JP3462296B2 - Man-powered vehicle with auxiliary power - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a human powered vehicle such as a bicycle equipped with an engine, and more particularly to a technique for controlling the output of the engine according to the applied human power.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a motor-equipped bicycle equipped with an engine has been supplied, and such a motor-equipped bicycle travels using either the pedal or the engine and the engine. The throttle is designed to adjust the engine speed. Further, in recent years, a bicycle with an auxiliary motor has been provided in which an auxiliary torque corresponding to a pedaling force applied to a pedal is supplied from a motor to drive wheels.

[0003]

By the way, the bicycle with a motor as described above has a drawback that noise and vibration equivalent to those of a motorcycle occur. Further, in the above bicycle with the auxiliary motor, the battery for driving the motor is inevitably increased in size, and even if the battery is increased in size, the use time is limited, which is a subject for future study.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object thereof is to provide a manpowered vehicle with auxiliary power capable of reducing noise and vibration while using an engine.

[0005]

A human-powered vehicle with auxiliary power according to claim 1 comprises human-power input means to which human power is applied.
The drive wheels driven by the human power input means, the supercharger driven by the human power input means, the engine to which the fuel gas is supplied from the supercharger, and the rotation of the engine are transmitted to the drive wheels. And a power transmission means.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in addition to the features of the first aspect, the engine is operated in warm air until the compressed fuel gas is supplied from the supercharger. And the power transmission means transmits the rotation of the engine to the drive wheels when the compressed fuel gas is supplied from the supercharger and the rotation speed of the engine becomes equal to or higher than a predetermined value. I am trying.

[0007]

In the manpowered vehicle with auxiliary power according to the first aspect, the compressed fuel gas is supplied to the engine from the supercharger driven by manpower, so that the torque of the engine can be increased. In this way, a large torque can be obtained even when the engine speed is low, so that noise and vibration can be reduced by using the engine in a low speed range.

In the manpowered vehicle with auxiliary power according to the second aspect, since the rotation of the engine is transmitted to the drive wheels only when manpower is input to the manpower input means, the driver controls the output of the engine. You can do it freely.

[0009]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. FIG. 1 is a side view showing the entire bicycle with a motor according to the embodiment. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 10
Indicates the main tube, and this main tube 1
A head tube 11 is fixed to the front part of 0. A handle stem 12 is inserted into the head tube 11 so as to be rotatable around the axis of the head tube 11. A pair of left and right front forks 16 are fixed to the lower portion of the handle stem 12, and front wheels 14 are rotatably supported on the front forks 16. In addition, a handlebar 18 extending left and right is provided on the upper portion of the handle stem 12.
Is fixed.

The main tube 10 extends obliquely downward and rearward from the front portion, and a seat tube 22 extending obliquely upward is fixed to the rear end portion. Main tube 10
A pair of left and right chain stays 27 are fixed to the rear end of the chain stay 27 via a frame 25 and a bracket 26, and a pair of left and right seat stays 24 are installed at the rear end of the chain stay 27 and the upper end of the seat tube 22. Has been done. Further, at the rear end of the chain stay 27, rear wheels (driving wheels)
28 is rotatably supported.

A drive sprocket 30 is rotatably supported at the lower end of the bracket 26, and a pedal 31 is fixed to the center of the drive sprocket 30.
A rear wheel sprocket 32 is fixed to the center of the rear wheel 28, and a chain 33 is wound around the rear wheel sprocket 32 and the drive sprocket 30. The above is the configuration for driving the rear wheel 28 manually. Next, a configuration in which the rear wheels 28 are driven by the engine will be described.

As shown in FIG. 1, a fuel tank 40 is attached to the front side of the seat tube 22, and a supercharger 50 is attached to the rear side of the seat tube 22. Further, a carburetor 60 is attached to the upper surface of the rear end portion of the main tube 10, and a battery 70 is attached to the lower surface of the rear end portion of the main tube 10. Furthermore, FIG.
An engine 80 is mounted on the other side of the rear wheel 28. The engine 80 is a 4-cycle engine, and the voltage of the battery 70 is applied to its spark plug (not shown). In the figure, reference numeral 100 is a silencer.

Next, the above configuration will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. In the figure, reference numeral 34 is a rotary shaft of the drive sprocket 30 and the pedal 31, and the rotary shaft 34 is rotatably supported by a bearing 35 attached to the frame 25 (only shown in FIG. 1). It
A crank 36 is fixed to an axially intermediate portion of the rotary shaft 34.

Next, the supercharger 50 is composed of a reciprocating pump. Reference numeral 51 in the drawing is a cylinder,
A piston 52 is slidably fitted inside the cylinder 51. Inside the piston 52, one end of the connecting rod 53 is rotatably supported, and the other end of the connecting rod 53 is rotatably connected to the crank 36. As a result, when the pedal 31 is rotated once, the piston 52 reciprocates once inside the cylinder 51. By arranging the pedal 31 at an appropriate position, the largest force is applied to the pedal 31 when the piston 52 comes before the top dead center.

Next, an intake pipe 54 is attached to the head of the cylinder 51.
The carburetor 60 is connected via. Intake pipe 5
A reed valve 55a is attached near the cylinder 51 of No. 4, and the mixed gas is fed from the carburetor 60 to the cylinder 5
It is designed to flow only to the 1 side. In the figure, reference numeral 61
Is a throttle valve that adjusts the area of a flow path 65 that is continuous with the intake pipe 54. The throttle valve 61 is slidably supported in a direction orthogonal to the flow path 65. Then, when the inside of the suction chamber 62 communicating with the intake pipe 54 becomes negative pressure, the diaphragm 63 moves upward in FIG. 2 against the biasing force of the coil spring 64 according to the magnitude of the negative pressure. The valve 61 moves in the opening direction. On the other hand, a mixing chamber 66 is arranged so as to face the throttle valve 61, and fuel supplied from the fuel tank 40 (only shown in FIG. 1) is ejected to the throttle valve 61 side. As a result, the fuel and air are mixed in the flow path 65 at a predetermined air-fuel ratio and supplied into the cylinder 51.

Next, an air supply pipe 81 is attached to the head of the cylinder 51.
Is connected, and the air pipe 81 is connected to the intake port 8 of the engine 80.
It communicates with 2. A reed valve 55b is attached near the cylinder 51 of the air supply pipe 81 so that the mixed gas flows only from the cylinder 51 to the engine 80 side. Further, inside the air supply pipe 81, a throttle valve 83 rotatable around a shaft 84 is arranged. The throttle valve 83 forms a small gap between the throttle valve 83 and the air supply pipe 81 in the fully closed state so that the mixed gas for warm-up operation flows to the engine 80 side. The throttle valve 83 is rotated by a diaphragm 86 provided in a chamber 85 that communicates with the inside of the cylinder 51.
That is, when the pedal 31 is stepped on and the piston 52 rises, the pressure in the chamber 85 rises, and the diaphragm 8
6 moves upward in the figure against the biasing force of the coil spring 87. As a result, the pin 88 fixed to the shaft 84 rotates clockwise, and the throttle valve 83 rotates in the opening direction. In the figure, reference numeral 89 is a piston of the engine 80, and 9
Reference numeral 0 is an intake valve, and 91 is an exhaust valve.

Next, the crankshaft 9 of the engine 80
3 is connected to a shaft 95 of the rear wheel 28 via a centrifugal clutch 94. The centrifugal clutch 94 is connected when the rotation speed of the engine 80 reaches a predetermined rotation speed that exceeds the rotation speed during warm-up operation, and connects the crankshaft 93 and the shaft 95. As a result, the rotation of the engine 80 is transmitted to the rear wheel 28. The rear wheel sprocket 32 is connected to the shaft 95 via a free wheel (not shown) so that the rear wheel sprocket 32 does not rotate faster than the shaft 95. The bicycle with a prime mover of the embodiment is provided with a starter motor for starting the engine 80, and a current is supplied from the battery 70 to the starter motor.

Next, the operation of the bicycle with a motor configured as described above will be described. First, the starter motor is started to start the engine 80. If you do not press the pedal 31,
The throttle valve 83 is fully closed, a small amount of mixed gas is supplied to the engine 80, and warm-up operation is performed. Here, when the pedal 31 is stepped on and rotated, the rotation is transmitted to the rear wheel 28 via the rear wheel sprocket 32, and the rear wheel 28 rotates and the motor-equipped bicycle travels.

On the other hand, when the pedal 31 rotates, the piston 52 reciprocates in the cylinder 51, and the intake pipe 54
The mixed gas is sucked from and discharged to the air supply pipe 81. Also,
When the mixed gas is discharged from the inside of the cylinder 51, the pressure in the chamber 85 increases, so that the diaphragm 86 is pushed up to open the throttle valve 83. As a result, the mixed gas is sent to the downstream side, and thus the reed valve 55
The pressure of the mixed gas increases on the downstream side of b.

As the pressure of the mixed gas rises, the rotation speed of the engine 80 rises, and the centrifugal clutch 94 is engaged when a predetermined rotation speed is reached. This causes the rear wheel 28 to rotate integrally with the crankshaft 93.
In this case, the specifications of the engine 80 and the like are set so that the rear wheel 28 rotates at a higher speed than the pedal 31 and the pedal 31 runs idle. When the pedal 31 is rotated quickly, a larger amount of mixed gas is discharged from the cylinder 51, and accordingly, the rotation speed of the engine 80 increases.
In this way, the pedal 31 can be used like a motorcycle accelerator. It should be noted that when the pedaling of the pedal 31 is stopped, the pressure in the cylinder 51 is restored and the throttle valve 83 is closed. As a result, the engine 80
The amount of the mixed gas supplied to the engine 80 is reduced, and the engine 80 is warmed up. Then, when the rotation speed of the engine 80 falls below a predetermined value, the centrifugal clutch 94 is disengaged.

In the bicycle with the motor configured as described above,
Since the compressed mixed gas is supplied to the engine 80 from the supercharger 50 driven by the pedal 31, the torque of the engine 80 can be increased. Therefore, since the engine 80 can be used in a low rotation range, noise and vibration can be reduced, and the output loss is small and the fuel consumption can be improved.

Further, since the torque of the engine 80 is large as described above, even if the centrifugal clutch 94 is connected in a state where the engine speed is low even though the engine is a 4-cycle engine, the rear wheel 28 can be smoothly moved without causing an engine stop. It can be rotated. As described above, in the present embodiment, since the supercharger 50 is driven by the pedal 31, it is possible to perform smooth operation using the 4-cycle engine as described above. As a result, noise and vibration of the engine 80 can be further reduced, soot in the exhaust gas can be reduced, and fuel consumption can be further improved.

Further, since the required torque can be obtained without increasing the rotation speed of the engine 80, the transient characteristic can be improved. Further, the structure of the rotating portion of the engine 80 and its peripheral parts can be made compact.
In addition, since the specifications of the valve operating system of the engine 80 can be configured to be a low rotation type, it is possible to reduce the time during which both the intake valve and the exhaust valve are open. As a result, it is possible to suppress the occurrence of blow-by when the mixed gas is exhausted as it is.

Next, FIG. 3 shows the output characteristics and the fuel consumption of the engine of this embodiment with the displacement of 50 cc. For comparison, the output characteristics and fuel consumption of a 4-cycle engine and a 2-cycle engine having the same displacement without supercharging are also shown. As is apparent from FIG. 3, the engine of the embodiment has a horsepower equivalent to that of the two-cycle engine, but the fuel consumption is significantly reduced as compared with the two-cycle engine.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, but various modifications can be made as follows. It is also possible to use a 2-cycle engine instead of a 4-cycle engine. As the supercharger 50, a vane pump can be used instead of the reciprocating pump as in the above embodiment. When the pedal 31 rotates once, the piston 52 can reciprocate twice. In the above-described embodiment, the mixed gas is discharged only when the piston 52 is in the forward process, but it may be configured to discharge the mixed gas also in the backward process. A transmission can be attached to the centrifugal clutch 94. Drive sprocket 30 and rear sprocket 3
Two or one of them can be provided with a speed change sprocket. A starter function for manually starting the engine 80 can be provided. The present invention is not limited to the motor-equipped bicycle as in the above-described embodiment, but can be applied to any human-powered vehicle such as a tricycle or a boat that rotates a screw with a pedal.

[0026]

As described above, in the manpowered vehicle with auxiliary power of the present invention, the fuel gas compressed from the supercharger driven by manpower is supplied to the engine, so that the torque of the engine is increased. It is possible to reduce noise and vibration by using the engine in a low rotation range (Claim 1).

Since the rotation of the engine is transmitted to the driving wheels only when human power is input to the human power input means, the driver can freely control the rotation of the engine (claim 2).

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side view showing a bicycle with a prime mover according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an engine drive system in a motorbike according to an embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the relationship between engine speed, horsepower, and fuel consumption.

[Explanation of symbols]

28 Rear wheel (driving wheel) 31 pedals (manual input means) 50 supercharger 60 carburetor 80 engine 94 Centrifugal clutch (power transmission means)

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A human power input means to which human power is applied, drive wheels driven by the human power input means, a supercharger driven by the human power input means, and fuel gas is supplied from the supercharger. A human-powered vehicle with auxiliary power, comprising: an engine; and power transmission means for transmitting the rotation of the engine to the drive wheels. 2. The engine is warmed up until the compressed fuel gas is supplied from the supercharger,
The power transmission means transmits the rotation of the engine to the drive wheels when the compressed fuel gas is supplied from the supercharger and the rotation speed of the engine reaches a predetermined value or more. The manpowered vehicle with auxiliary power according to claim 1.