Saw a cool idea that someone's going to make mucho $$$ from...

loquin

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Each wheel on your car gets a 2 oz. air pump permanently installed, and a strong magnet is mounted so that the pump passes by on each rotation. A tiny bellows inside the pump gets compressed as it passes the magnet. If the air pressure inside the tire is low (or high,) the air in the bellows gets pumped into the tire, else it gets vented.

Each rotation can only add about .02 cc of compressed air, but that's plenty to handle slow air leaks, and maintain air pressure. Since there's no contact required, there are no expensive rotating seals as with hummers.

Yes... it IS patented. The patent owner is working with all the auto companies and with after-market vendors. As I understand it, it isn't adjustable; the pump pressure is fixed at design time.

.02cc is a tiny amount of air, but, at 60 MPH, it's about a quart of compressed air volume per hour.
 
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this makes sense, but where does the pump get the air from? is there a line that somehow runs outside of the wheel to take in air?
my point is that if this pump is sealed inside the tire the only air that it can suck in to pump out is the air that's already in the tire. so if the tire is low, it will just pump air around in the tire and not actually add more air.
in my vision, the air pump would need a source of air from outside to actually add air to the tire.
how will this pump and magnet affect the balance of the tire & rim? mud or snow stuck to the outside back or front of a rim will cause a major unbalance issueso having a magnet and a pump inside the tire could cause some balance problems.(in my opinion)
if the magnet is permanently mounted, where is it mounted? if the magnet is mounted inside the rim, the rim spins at the same rotation as the tire....so how can the pump pass by the magnet? they would both be turning at the same time. the pump would not be in a fixed position to pass by the magnet as i am envisioning it.
I know that you didn't come up with the idea, these are just questions i have about it. not sure how much info you have on this idea.
I'm not saying that it's a good or bad idea, i'm just thinking about some things that you didn't mention.
 
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It's a cool idea, it's true. And I suppose that motorpsycho's questions are addressed in the design.

The problem for the manufacturer/marketers will likely be that of balancing quality components, capable of doing their job properly for some reasonable amount of time, against price.

If it ends up costing very much, then it's liable to be a hard sell. For instance, I don't need this very much and wouldn't pay much for it; I keep an eye on tire pressure. But it could be quite useful for my wife (tire pressure? what's that?.....). I could be tempted for her sake. But, realistically, when we buy a car we take what we can get.

But they might find a good market in high-end cars for trophy wives and college daughters.

(And because I'm beginning to sound like a male, chauvinist pig I guess I'll clear out before the sisterhood starts gunning for me :)
 
this makes sense, but where does the pump get the air from? is there a line that somehow runs outside of the wheel to take in air?
my point is that if this pump is sealed inside the tire the only air that it can suck in to pump out is the air that's already in the tire. so if the tire is low, it will just pump air around in the tire and not actually add more air.
in my vision, the air pump would need a source of air from outside to actually add air to the tire.
how will this pump and magnet affect the balance of the tire & rim? mud or snow stuck to the outside back or front of a rim will cause a major unbalance issueso having a magnet and a pump inside the tire could cause some balance problems.(in my opinion)
if the magnet is permanently mounted, where is it mounted? if the magnet is mounted inside the rim, the rim spins at the same rotation as the tire....so how can the pump pass by the magnet? they would both be turning at the same time. the pump would not be in a fixed position to pass by the magnet as i am envisioning it.
I know that you didn't come up with the idea, these are just questions i have about it. not sure how much info you have on this idea.
I'm not saying that it's a good or bad idea, i'm just thinking about some things that you didn't mention.
The article was pretty sketchy, motorpsycho. More of a press release than something with a lot of solid info. I assumed that another port would be added to the wheel, in addition to the valve-stem hole, but on the inside half of the wheel, near the rim. They did say that the pump would be 'engineered into the wheel.'

The entire 'pump weighs less than two ounces, so it could be balanced. In new applications, enough weight could be shaved off the mounting surface to compensate for the weight of the pump...

The blurb did say that it sucks in "filtered air" from outside the wheel, so there's either a filter on the pump that would need periodic cleaning or replacement, or a tiny tube to a filter nearer the center of the wheel (which would probably make more sense, to keep the inlet as far away from the road surface as possible...) You can get a lot of road cra ... stuff ... in the wheel well besides air, after all...

If I were doing the design, I would also put a centrifugal weight on the unit, so that the wheel would have to be be turning at 15-20 MPH before the pump would be trying to pull in any air...

I'm thinking that the magnet would be mounted near the steering knuckle on front ends, and maybe to the brake support plate on drum brakes. (Dust cover for rear caliper brakes.) Really, any rigid mount that is stationary relative to the wheel's center of rotation.

The blurb also said that the pump could work in concert with the pressure monitoring systems that auto makers are putting on new vehicles.
 
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I wish them luck and all, but I'd not sure the "problem" they have cured was that big a deal really.

The military vehicles have the run-flat systems so if a tire (or two) gets punctured, the tire can be kept pumped up by constant airflow until they can (presumably) drive somewhere safe to really fix it.

The biggest risk that regular (civilian) cars face with flat tires is getting a hole while driving on the highway, the tire deflating and the sidewalls coming apart before the driver is aware of it. This system isn't going to help that. Only a true run-flat tire or a central monitoring/inflation system (that could keep air in a punctured tire) would help.
 
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