Will this work.......?

Question

...the escalators in shopping malls,airports only go down when people stand on them using their weight, and designed only to go down at a constant speed regardless of the number of people on them , also they could be fitted to generators which uses the weight to turn into electricity.

Answer 1

I recently visited Kuala Lumpur and the escalators at the station stopped and started automatically as you describe. It seemed to work well. The generator idea seems worth looking at.

Answer 2

I dont think this idea is really viable. Firstly think about the detector and the usage of escalators. People of all sizes and ages step on them with muddy / dirty shoes, etc.. The escalators get scuffed.. kids.. bubble gum. So any "laser" orientated detectors would be non-viable.

The function of an escal;ator is to get people from A to B effieciently and so people that implement them are going to want efficient low maintanance systems. Adding such detectors only complicates matters and is another unnessasary thing to go wrong from a capatalists point of view... and lets face it, where theres an escalator, theres a fat capatalist cat running the show. So if you were to develop the idea.. simplicity is the key.

As for turning on only when pressure is applied.. again this is potentially flawed. People are all shapes and sizes and more imortantly, weights. How could you calabrate the system to be sensative enough to pick up children and yet not be overloaded by very heavy individuals (or groups of on the same step)? And remember.. kids like to jump up and down a lot and in my experience, hand on the rolling banisters. You'd have to compensate for this.

Furthermore, the constant switching on and off of the escalator would probably consume more energy than it saves. This is for the same reason that if you intend to switich a lightbulb on and off repeatedly in a short space of time, its better to just leave it on continuously.

Thats not to say reforming escalators is a bad idea at all.. but you've just got to be realistic about it in your design concepts. As I said, simplicity is the key. Its like all the old cross terrain races and such they do.. you've got all these fancy 4x4's and such bouncing along with good this and good that and fantastic this.. but trundling along behind them for the last 30 or so years is an old series 3 landrover picking up all they're bits as they fall to bits. And if you don't know about the old landrovers, they we're designed to the most basic requirements to ensure long life with minimal maintance.

Maybe a better idea is what some rotating doors I know do. Instead of stopping, they slow right down until the motion sensor is triggered.. this could work. Slow the escalator down till needed.

Remember, as I said theres usually a fat cat running the show where an escalator is required.. and in this day and age law suits are crawling out of the wood work! So when your escalator jerks to life as a 5 year old crawls on to it and is unexpectedly tumbled down the steps by the jolt.. you get the picture. You've got to consider also the stupidity and ignorance of users in such publicly used devices as well.

Keep thinking.. new ideas change the world!

Answer 3

There would be considerable motor wear, and a nasty jolt, to an escalator jumping into life when it is walked onto. As for generating power from then, sorry, but you need to power the steps to go down, whilst the opposite steps, underneath, are coming upwards, so they will always consume energy. Elevators, however, have been produced which, when descending, compress hydarulic fluid in the ram they sit on, which drives a turbine, to produce electricity, which can power adjacent elevators which are carrying people upwards, and in a skyscraper mentioned on one program on TV,
over 70% of the lifting energy gets recovered when the lift is descending - good thinking!

Answer 4

There's weight sensitive escalators in Athens airport :P

Dont know about the generator thing, with the movement of the weight, the displacement would be harder to convert into electricity than a simple counterweight system.

it COULD work, but just not after ten seconds of thinking

Answer 5

No but you could reduce the the amount of energy used to run the down esculator due to the reduced loa because of the helping effect of gravity compared to the up esculator that is fighting gravity.

If the esculator was at an angle much steeper than the current design then your idea may be more viable.

Answer 6

Unfortunately it will not work because the escalator needs to be powered to overcome friction for up to five passengers, over that the down going escalator needs to be braked,
There are so many variables and public safety to consider. That is probably why it has not been done yet.

Answer 7

It's got nothing to do with any weight being on them - they use an ingenious little device called a DETECTOR. These can come as simple light rays, or laser beams, or even the dreaded rubber pad which admittedly IS weight-controlled, but very old fashioned nowadays. Now, isn't that clever !!!

Answer 8

The generator idea may be a little difficult, but only movig when someone is on them would just take pressure sensors in the stairs to turn on power when they are pushed. Good Idea!!!

Answer 9

I have a better idea.

Attach electric generators to exercycles and put them in malls, charge people $25.00 an hour to use them, and sell the electricity to the mall.

Answer 10

They would have to be very steep to have the weight pull the stairs down and forward, currently they are too long and would just stay still if you stood on them