Rope ascension using stored spring energy

[jgeating]

Just looked at a video of the atlas rope ascender (google it) and thought it was pretty cool. However, I feel as though using a more "capacitive" approach and taking advantage of the fact that ascensions would not occur frequently could allow for the use of a system that slowly recharges over time, either using capacitors or stored mechanical energy (springs). Unless I am missing something, I imagine capacitors would require large DC motors still. Going to a small, light system, are there any torsion springs that can store large amounts of continuous energy, possibly put some in series or parallel. Essentially, like a huge watch spring able to output ~500-1500 watts for a few seconds.

Some target specs:
350 lbs at 5 ft/s ~ 300 watts, but this seems questionably low to me. If this is right, at 50% efficiency, I imagine 600 watts would be an absolute minimum.

Shooting for 50 feet, 10 seconds * 300 watts = 3 kJ of energy. Is this even ballpark feasible?

 

[tvavanasd]

...
Some target specs:
350 lbs at 5 ft/s ~ 300 watts, but this seems questionably low to me. If this is right, at 50% efficiency, I imagine 600 watts would be an absolute minimum.

Shooting for 50 feet, 10 seconds * 300 watts = 3 kJ of energy. Is this even ballpark feasible?

jgeating,

Your power conversion is incorrect:

1 HP = 550 ft*lbf/s
1 HP = 746 watts

350 lbf at 5 ft/s
= 1750 ft*lbf/s
= 3.18 HP
= 2370 watts

 

[jgeating]

yeah, that did seam really low, and I did it really quickly. After doing a little more research, it really just doesn't seem that feasible.