Frankenstein
Deceased - Frankenstein 1991 - 2018
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- Joined
- Jun 24, 2016
- Messages
- 5,035
Here's a simple picture, in the top drawing, you can clearly see that pulling on a lever will pull the cable 1 inch at the end of the cable housing, which in turn will pull 1 inch at the brake mechanism, bringing the end of 2 levers 1 inch closer together, now the brake pads are roughly 3/4th of the way down to the fulcrum, the point that's mounted to the frame and pivots on. So each brake Pad moves a quarter of half an inch closer together, pressing on the wheel and slowing you down. Whatever.
Second illustration shows that the same 1 inch movement is producing the same 1 inch pull on each of the 2 cables, it just has to by its very own nature. Which means both brakes are now moving 1/8th of an inch (1 quarter of half an inch) closer together, on each wheel.
If both brakes did exactly the same as the single brake did, as far as linear motion and level of "squeeze" on the wheel goes, then how could they be half the force as the single brake?
Friction is the stopping force, which is relative to the applied force, which is relative to the leverage of our hand lever, if the leverage in the brake lever never changed, then our relative forces never changed either. So by default our friction is doubled simply by doubling the surface for what the friction is acting on, much like a hydraulic brake can take the single 25 pounds on an inch and multiply it onto 2 or 4 inches and double or quadruple the force being used as friction.
Now that doesn't mean it's free kinetic energy, it just means that we are using wires as fluids, just not in the conventional manner, which means twice as much force needs to be somewhere if the linear pull remains the same. Where does the force come from? It comes from the second cable. And therefor the second joint on the brake lever that accepts the cable, so while I could hook a double cable to a double brake lever twice, the problem is the force acting in reverse, being a linear device, could break the brake lever, so if the lever can't stand up to the force, which you may need to pull more to get the same inch from get that force, then it will fail.
Now all you do is put a slightly bigger lever on the handle, and you won't have to pull so hard, just pull across a larger distance, and the lever will multiply the force to the cable stops, then that same inch receives more force which is then attributed to the relative friction of the system. Again, a bigger hand lever just makes it easier to brake, and also easier to break the brake lever.
Tldr? Bigger lever gives same stopping power on twice the number of brakes, at one point it becomes impractical, but that's why we have power steering and brakes in our cars, the foot pedal does a tiny bit of work while a machine multiplies it 10 times over using the engine as the source of power, if you ever had your master cylinder go you'd know how hard it is to stop the car, or if you drove a vehicle before power anything you'd also know it was a chore to actually drive.
Second illustration shows that the same 1 inch movement is producing the same 1 inch pull on each of the 2 cables, it just has to by its very own nature. Which means both brakes are now moving 1/8th of an inch (1 quarter of half an inch) closer together, on each wheel.
If both brakes did exactly the same as the single brake did, as far as linear motion and level of "squeeze" on the wheel goes, then how could they be half the force as the single brake?
Friction is the stopping force, which is relative to the applied force, which is relative to the leverage of our hand lever, if the leverage in the brake lever never changed, then our relative forces never changed either. So by default our friction is doubled simply by doubling the surface for what the friction is acting on, much like a hydraulic brake can take the single 25 pounds on an inch and multiply it onto 2 or 4 inches and double or quadruple the force being used as friction.
Now that doesn't mean it's free kinetic energy, it just means that we are using wires as fluids, just not in the conventional manner, which means twice as much force needs to be somewhere if the linear pull remains the same. Where does the force come from? It comes from the second cable. And therefor the second joint on the brake lever that accepts the cable, so while I could hook a double cable to a double brake lever twice, the problem is the force acting in reverse, being a linear device, could break the brake lever, so if the lever can't stand up to the force, which you may need to pull more to get the same inch from get that force, then it will fail.
Now all you do is put a slightly bigger lever on the handle, and you won't have to pull so hard, just pull across a larger distance, and the lever will multiply the force to the cable stops, then that same inch receives more force which is then attributed to the relative friction of the system. Again, a bigger hand lever just makes it easier to brake, and also easier to break the brake lever.
Tldr? Bigger lever gives same stopping power on twice the number of brakes, at one point it becomes impractical, but that's why we have power steering and brakes in our cars, the foot pedal does a tiny bit of work while a machine multiplies it 10 times over using the engine as the source of power, if you ever had your master cylinder go you'd know how hard it is to stop the car, or if you drove a vehicle before power anything you'd also know it was a chore to actually drive.