Electric Bike Winch

Function: To build a winch that allows my younger brother to lift his heavy downhill bike up out of my way in our garage.

Inspiration: I have a brother who refuses to put his bike away. While it is heavy, he chooses to find the worst possible place to leave it every time he uses it. I decided to build a winch system for his bike and make it as easy as possible for him to put his bike away.

Methods: To start, I ordered a few pulleys from Amazon, as the bike weights 40 pounds and I didn’t want to waste filament printing at 100% infill to support the part. I used Fusion360 to model the winch assembly, and set it up to be used with a 12nm nema34 stepper motor I had lying around. I had to do a few test prints as the main spool cylinder failed a few times due to an odd bit of geometry for the hole which secures the rope in place.

Outcome: Successful, but I need to work on the gearing in order to ensure that it ratchets into place every time, and doesn’t slip the 1-2” that it has been slipping.

Failures and challenges:

• Turns out he just doesn’t like putting his bike away. He doesn’t use it.