What inventions have you thought of but never followed through?

[feejer222]

Going back 30 or so years to when I was a newly qualified tradesman, I used what we call over here a 'Yaknkee' screwdriver (No idea why, I don't think its a trade name). It has a ratchet system which is reverseable so that you simply push on the handle like a bicycle pump and it turns the head left or right.

I would take the detatchable bits and put them in my power drill. This was before the days of cordless drills. My co-workers would call me a lazy b*****d and no-one else seemed to see the potential.

A few years later the cordless drill arrived and as I am sure you are aware the majority are used as powered screw drivers these days.

When the video player came out, one of my first thoughts was how easy it would be to create a DIY (do it yourself) type video to guide amateurs through simple plumbing or carpentry tasks. I mentioned it to my dad, who hounded me to do something about it and I never did. How many DIY video's are there out there now, how much money is made from DIY shows on the TV?

Here's a starter for someone.....remote locking for houses. Push one button on a fob and all doors and windows lock or unlock. I am certain the technology is there to make this secure enough to work these days. (Cheques, paypal and all major credit cards accepted).

 

[Bull]

COOL IDEAS 222 - cool idea for a thread too.

About ten years ago I noticed that here in Canada, nearly everyone picks up their dog's **** in a bag (I'm from Scotland where people would have you locked up for such behaviour). Well having some sensitivities to the idea of reducing enviromental impact, I wondered just how many people around North America must be packaging their dog's turds off to the land fill site in plastic bags that will never, ever bio-degrade.

So I thought of the custom built, bio-degradable doggie poop scoop bag. Sold in Supermarkets in the pet section - probably in rolls (like the rolls of bags in the produce section where you piock up your tomatoes, potatoes, etc...)

Last year I saw the same stuff - in production - being used by the municipalities. Imagine the sales!

 

[Bull]

I also thought about producing Fuel cells for the FJR to extend their range.

Do you think anyone would go for it? :swoon:

 

[ponyfool]

I have two that are now in production, both of which I actually created prototypes for (albeit very crude ones), and a third that I have yet to see in production, but would like to.

The first was inspired by my college days in the mid 80's. I would cook the "hockey puck" hamburgers in our apartment damn near daily. Every time, I'd set off the smoke alarm. I got tired of removing the battery and forgetting to put it back in, so I designed and built a snooze alarm for it that lasted roughly 8 minutes. Today, in most jurisdictions, smoke alarms with "hush buttons" are required by code to prevent people from taking out the battery. My crude set up was huge, and ugly! I never thought of pursuing any type of patent for it because I was only worried about my own apartment.

The second was also in the mid 80's. I designed, and built a faucet that used a temperature control to adjust the temp of the water automatically. My vision was to have two automatic settings and a manual electronic override. When the first person pushed their button, the pressure and temperature was preset and the faucet would turn on to the correct pressure and temperature and beep when it was ready. The second setting was for another person's preference. If someone flushed, the valve would sense the drop in pressure and temp and automatically adjust. Again, I used a very crude system where I took a single handle kitchen faucet (mixing ball type), I used an electronic temp sensor (Radio Shack), and R/C actuators to make it work. The problem was, the Radio Shack temp sensor only tested once every two to three seconds, so the response was not nearly quick enough. Plus, I didn't have the programming ability back then, so if I wanted 98 degrees, the water would go 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 98, 97, 98, 99 until finally settling down. About 8 years later I was in a Street of Dreams house and saw a much better design (and working) valve in the master shower.

Finally, in the early 90's when I had my daughter, we bought one of those really cool stroller/car seat combos. It was the type where the base stays mounted in the car, and you lift the seat out and it snapped into the stroller. In the middle of winter, we were in the mall with my daughter when she started to get fussy. We took her out of her seat (mounted in the stroller) and fed her. We put her back, bundled her up when she fell asleep and put her back in the seat (still in the stroller). We got home hours later and went to take her out of the seat only to find that when we were in the mall, we never strapped her in. Because she was bundled up, we didn't see that her seat belts weren't secure. I designed, built, and used an alarm system that used a switch (a dryer door switch if I remember correctly) that opened the circuit when the seat's harness was secured. The base unit had two contacts (screw heads) that made contact with the seat (also screw heads) when the seat was mounted to the car base. If the circuit was open, no alarm would sound (alarm was mounted in the base). If the harness wasn't secure, the circuit was closed, and when put into the base, the contacts completed the entire circuit and the base unit alarm would sound. I made a system like this for three of my kids, and it alerted us roughly a dozen times that we secured the seat into the base without the seat's harness secure.

I actually briefly investigated getting a patent for this one, but it was too cost prohibitive. I took video of the design and sent it to a few companies telling them I didn't want anything for it, but thought it would be a good feature. Still haven't seen it.

 

[fhaze]

Graduated LED brake lights.

So you would know if someone was just resting their foot on the brake or really pressing hard.

https://www.physorg.com/news125773212.html

 

[jekirby]

Going back 30 or so years to when I was a newly qualified tradesman, I used what we call over here a 'Yaknkee' screwdriver (No idea why, I don't think its a trade name). It has a ratchet system which is reverseable so that you simply push on the handle like a bicycle pump and it turns the head left or right.

Believe it or not the actual name was 'Yankee Driver'. It became like Xerox became the term for photocopying, a few companies made them and they all got called 'Yankee Driver/screwdriver/drill' yep there was a drill with a funny looking double action drill bit. I have both and still grab them when a cordless is too bulky or too far away. One has the name 'Yankee' on it so I imagine it was a company at one time.

Oh the useless knowledge locked up in my aching head.

 

[Checkswrecks]

I make stuff that I later see on the market. Sooner or later, there will be somebody selling a Garmin Nuvi mount like the one I have on my FJR. I already had it happen in airplanes for the 296/396 series Garmins. No big deal.

ScubaPro had a regulator in the 70s and early 80s with a reed that would sound off when a diver's air pressure got low. But the reeds occasionally failed and we always wondered if it could get loose and block the 1st stage outlet. I designed and even prototyped a scuba regulator called the rattler that couldn't have either of those failure modes.

Then I learned about the ugly costs of liability problems ...

 

[HaulinAshe]

Most recently, the digital picture frame. As soon as I saw my first LCD laptop, I envisioned stripping one down to "display things on a wall".

 

[ShinyPartsUp]

I swear it's true:

When I was 6-7 before McDonald's was around Boston, I cooked up a sandwich for my big brother. It had two hamburger patties, tomato, lettuce, mayo, ketchup, a sliced up pickle (he loved them) and three pieces of bread. I called it the big mac (our name is McNamara and my nickname was big mac at school 'cuz I was over 5 feet and 125 pounds in first grade -- the name stuck for a while). Imagine my family's surprise when a similar item arrived on a menu.

When I was a teen, I thought having a boat wash by major docks, like they had for cars (before the totally automatic washes) would work. I got the idea after a boat ride in a whaler in the dirty Charles River. My brother said I was nuts. Don't know if anybody started one. Haven't gotten into boating.

 

[Fred W]

I swear it's true:
When I was 6-7 before McDonald's was around Boston, I cooked up a sandwich for my big brother. It had two hamburger patties, tomato, lettuce, mayo, ketchup, a sliced up pickle (he loved them) and three pieces of bread. I called it the big mac (our name is McNamara and my nickname was big mac at school 'cuz I was over 5 feet and 125 pounds in first grade -- the name stuck for a while). Imagine my family's surprise when a similar item arrived on a menu.

When I was a teen, I thought having a boat wash by major docks, like they had for cars (before the totally automatic washes) would work. I got the idea after a boat ride in a whaler in the dirty Charles River. My brother said I was nuts. Don't know if anybody started one. Haven't gotten into boating.

No. They cleaned up the Charles instead. Not nearly the "dirty water" we all grew up loving...

 

[Kevin Daly]

I have this crazy idea that if you coud fold space-time so that two ends of a length came together you would be alboe to simply step from one side to the other and then unbend it.

Needless to say what a shock I got the first time I watched star trek :0

 

[juniorfjr]

In the 80's I modified a pair of side cutters to speed up the process of removing the alloy blocks from lenses when they were being cut, Used it for years and then one day there it was in a trade supply catalog. Oh well

In the late 80's we would take the telescoping boat hooks. Metal tubes that collapse inside themselves. We'd glue the handle on to the end,(which had a small hole to drain). You could stick the end in the water and draw up about 1/2 gallon like a syringe. Then with a sudden collapse have a super power squirt gun. They are now distributed in pvc as dip sticks. oh well. Again

 

[LDRydr]

While unemployed In the 80's, back when only the government had paper shredders, I started investigating the possibility of mounting a large, industrial shredder, on a truck. The truck would then go to your business to do your shredding on-site so you'd know that nobody was looking at your secret stuff. After the shredding I'd either sell the paper to a recycler or process it myself into paper pellets that could be used for burning, etc.

I found only one other competitor, and he had mounted the shredder in a gutted-out school bus. I eventually got a job, came to my senses, and didn't follow up on my idea. I just did a Google search on "mobile paper shredding" and got 10,600 hits. D-oh!, I could have been a millionaire.

 

[Wild72]

Here's a starter for someone.....remote locking for houses. Push one button on a fob and all doors and windows lock or unlock. I am certain the technology is there to make this secure enough to work these days. (Cheques, paypal and all major credit cards accepted).

The mighty General Electric (GE) and others have already beaten you to it. Some of their security panels, (Caddx NX-8E is one), have keyfobs with programmable buttons that can be set to activate relays that can be used to control electronic door latches etc.

Couple of years ago, I installed just such a system which in addition to unlocking the door, also turned on some lights and closed some shades, depending on the time of day.

Suggest you call your copyright attorney immediately.

Me, I always see cool stuff and tell myself "You should have thought of that!!!"

 

[Derek]

a few years ago i asked a teanage employee to build me a time machine. i told her where the tools are kept and instructed her to have it completed by 5pm.

she said "what do you mean?" i said, just build me a machine so i can go back to yesterday.

i left. she said to the other girls. "why do i have to do everything?" the girls asked her if she knew i was kidding? she said "he sounded serious, i better do it"

i think she did try to build it based on the state of my tool cabinet. shortly after she just dropped out of site.

i sometimes wonder what year she's living in now.

derek

 

[TheAxeman]

This thread prompted a conversation with my tenant Anita about stuff that I should have or should have had patented and thats when she told me that she got a patent on something a few years back and that the process was a pain in the ***. When I questioned her about the invention, she ran into the apartment and came out with a prototype which she had manufactured in China to show potential buyers....A split bag backpack for golf clubs specifically for use on a motorcycle! She even had a meeting with some guys from Harley Davidson but they were worried about liability issues. Funny she had never mentioned it to me before. You learn something new everyday. I wonder what other secrets she has in her past.

 

[juniorfjr]

Years ago, an audiologist I worked with shared with me his follie. He had written to sony with an idea to build a portable tape player or radio that could produce sound through a binaural audio system (his words for headphones), something that could be used doing sports. He showed me the dated letter he sent and two letters of reply from Sony saying that a product like that was not in their plans at that time.

A short time later they came out with a product that became the rage, What did they call it? Oh, yea walkman.

A couple of legal hot shots told him he could try and get something for his idea. Or get squashed by Sony.

 

[fjrob1300]

Not my invention but just as nasty that I didn't follow through. My brother-in law's Uncle asked us if we wanted a water distribution business. What a maroon. Who's gonna buy bottled water!? No thanks. 1991 I think was the year. When Desert Storm happened and Canada sent in the troops they all carried His water. Ya, who's gonna buy bottled water. :dribble:

 

[weekend rider]

There have been many peiople out there that do not act and get screwed out of alot of money or some one else take s the ide and runs with it and cashes in for the bucks.

Today, I just come accross an idea to to reduce engery but I need an electrical engineer to help design and than market it .

The only problem is I am the little guy and not loaded with money to pursue this product. So what direction do I go in let it rest or try to develope this idea?