[Closed] if i invented a dirt blaster without the need for power would it be a good idea?

You mean something like this?
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With your reputation?

Joking aside, yes, of course. Compare with the current crop and you'd have to be not too far off their price to get an edge in the market. Even though the running costs would be lower, persuading people to part with their cash up front is the tricky bit.

Sam - similar but better. More rugged. More compact. Higher pressure. Greater water through put and control

My initial thought was also the pump action plant sprayers. Suppose you could do an mtb version with added Gnarrr

Also the excitement knowing that I designed it so it could burst into flames at any moment

Power it from a track pump rather than the pump handle built in, then you've got a truly bike orientated device!

It'd be a lot of work to pump up to enough pressure to be a dirt worker, imo. A solar/car charged battery powered one would probably be better..?

Track pump powered would not be good - it would have to force air through a small valve which is where a lot of your work goes when pumping up a tyre. You want a wider bore valve.

Its an empty washing up liquid bottle isn't it?

Go on, you can tell us, its only the internet. 😉

Not quite sure why you need it unpowered. If you are washing it to go in the car then you have 12v available, if its for use at home then there is power, too. If it is to be green, then don't wash it or use a sponge and bucket. I'm sure it would sell as bikers buy anything shiny 🙂

nickjb - Member
Not quite sure why you need it unpowered. If you are washing it to go in the car then you have 12v available, if its for use at home then there is power, too. If it is to be green, then don't wash it or use a sponge and bucket.

Pretty much sums up my thoughts. How do you carry it around? In a car perhaps? If so, then 12v makes sense. If it's for home use, then run it off mains (via a transformer). What niche are you seeking to fill?

Think green. Think Environment. Think it is a lot cheaper without fitting the 12v sh1t.

£25 for a 3 litre cleaner that you can throw in the car, or drop out of a car at 40mph without damage because you left it on the roof.

Seems to be a market for me.

PS none of you have actually infringed my patent yet

BigBikeBash

I'll trial one for you and if it's any good I'll pay your £25 - deal??

3L?

a 3L bottle of coke? it'll clean your bike alright

Link FAIL!
Hozelock do a 7L portable shower hose thingy for £20

i've seen a pump type one that was designed for watersports types for washing boats down, cant remember where it was. so far been happy with my mobi washer, just need to remember to charge it, but if i dont i can always run it from the car, just more hastle

Okay. 6 litre.

The prototype cleaned my bike using 2 litres so I just upped the size by 50%

I tell you what, there is a range from 3 litre 'Easy carry' to 60 litre 'This needs a truck' size.

There are loads of 'nearly good enough' products out there but I can't find any that include the possibility of spontaneous combustion and bike specific features.

PS 3 litres at 200 psi will clean a bike without destroying seals etc

if i invented a dirt blaster without the need for power would it be a good idea?

No. As mentioned above, too big to carry with you so will be used either at home or from the car, where there is mains or 12v power.

However, if the lack of electrical parts, pumps etc makes it cheaper than a dirtworker I would definately be interested.

BBB, not patronising but do you understand patent law?

[i]PS 3 litres at 200 psi will clean a bike without destroying seals etc[/i]

That's a lot of pumping with a shock pump to reach that pressure though 🙂

Very small market, existing hardware that does the same thing already, some powered ones for when you're near a power source (every time you ride really!), your numbers don't stack up and for that reason I won't be investing in you, I'm out. Plus if you put 200psi near my seals I'll kill you, but from a distance I'd be more accepting.

Something that takes a standard CO2 cannister maybe?

Is it a converted Sodastream? 😆

another solution for a problem that doesn't exist? marketing peeps will love that.

What he said. Go back to your problem definition stage - Bikes get dirty when you go mountain biking. So?

If you're a bit bothered, you use a plant sprayer, or water from your camelbak / bottles. If you're very bothered, you use a dirtworker or one of those rechargeable camel things that were advertised on here.

Or you sidestep the issue by using a £5 tarp or old sheet in the back of the car.

Personally, I doubt there are enough people who want something approaching dirtworker levels of performance in a human powered form to make this worth your while. You're basically creating a niche within what is already a niche market, and I reckon you'd need some very clever ways of minimising your development & marketing costs in order to get this off the ground and turn a profit.

I have a 8L garden sprayer which works really well, minimum amount of pumping and can be used at home AND out and about due to the universal power supply - my arm.

You might want to up the capacity, 8L is only just enough to clean my bike when it has been properly doused in Pentlands mud. To be honest, it's going to be difficult to get something to appeal to the environment conscious and bring it in at a comparable price (£10).

[i]or drop out of a car at 40mph without damage because you left it on the roof[/i]

Apart from the damage to any following car.

I'm not really with you on the 'green' angle, surely anyone that does the 'driving to the trail' thing isn't that bothered about their 'green' credentials.

Good luck though but I'm out.

the industrial plant sprayers are pretty good for this; we tested a load that were used to spray chemicals down mole holes.

[i]Can be filled from tap or stream.[/i]

Hoses can be attached to a tap and bikes washed in streams.

Nope can't see the need.

Washing a bike in a stream isn't so good, gets lots of oil in the water. Washing it on dirt at least means the oil can sit in the ground and decompose before it ends up in the water course.

Lots of oil or do you mean the small amount that may be left from a day riding through mud?

What we need is something sonic powered. You know, something that emits a noise of an appropriate frequency that makes dirt fall off bikes.

I think I've seen prototypes being tested in the South Africe World Cup

iDave - [i]not patronising but do you understand patent law? [/i]

Enough to know that nothing on this thread would invalidatre the patent.

Unnecessary - Quite possibly but how many people spend sily money on phones and gadgets that do stuff they could do almost as well with something else.

Why by a satnav when you can use a map?

Because it is easier or it was an easy present to buy for someone or it shows your mates that you need/can afford the best.

Clearly if you all have spent time getting the other things to do this then there is a need there.

BigBikeBash - if you don't have a patent then it cannot be invalidated. If you have a patent then the design is openly published and publishing it here would not the protection afforded by it in any way.

I'm sure it would do very well if for example you happened to be Steve Jobs and called it the iwash. On a serious note it might be a bit too niche, if on the other hand you could make a dirtworker esque one for much cheaper (say £50.00) I and many other cheapskates like me would bite your hand off for it.

Iain

When I tried using a plant sprayer like those above for this, they worked great. The only issue was the amount of water we could carry.

i have a girlfriend to do washing related tasks.

ahm oot.

cranberry - Member

BigBikeBash - if you don't have a patent then it cannot be invalidated. If you have a patent then the design is openly published and publishing it here would not the protection afforded by it in any way.

A patent application is not immediately published. By the time it's granted it will have been published so that anyone can read it. A patent does not need to disclose a full engineering diagram and production instructions, but must include sufficient detail that it would allow one skilled in the art to reproduce the invention.

In order to be patentable it must be possible to show an inventive step over prior art. Something that would not be obvious to one skilled in the art. This is a bit of a grey area TBH.

Public disclosure of an invention prior to a patent application means that it cannot be patented. A posting on an open internet forum is definitely a public disclosure.

If you think you've got a novel idea and you really are considering patenting it, take a look at the patents that already exist at gb.espacenet.com.

While posting this I've come up with a better idea for hand powered pressure washer type system. Pinched it from the latest Super Soaker that I bought. Swap working fluid for water in pumping system. Use unpressurised reservoir. Use an elastic pressurised reservoir to provide pressure to working fluid. You can do this with an elastic membrane or a piston with a spring, or however else you fancy. Works a lot better than the average sprayer.

What do I win if I've guessed your idea? (BTW I think the above is probably obvious to one skilled in the art, which I'm not)

At work we have an old fire extinguisher that we modified so you can fill with water and then add air through an innertube valve to pressurise, works a treat, we use it on site sometimes if we can't get a hose to where we're working.

Hmm, I used to work in "innovation counselling" which is exactly what everyone is trying to do here. I'm not sure that "innovation counselling" is always a good idea. The most significant things I discovered were

1) There are lots of "inventors" out there who have no idea how things work and are very disappointed when they discover that their idea doesn't. (I'm not saying this is you BBB, I'm just making an observation)

Result - make sure you know it works and avoid armchair experts who probably can help you very little (fail you shouldn't have bothered posting here)

2) The crappest wierdest and stupidest ideas that you never expect to even work never mind be successful often are very successful. What the average engineer thinks is a bad idea and will fail has no bearing what so ever on what will actually succeed. All that really counts is a conviction for the idea, drive, self belief, determination, lots of hard work and the ability to take what seem like killer knock backs. Oh and money.

Result - The naysayers on here have no idea what there is a market for or not, they just cannot see it themselves. Where you need advise is what to make it from, how to make it, testing, and marketing. What some see as a niche may well eventually drive a significant portion of the marketplace.

I say go for it. You have an idea, you can see the market.

The most helpful comment above was this

dmetcalfe - Member
so far been happy with my mobi washer, just need to remember to charge it, but if i dont i can always run it from the car, just more hassle

Which shows that the logic (why have a pump action when you have power at the car) does not tie up with the reality (running off 12 volts in the car can be a pain in the arse.)

As a retailer and purveyor of the most excellent of excellent things... Can you tell me what margin I would be get on these?

You may wish to consider how much the supply chain gets (assuming you are looking at this method of gettng to market). If it's not attractive money wise for me then I am unlikely to want to stock and sell it. If you get my drift.

The most significant things I discovered were

The innovation process has been fairly well codified by a lot of research. And they pretty much proved the bleeding obvious:

A strong, well defined problem really helps you to create successful innovations.

Most people tend to jump to solutions first, but you still need that defined problem in order to sell the idea to investors and the product to customers.

Or in other words, you can have the best solution in the world, but if that problem doesn't effect enough people badly enough, you haven't got a viable business.

So if your problem is "people want to wash their bikes without electricity" you might be looking at a small eco-mentalist market.

If it's "people want to wash their bikes without electricity, using any water they've got, for a third of the price of a dirtworker, and also don't want to have to lug a 15 litre tank of water around" then you've suddenly made things a lot broader.

A strong, well defined problem really helps you to create successful innovations.

+1.

Here's an idea. Why not have a piston in the tank connected to a platform that you can stand on, thereby creating the pressure to squirt the water out? Or some kind of tread activated pump, like old fashioned blacksmith's bellows...

Or in other words, you can have the best solution in the world, but if that problem doesn't effect enough people badly enough, you haven't got a viable business.

I do not think this is remotely true, sorry. Have you heard of the rational and irrational man arguments in economics? People in the luxurious western world do not buy things like this because they need them.

toys - At last someone who understands where my market is. Do 90% of the people carrying Gerber tools really need them when they could just use pliers etc?

Imagine trying to justify post-it notes - Well, it is a bit of paper you can write stuff on and stick somewhere for someone to read. They can then pick it up and throw it away. It is like a normal piecve of paper but it has a sticky bit. Everybody needs a bit of paper with a sticky bit on it.

I know post-its are very useful etc but if they didn't exist, how many people here would have thought of them as a product?

People in the luxurious western world do not buy things like this because they need them.

In some market sectors they do.

The two examples you give are bad ones - they both make something easier. Post it notes make leaving notes for peope easier - you can stick them somewhere noticeable and they won't blow away/get lost in a pile of papers, and multi-tools mean that for one small thing in your pocket you can have a whole load of tools with you. Very very useful.

FWIW the bloke that invented post-it notes came across the adhesive by accident when trying to make some other kind of glue. He made a few bits of paper with it on.. the office were using them for years before they realised there was a market for them.

If you are looking for the impulse buy/luxury market then you would need some kind of 'cool' product that is intrinsically attractive. Is a bike washer that? Or a utility item? Who bought their dirtworker because it was a cool thing rather than they needed to clean their bike when out and about?

molgrips - are you trying to say that the mountain bike market is driven by people with a need? Does anyone actually need a dirtworker? BTW do you work in product design/development?

mol - the 2 examples I gave were different. The Gerber tool looks cool but there are far cheaper alternatives and again I say how many peolpel who carry them 'really' need them.

Post it notes - Yes they are useful but hardly essential. I know the story about the glue. If they were such an obviously good idea why was it so long before someone actually thought to turn them into a product.

People will pay for stuff they don't 'need' either because it is cool or makes their life a bit easier. Hit both of those touch points and you have a marketable product.

I see why people would buy a dirt worker, well only just but why would you need to one that needs no power. That's what I don't get but hey best of luck with your project and yes I'm intrigued.

The Gerber tool looks cool but there are far cheaper alternatives

Really? Although I only know one person who carries one and he uses it all the time. And in the US at least they are cheaper than leatherman etc.

People will pay for stuff they don't 'need' either because it is cool or makes their life a bit easier. Hit both of those touch points and you have a marketable product

That's just what we are saying (and is bleedin obvious). But I don't see why your dirtworker is cool or more useful than the original. Your dirtworker will be a success if it's a lot cheaper than the original one, and works as well or better.

I do not think this is remotely true, sorry. Have you heard of the rational and irrational man arguments in economics? People in the luxurious western world do not buy things like this because they need them.

You need a certain number of people who are willing to pay your price for your product, or you do not have a business. That is simple maths. You have certain costs in developing a product and creating a business. If the total sales revenue does not match or exceed that figure, you're in trouble.

Doesn't matter if your customers are rational actors or irrational, they need to think they have a problem that your product can solve.

You'll note that I didn't mention need VS want in my post. Nevertheless, these days a lot of people will be focusing more towards needs rather than wants.

I think a low cost portable bike washer has serious potential as a product - your car stays cleaner, your cleaning process can be quicker as mud doesn't get to dry on, etc. I can also see the potential for lucrative exit strategies. But it seriously pays to think about the basics before you invest time and energy in working on the product.

Toys19 - need is a relative term. I for example popped into Halfords today for an aerial adapter for my new car stereo. I needed it to make my stereo work properly, but I didn't really NEED it in any vital sense, of course. Very little is truly needed.

The MTB market is driven partly by need to achieve certain aims (for example I also bought disc brake cleaner and lube) and partly by coolness. If say you were producing a beautifully CNC machined/carbon bike washer then that could appeal to a coolness luxury market (seems to work for Leyzine although their products have to be kept within a certain price range to be reasonable.. also works for companies that sell stupidly bling stuff to fat old roadies) but would in reality be too expensive to manufacture.. and because bike washers are not intriniscally cool. Ever see a bling dishwasher in a fancy house? Me neither. People pay a lot of money for bikes because they are cool and they have a close connection with riders. Dirt workers are just utility items.

Why by a satnav when you can use a map?

terrible comparison, and I'm no Satnav lover. Anyone who has tried to navigate the streets of London in a car whilst trying to read an A to Z knows where the market lies for Satnavs.

Personally I don't recall finishing any ride thinking "if only I had a portable jet wash" never mind a "green" one, so I'm certainly not your target market, sorry. Good luck tho'

The only reason I bought a dirtworker was for 24 hour mtb races, where in the mud they are absolutely invaluable. I was always on a clean working bike (at least at the start of a lap!) whilst everyone else was screwed. Or queueing for the jetwasher for 2 hours.

Now I am working away from home I bring my bike, and when the trails are wet I need to clean my bike since I want to ride more than once a week. It's either the hotel shower or the dirtworker 🙂

You need a certain number of people who are willing to pay your price for your product, or you do not have a business. That is simple maths. You have certain costs in developing a product and creating a business. If the total sales revenue does not match or exceed that figure, you're in trouble.

This is obvious. When did anyone say his invention would be sucessful without any customers?

Doesn't matter if your customers are rational actors or irrational, they need to think they have a problem that your product can solve.

I totally disagree with this and my experience of helping people with their innovations says that this is not so. I think "need" is a rationalisation invented by product design educators.

need is a relative term. I for example popped into Halfords today for an aerial adapter for my new car stereo. I needed it to make my stereo work properly, but I didn't really NEED it in any vital sense, of course. Very little is truly needed.

Exactly, so you can rationalise about need as much as you want but really its about desirability and perceived lifestyle.

Yes, but this is a tool for doing something unglamorous ie cleaning, which no-one wants to do. Few people get a pleasurable high out of cleaning something. You do from making things though, which is why men will buy loads of tools etc. that they don't really need, cos it will help them do something fun.

As I said, there will only be a market if it is cheaper and/or better than a dirtworker.

*coughs*

so what is wrong with the plant sprayer? Does what a dirtworker does and needs no power.

We use the plant sprayer in the shop. It works well.

Eco and uses cock all water too.

Double Eco. Like super duper save Flipper Eco.

I've used a plant sprayer. They kind of work but nto as well as a dirtworker. I've tried cleaning a load of Mayhem clag off a bike with one and it's really not easy.

Hence BBB idea to make some kind of frankencleaner that's half way between a plant sprayer and a dirtworker.

But I can't see how it'd be BETTER than a DW to be honest.

A better dirtworker would be more powerful...

Well it's subjective which has been my argument all the way along.

But I can't see how it'd be BETTER than a DW to be honest.

Doesn't need to be. If it was nearly as good but a lot cheaper I'd have one.
The sprayer is a lot cheaper, but no where near as good. If the idea under discussion is say, 90% as good as a DW and costs £30 he's sell loads. If it's 70% as good and £60 probably not as many...

The only reason I bought a dirtworker was for 24 hour mtb races, where in the mud they are absolutely invaluable

my only experience of a dirt work was at a 24hr race and I've intentionally never used one since.

Old water fire extinguisher with a schrader valve. fill 3/4 with water, pressurise, instant jet wash. friend has been using it for years. Works really, really well. And very quick to refil and charge with more water and air.

i had an old 10 litre garden sprayer with an added schraeder valve, used co2 and track pumps. worked a treat.

BigBikeBash - if you don't have a patent then it cannot be invalidated. If you have a patent then the design is openly published and publishing it here would not the protection afforded by it in any way.

:S It's called prior art. If you publish it in any way, christ if you even speak about it by email with anyone not under NDA, it's no longer considered patentable as it's prior art.

Regardless, I just chuck my bikes on a sheet and wash them when I get home with a cuppa.

I just chuck my bikes on a sheet and wash them when I get home with a cuppa.

Now that IS eco friendly.

I use a bucket, same principle but a bit more water. 😀