Traffic Light Trigger for your Bike

Not feeling ferrrous enough to trip the induction loops that trigger green lights? No problem - just epoxy a rare earth magnet to your shoe! Inspired by a product marketed to motorcyclists, which is basically a big neodymium magnet to stick under your ride. I thought it might be better to get a slightly smaller magnet closer to the road.

Step 1 Dremel as needed between the lugs of one heel

I always put my right foot down, so I ground out a little extra space on my right heel. Luckily, my Sidis have tall, widely-spaced lugs, so I didn't have to remove much material.

Comments

[Advar]

By the way- Sweet idea!

[Advar]

I have a bunch of eraser - on - the - end - of - a - pencil size earth magnets. I almost always wear work boots on bike. If I stuck a few of those in the space just in front of the heel, do you think that'll work?

[damagj]

i didnt read all the comments, so this may be repetitive info: if you put the magnet in your shoe, then you will be picking up all types of metal shavings and what not. these may come off as you walk into your home, and reside in your carpet. and then some how they make their way into your skin as a splinter. or scratch up a nice wood floor. if you get an old hard drive, crack it open and get those magnets out. tape it to one of your spokes as far away from the hub as you can. put one one each wheel, or two on the rear wheel, spaced 180 degrees apart, for maximum coverage. depending on your wheeels/tires, these magnets will come within 1 to 3 inches away from the road, for those magnets, that is close enough to trigger the loop. i had this work when i stacked 2 of these magnets together, and hot glued them to my frame, below the bottom bracket.

[dinton]

The sites for the motorcycles talk about ABS housings to protect the magnet from the road and giving separation from the motorcycle to create an optimum field effect - I am thinking about using your epoxy coating or even just duct tape around the magnet to use with my old steel frame commuter bike. 2 questions though for the physics majors - is it really better to separate the magnet from the metal of the (motor/bi)cycle - did I misread that? One of the magnet sites said the strongest field would be with the magnet sandwiched between 2 pieces of metal. Is there any advantage to disc, plate or ring magnets for inducing the sensor?

[DrLex]

I'm not a physics major, but I assume an engineering major will do :) The essence of a magnet is that it contains two poles, and magnetic 'flux' wants to go from one pole to the other. Some materials -- especially iron -- conduct magnetic flux better than others. If you sandwich a magnet between 2 pieces of metal (I assume iron is meant), almost all the flux will go through the iron, so the outside field will be much weaker. And in this context, we want the field to extend as far outside as possible, so the sandwich is not a good idea. For the same reason it may be better to keep the magnet away from the frame of your bike, because the magnetic field may find a shortcut through the metal of the bike instead of extending down to the ground. But this depends on where you mount the magnet. Depending on the shape of the underside of the bike, the iron might guide the lines in such a way that you'll get a nice concentrated field at the right place. I don't think the shape of the magnet matters much, it's the strength of the field that's important. Bigger will of course be better, because a large magnet made from a weak magnetic material may produce more flux than a small strong magnet. By the way, if you have a broken hard disk, you can find some very strong and often quite large neodymium magnets in the mechanism that controls the write heads.

[storyhoc]

Adding iron would actually increase the magnetic field (it is ferromagnetic). For example, you're probably familiar with the practice of wrapping current carrying wire around an iron nail to make an electromagnet.

[DrLex]

Not really, an electromagnet and a permanent magnet are different things. An electromagnet works better with an iron core because a ferromagnetic material allows to generate more flux with the same electric current. A permanent magnet doesn't generate, it has a fixed amount of flux. Attaching iron to it will only enable you to channel this flux, not increase it.

[storyhoc]

A wire coil carrying a *constant* electric current behaves exactly like a permanent magnet, so there would be no difference. The magnetic field of either a permanent magnet or a coil of current-carrying wire will cause the electrons in the iron to align their spins, from which an additional magnetic field will arise.

[DrLex]

There is a fundamental difference between a coil and a permanent magnet, even if the coil carries a constant current.

When adding iron inside an empty coil, the current will align the spins inside the iron, increasing the magnetic field. This requires energy, hence if you would hook the coil to a Wattmeter, you would see a short bump in power consumption while the iron is added. This continues as long as the added iron is sufficiently near the coil to be influenced by it. At a certain point, the coil will be completely filled and surrounded by iron to such a degree that it's impossible to add extra iron that is influenced by the coil to any measurable degree.

The permanent magnet on the other hand behaves like such an electromagnet that already has the absolute maximum amount of iron added to it. Producing additional magnetic flux would require an energy source of some kind, and there is none inside a permanent magnet. Even the most ideal ferromagnetic material would still only be able to guide the magnetic field much like an electric wire can carry current from a battery, not increase it.
If your theory would be correct, it would be possible to keep on sticking iron coins indefinitely to a permanent magnet, or to build a perpetuum mobile of some kind.

[storyhoc]

That doesn't make any sense. When you bring iron near a permanent magnet, energy would be released when the electron spins in the iron align with the permanent magnet, since this is the state with lower potential energy. Likewise, when putting an iron nail in a current carrying coil, you would also be releasing energy.

[DrLex]

The equilibrium state for the spins in a piece of iron at room temperature, when considered at a sufficiently large scale, is a random distribution. It takes energy to align the spins. The magnetized state has higher potential energy, otherwise all iron would become magnetic by itself. But as we all know, any magnetized piece of iron slowly demagnetizes on its own.

The energy release you're speaking of, is the kinetic energy of the iron being pulled towards the magnet because indeed the equilibrium state for molecules with aligned spins is as close together as possible. But that can only happen after the spins have already aligned. The pulling force of magnets is a consequence of the alignment, not a cause. The total magnetic energy of the combination magnet+iron cannot be higher than of the magnet itself (plus any stray magnetism that was already in the iron). With each piece of iron added to it, the magnet will have less energy to spare to magnetize additional iron. The coil on the other hand can draw current at leisure from its power source.

[storyhoc]

There is no direction to "align" to unless the iron is in the presence of the magnetic field. An initial random distribution means half spin-aligned, and half spin-anti-aligned in the direction of the magnet's field. Spin-anti-aligned is a higher potential energy, so the spins will all align since this is a lower potential energy state. In other words, in terms of potential energy, spin anti-aligned > spin-randomly aligned > spin-aligned. This is why when you put iron next to a permanent magnet it becomes magnetized. Try it with a permanent magnet and a nail.

[blacksmith_tb]

I wasn't suggesting sandwiching the magnet between two ferrous plates, just using one (the washer) to shape the field. See fig. 2 here:
http://www.leevalley.com/hardware/page.aspx?c=2&p=40077&cat=3,42363#6

The rare-earth magnets in the hard drives I've taken apart were about 1/3 the size of the 1 inch disc I've got on my shoe, so you'd want to stack several. They do make good fridge magnets, too.

[on your left]

I tilt my bike over to get the frame closer to the ground. I'm curious how well this small magnet is working.

[woderson]

Interesting to me that information in the link that DonF posted (http://draco.acs.uci.edu/rbfaq/FAQ/8i.2.html) indicates that aluminum bikes/wheels will trip induction loop as well as steel bikes/wheels. I always thought my Al road bike was less effective than my steel mtn bike at tripping lights.

In any case, there is a nasty light on my route coming off of a little traveled side road but crossing a very busy state highway that takes forever for a car to come along my side road to trip, so this will come in very handy. There are no pedestrian crosswalks, and therefore no manual buttons. I always try the "lay your bike across the loop" trick, and never works. The sensitivity on the loop must be turned down. I was literally about to put a piece of rebar on the median to manually trip the light. I usually end up having to run the light, risking limb and life.

[killerjackalope]

ah I know your pain, two main roads intersect on my way to work across crazy shaped T junction (ish) thing and the way the traffic setup is everyones turning left and i want to go straight, I have to try this, getting mowed down twice this year wasn't nice. thankfully no serious injury except a month. though I did break the headlight

[Madrias357]

Oh, I know this one. We have a traffic light a block from our house that is a pain to try to go through. There are the manual buttons for tripping the pedestrian lights, but then you have the chance that a car will pull up and decide to push your bike into traffic. The drivers here need a lesson in manners.

[goodgnus]

I glued magnets to the bottom bracket of the bike instead. I bike in all sorts of shoes.

[Gamer917]

yu can pick up some cool stuff with magnetic walking shoes

[bigpinecone]

what would happen if you walked on a metal floor with these shoes? what about a metal wall, 007?

[jasen]

those aren't walking shoes, they special bike shoes that have metal lugs that clip onto the pedals. magnet shoes could be annoying for walking as they'd pick up metal junk off the ground.

[jmiller3931]

This Idea is almost completely off base. Inductive loop traffic sensors do not detect static magnet fields (AKA hard iron). They oscillate in a resonant mode oscillator at high frequencies causing eddy currents in ANY nearby conductive material. The eddy currents in the conductive material produce opposing magnetic fields that will reduce the inductnace of the inductive loop, which in turn changes the resonance of the oscillator. The detector senses this change in frequency.
You are not completely off base because rare-Earth magnets are conductive. However, they are small and I think you will have more success with aluminum, which is far more conductive.
Here are interesting links for more information:
http://www.humantransport.org/bicycledriving/library/signals/green.htm
and
http://www.humantransport.org/bicycledriving/library/signals/detection.htm

[blacksmith_tb]

I don't doubt you're right, though I will point out that I was merely duplicating the magnet-based product being marketed to motorcyclists. If I had a chunk of aluminum billet, I expect it would work just as well. Unless someone wants to manufacture aluminum-lasted bike shoes... In any case, my everyday commute is 17 miles round trip, and I have to trip many detectors, most of which respond easily (a few are clearly programmed to not switch the signal until there are vehicles waiting on both sides of the intersection, and no amount of metal is going to fix that).

[jasen]

maybe a metal frisbee could help there :)

[jaime9999]

quote
There is a misconception that inductive loop vehicle detection is based on metal mass. This is simply not true. Detection is based on metal surface area, otherwise known as skin effect.

from a manufacturer of loop sensor controllers (probably pretty authoritative) http://www.marshproducts.com/pdf/Inductive%20Loop%20Write%20up.pdf
has good pics of small vs large vehicles

[blacksmith_tb]

Eureka - I need to glue a 12in. x 12in. piece of sheet metal to my foot. Oh wait...

[Grey_Wolfe]

You could just wrap yourself in aluminum foil, lol.

[reeding]

has anyone thought of just putting one in the road and cover it. the small streets would have like 5 minute breaks of no cars

[jasen]

I saw a loop of steel packing strap holding up traffic in that way once.

the loop was here : http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=Queensland,+Australia&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=41.224889,58.710937&ie=UTF8&cd=1&geocode=FQxP0_4dslWwCA&split=0&ll=-26.704318,153.129228&spn=0.002732,0.003583&t=h&z=18&layer=c&cbll=-26.704244,153.129181&panoid=voUJvmq5JCCXmKIHYJ59Mw&cbp=12,5.243309078248956,,2,5.950767207954098
southbound traffic was backed up to here.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=Queensland,+Australia&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=41.224889,58.710937&ie=UTF8&cd=1&geocode=FQxP0_4dslWwCA&split=0&ll=-26.684133,153.103979&spn=0.002732,0.003583&z=18

these lights were set to let queued cars turn across the traffic and as a result spent most of their time red for the southbound traffic.

[blacksmith_tb]

Sorry, all we could hope for is that it would force the light to change however often it was programmed to switch (when it detected a vehicle on one of the loops). Which would defeat the original purpose of the traffic engineers, but wouldn't exactly leave the light stuck for five minutes.

[pyrogenic]

Seems to me that two magnets, one toward the front, and one towards the rear would be best.... but about the sandwiching thing.... I'm NOT an engineer.. but have an observation.... Working with one of those magnetic sculpture toys (big donut magnet in a plastic base, and a metal disk on top, with the many-pieces of metal as the sculpture material.... without the metal disk on the surface of the plastic 'box' encasing the magnet, the magnetic field was stronger on the periphery, and the pieces moved to the edges. WITH the metal disk on the surface, the field was much more focused, almost like a lens, and the pieces centered instead. Maybe that has something to do with it.....

[blacksmith_tb]

Just a quick update - I've gotten a new pair of shoes, and I'm trying a new experiment. Instead of a magnet, I've got a slightly flattened aluminum heatsink epoxied between the toe and heel lugs. If all the loop is responding to is the eddy currents, this is a bigger chunk of conductive material. I've been riding with it for about a month, and it appears to work as well (or better) than the neodymium magnet (quite a bit cheaper, too - it's a northbridge cooler that the nice guys at Free Geek gave me for free when I was buying a four port switch from their thrift store). So I guess I'll just magnetize screwdrivers with the big ol' 1in. cube NdFeB magnet I got from Utd. Nuke...

[bikerbob2005]

if we knew the impedance of the coil could build a smal harmonic frequency generator point it down and viloa it would trigger it

[chadster]

A stationary permanent magnet will not make a difference. However a moving permanent magnet will. As you move a magnet in one direction through a conducting loop, it will result in a changing magnetic field and through Faraday's law of induction will induce a DC current in the loop. This will, in a complicated way, effect the AC resonance of the traffic loop (which is indeed what triggers the sensor). So in other words, the loop sensor will see the effect of when you place the magnet over the loop by bringing it closer, but once it is there it will not see the magnet anymore. I'm not sure whether the magnets described here are strong enough though but they might be.

As a side note, this effect forms the basis of electric motors.

[shilohjim]

I don't seem to have a problem with traffic lights but there are some gated apartment complexes I can't get out of with out help. I'm still trying to get some magnets to work. Any advice would be helpful.

[Grey_Wolfe]

sticking two magnets together spreads out their field. That has been know to wrok for some people. They oriented there magnets vertically when in theis configuration. Was an instructible, but can't find it at the moment.

[livesteamfan]

Where can I get one of these magnets? Is this the same type of magnet found in a computer harddrive?

[Grey_Wolfe]

http://www.rare-earth-magnets.com/
http://www.kjmagnetics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=ZD1
http://www.unitednuclear.com/magnets.htm

These are all good sites for these magnets, some of them have different options in shape,size, or strength, so I left it to your discretion.

And yes, you can find this kind of magnet in hard drives, but they are this shape, or size.

[pooja]

The Traffic Light Changer for motorcycles. Never get stuck at a red light again!

[Corvidae]

I think what needs to happen is a quantitative test of whether this works. I have a hard drives worth of magnets on my fridge and a light traffic intersection outside my neighbor hood. Ill test at ground level and 6 inches off the ground since I would likely put a stack of them on my bottom bracket. I would be using an Al frame so the frame interfering with the field would be a low possibility.