
Loopwheels: A vibration-reducing wheel with integral suspension - sahin-boydas
https://www.loopwheels.com/
======
kops
The interesting bit is found in an animation[1] embedded on the how it works
page[2].

1.[https://www.loopwheels.com/wp-
content/themes/meat/library/im...](https://www.loopwheels.com/wp-
content/themes/meat/library/images/anim-directions.gif)

2\. [https://www.loopwheels.com/technical/how-does-it-
work/](https://www.loopwheels.com/technical/how-does-it-work/)

[edit] formatting

~~~
fipple
Why doesn’t the wheel deform at all? If it doesn’t, how is it a suspension?

~~~
wingerlang
The wheel will be attached to something that will move.

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xorcist
In case people don't know, this was a successful Kickstarter a few years ago
for bike wheels. They went to bike shows with a lot of enthusiasm but given
the additional weight and cost it was likely a hard sell. Great to see they
are still around!

~~~
hegz
Rough terrain on bikes was already solved with suspension or larger tires I
doubt they managed to create something that worked better than that.

~~~
Retric
Suspension sits between a wheel and the vehicle so the entire wheel is
displaced over a bump which means it’s momentum exaggerates a shock.

Deforming the wheel means far less mass is moved and thus momentum. This is
why we use air filled rubber tires in the first place, but they have real size
limits. So, this could actually provide a smoother ride.

Probably not worth it for a bike, but someone with a broken bone for example
can be extremely sensitive to shocks.

~~~
lolc
The Loopwheels page is explicit about the wheels having a rigid rim.

~~~
Retric
Yea, but the wheel is more than just the rims. Play around here
[http://www.wheelbuilder.com/wheel-weight-
calculator.html](http://www.wheelbuilder.com/wheel-weight-calculator.html).
The Rim is generally a large fraction of total wheel weight, but both spokes
and Hub's are important.

On a bike the total weight also includes the fork and parts of the suspension.
Not sure about wheelchairs, but I suspect deforming the center of the wheel
still easily cuts unsprung mass in half.

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itaysk
related: [http://softwheel.technology/](http://softwheel.technology/)

~~~
nielsbot
And this?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweel)

------
Too
How is this different from simply reducing the tire pressure?

Your body weight is constantly pressing down the rotating axis from the center
of the wheel so in order to move forward you'll be spending energy on
compressing the next section of the wheel equally much? Even if you get some
of that energy back once the rear section of the wheel decompresses it's never
going to be 100%.

It might have some benefits compared to a loosely inflated tire in terms of
more parameters to calibrate and less road friction but this will never come
close to a suspension locked in the vertical direction on the frame in terms
of efficiency. Maybe this is not an important factor for wheel chairs?

Edit: Actually the softwheel has an efficiency comparison which claims it's
more efficient than both rigid frame and fork suspension, even on flat ground
[http://softwheel.technology/technology/#softwheel-science-
wo...](http://softwheel.technology/technology/#softwheel-science-worlds-most-
energy-efficient-wheel), maybe if you bike fast enough the wheel never has
time to compress so it's still considered round and center?

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jaclaz
Matbe it is just me, but isn't £799.00/£849.00 (ex VAT) a tad bit steep as a
price?

Not that the alternative posted of "softwheel" are any better, 2250/2800 $ for
a couple wheels?

I have quickly browsed through both sites and they seem to put an accent on
lower maintenance costs, but for that kind of money you can buy new
(traditional) wheels every other month or so ...

Bonus, an article (seemingly actually published) on the matter, it's a short
one, only three pages that is IMHO worth reading, only to have an idea of what
can be published:

[http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-
jmce/papers/NCRIME-2018/Vol...](http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-
jmce/papers/NCRIME-2018/Volume-5/3.%2012-15.pdf)

Excerpt:

The loop wheels concept is found which has become a very beneficial to the
world which reduces the wear and tear of bearing that makes novice after
completion its specific life which increases the cost and maintenance of a
bicycle. In this case the loop wheels gives a better results and reduces this
all the bad impacts created by the normal cycles and gives a one new morning
to the innovation.

~~~
Normal_gaussian
The first site that I got from searching for "buy wheelchair wheel" has what
seems to be a decent range of off-road wheels. £144 for the cheapest, up to
£320 for the end of the "cheap / mid". These loopwheels are on there, and have
a similarly priced "fat wheel" to compete with.

2-4x the price doesn't seem too bad tbh; its specialist gear for a non-
standard use case

[0] [http://www.epc-wheelchairs.co.uk/wheels-wheel-parts/rear-
whe...](http://www.epc-wheelchairs.co.uk/wheels-wheel-parts/rear-
wheels/wheels)

------
3stripe
This company started off making bike wheels circa 2013 -
[https://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/loopwheels-
spokeless-...](https://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/loopwheels-spokeless-
suspension-wheel-on-show-37032/) \- I know because I featured them on my own
cycling blog too.

~~~
dochtman
I was wondering about an application to bikes -- now I wonder why (it seems
like) they pivoted to wheelchairs.

~~~
bencompanion
In their FAQ they say they're working on MTB wheels, but that the challenge is
the (lack of) lateral stiffness in a bigger wheel, which makes sense. The
larger the diameter the spring needs to cross, the harder it is to have it
only flex in one dimension.

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claudius
How much does it increase friction and would this be feasible on other
vehicles as well? Once electric cars are eventually here, their wheels will be
the primary noise emitters.

~~~
blensor
But that is something you should not get rid of in electric cars anyway. They
emit already much less noise than regular cars and are thus harder to hear by
pedestrians. You don't really want super silent 1ton metal blobs moving around
at 30++km/h as far as I know

~~~
PeterStuer
At 30 km/h, the car's sensors will make it stop near instant in case this is
required. There is no need for insisting on noise pollution.

~~~
core-questions
Awareness of what's around you is greatly aided by a bit of noise. Given the
early failures of self driving cars and what we know about mechanical
reliability of normal ones, I don't think I want to pin my life or the life of
my children on some automatic stop that might not work. Better to be able to
get out of the way sooner.

~~~
PeterStuer
As always, it is a trade-off.

Our joint use of the public streets is based on a certain trust that drivers
will not try to plow into people. That doesn't mean you have to recklessly
abandon all precaution, but it does mean that there are always going to be
edge cases that are unmitigated. I think the vehicle based terror attacks have
sadly illustrated that point.

Walking the streets in a defensive mode that assumes low speed sneaking up by
a driver intent to kill, or being completely oblivious to the surrounding,
while at the same time driving a vehicle with defects in its core functions
feels like an edge-case. The near ubiquity of people walking or cycling with
headphones, or fully being fully engaged with their mobile phones seems to
support that.

Cars are dangerous and operated without proper care for sure, but there are
very, very few injuries from ultra low speed collisions with cars.

On the other hand there is enormous evidence of serious stress caused by
traffic noise having an impact on health.

The whole 'car noise' thing was lobbied by car-makers hoping to cash in on a
'custom ringtones for cars', modeled after the mobile phone market of the
90's. Do you believe that these random noises will avoid more deads and
injuries than those created by the resulting stress and 'postal' incidents by
those having to involuntarily suffer this?

There are better options. Have slow moving cars emit a low powered radio or
radar signal instead. Very compact and extremely low cost detectors and
emitters already exist for those. Those that wish get a proximity warning
without harming innocents, and as a added bonus this also works for people
with reduced hearing, either because the have a hearing problem, or because
they are wearing headphones.

The only ones that would suffer a tiny bit are the car makers missing out on
selling sounds. Can't say I'm very sympathetic to that crowd as they have
amply shown a lack of responsibility and care for people's health and well-
being . As usual, the benefits they want to pocket are once more blatantly
oblivious to the societal downsides as they have been fully externalized for
them.

~~~
core-questions
> car-makers hoping to cash in on a 'custom ringtones for cars', modeled after
> the mobile phone market of the 90's

This is singularly the worst idea I have ever heard in my life

------
aaaaaaaaaab
Maybe good for wheelchairs where comfort is crucial, but for anything else
(bicycle, car) it would waste a lot of energy, not to mention the rigidity
issues.

~~~
jameshart
I wonder if the wheel is more suited to wheelchairs because they are pushed at
the rim, rather than turned from the hub (as in a bicycle or car). The whole
mechanic whereby the hub moves eccentrically relative to the rim when the
springs compress seems likely to create all kinds of rolling resistances if
the wheel is being turned from the hub - or even if it is being pushed along
undriven by a load at the hub. But the unusual rim-driven mode of wheelchairs
maybe is the sweetspot for this kind of thing? In particular, it seems that by
compressing the springs in particular directions, torques on the wheels will
create linear forces on the load - and vice versa - which might be helpful for
things like getting a wheelchair up a curb, or over a bump.

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nmstoker
Odd that you have to read quite far down the site's text until they give the
context of the type of wheels they're selling (ones for wheelchairs). The
pictures in the background do not make it obvious either.

Presumably the site was designed by someone close to the company, who
obviously knows the product and didn't get it tested on users who didn't know
the product (or they'd have picked this up)

~~~
EngineerBetter
The top photo, immediately visible on my mobile browser without scrolling, is
of their wheels on a wheelchair.

~~~
nmstoker
The site didn't load like that when I posted my comment. I had gone back a
second time before posting, to be sure. It had a much darker image where it
wasn't clear what the item was (you could see the wheel but due to the angle
and the dark filter, not what it was part of)

Now I agree there is a video of a wheelchair loading, so context is clear now.
Would be curious to know if someone changed it.

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jccalhoun
Looks interesting but I would worry about how durable it is. It seems like if
one of the springs breaks then you are stuck and you probably have to get in
contact with them for a replacement that could take a while.

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joeborza
Interesting idea... but not too crazy about the price. £1,000 for a set of
wheels seems pretty expensive.

How much is a standard set of wheelchair wheels?

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DEADBEEFC0FFEE
I'd be interested to learn how much additional energy is required, presumably
that's the trade off.

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mirimir
Cool, wheels with integrated leaf springs. But what about shocks? What
prevents oscillations?

~~~
dingaling
There is a German Opel-manufactured bicycle in the Ulster Transport museum
that has short springs mounted all around an inner rim with a metal outer band
retaining them.

Apparently due to the shortage of rubber during WW1 which made pneumatic tyres
infeasible but I also wonder about oscillations.

~~~
mirimir
Wow!

But with composite leaf springs, I'm guessing that they could make them less
perfectly elastic. That'd damp out oscillations, but also increase rolling
friction on bumpy terrain. However, vibration also dissipates energy. My
mechanics is inadequate, but they very likely optimized.

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jeffrallen
Good tech and great looks! Want! for my cousin's chair.

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esturk
How does it break? I'm guessing like the bicycles, it's probably some sort of
disk break mechanism. It's just not very clear from the photos.

~~~
richrichardsson
Probably your phone auto corrected, but it should be brake, else you're
talking about the failure mode! ;-)

~~~
salty_biscuits
Probably a reasonable thing to worry about with composite wheels!

