission.