Ways to improve the washing of car rims

[ttesss123]

Hi have to develop a mechanism which can wash car´s rims in a more effective way than car wash stations do, mainly by focusing on the geometry of the brushes and their motion... (circular motion is apparently not enough and that's why car´s rims don't get properly cleaned after a wash...

Any suggestions?

 

[berkeman]

Hi have to develop a mechanism which can wash car´s rims in a more effective way than car wash stations do, mainly by focusing on the geometry of the brushes and their motion... (circular motion is apparently not enough and that's why car´s rims don't get properly cleaned after a wash...

Any suggestions?

Welcome to PF.

Since this appears to be a schoolwork project, your thread has been moved to the schoowork forums.

What are your thoughts? I know what my technique is, and I can imagine a tool that would help it to work better. Since this is your schoolwork project, you need to tell us your thoughts before we can offer tutorial help.

 

[ttesss123]

Hello, thanks for the reply,

So, since most rims have smaller "gaps" closer to the center, I thought of some sort of round plate which would have several brushes of two different sizes, and so the smaller ones would be in the center of the plate to reach those smaller "gaps". The plate would spin, but it would also move vertically and horizontally as it spins so the brushes would clean tight spots of difficult access on the rim. I also think it should move in a third direction perpendicular do the rim, so it can go deeper, however I have to keep in mind the budget...
In between the brushes there would be holes through which the water and the soap would travel to the rim.

This is my mental sketch, I got the assignment today and I have 2 months to finish the project...

Am I thinking about this the right way?

Any other suggestions for the geometry, motion of the brushes, water and soap channels or any other thing to make the wash more effective?

I´ll attach an image more or less portraying what I´m thinking.

Thanks..

 

[berkeman]

Thanks for showing your thoughts on this project; that is a big help.

Hi have to develop a mechanism which can wash car´s rims in a more effective way than car wash stations do

So can you say what the target market for the improved device would be? Is it meant to be an improvement for automated car wash mechanisms, or something that folks would buy to use at home when they wash their own cars?

In addition to the small holes and indents in many car rims, the biggest issue I have found is that the disk brake dust gets on the rims and is very hard to remove with conventional washing and brushing. I've had to change to a pre-wash that is focused on loosening up the disk brake dust, and that's made a huge difference in how clean I'm able to get my rims.

Can you say some things about such a directed pre-wash, and what materials might work well? It's important for the run-off to be eco-friendly, after all...

 

[ttesss123]

I believe the target market would primarily be individuals who could buy this product to wash their own cars. However, I think the main focus is that the mechanism works and not so much how it would be commercialized, so the idea of implementing it to automates car wash mechanisms could also be a possibility I guess.
The pre-wash idea is actually very good, but is it something I would be able to add in the same device I sketched previously?
I don´t actually know anything about this pre-wash, I´ve although found that hog´s hair is appropriate to brush rims without scratching them. The materials used are also something I need to keep in mind...