Outboard Motor With Retractable Steering Bar for Easier Handling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing outboard motors are cumbersome and difficult to transport due to their weight and footprint, especially for powerful models, making mounting and dismounting operations tedious.
Innovation Solution
The outboard motor design features a steering bar that slides and pivots within a longitudinal guideway, allowing it to be retracted for easy handling and transport, with a detachable battery and innovative attachment mechanism for simplified coupling to a watercraft.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If the outboard motor is designed with a fixed steering bar, then the steering function is stable and reliable, but the motor becomes difficult to carry and handle during mounting and dismounting operations
Solution Approach 1:
The steering bar is designed to be movable rather than fixed, allowing it to slide within a guideway between retracted and extended positions. This dynamic configuration enables the bar to be retracted for easy carrying while extending for proper steering operation, resolving the contradiction between ease of carrying and steering stability.
Solution Approach 2:
The steering bar is nested within the guideway structure of the motor body. When retracted, the bar fits inside the guideway, reducing the overall footprint and making the motor easier to carry. When extended, it protrudes for functional use, maintaining steering reliability.
2Ease of operation
If the steering bar is made extendable for easy carrying, then the ease of carrying is improved, but the structural complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The steering bar incorporates a slide mechanism that allows it to move along the guideway. This dynamic component adds functionality for easy carrying while maintaining relatively simple construction through the use of a guideway and slide assembly.
Data Source
AI summary
The invention relates to an outboard motor (1) that is capable of being coupled to a watercraft (20) and comprises an elongate hollow body (2) that is open at its upper end (3), a propeller (5) positioned on the lower end (4) of the body (2), a system (6) for rotating the propeller (5) integrated into said body (2), and a steering bar (7) provided at its free end with an acceleration lever (8). The steering bar (7) is slidably mounted inside a longitudinal guideway (9) provided inside the body (2) for moving the steering bar (7) between an at least partially retracted configuration within the body (2) of the outboard motor (1) and a deployed configuration in which the steering bar (7) at least partially projects from said body (2). In the deployed configuration, the steering bar (7) is mounted so as to pivot about a shaft (10) transverse to the longitudinal axis of the guideway (9) in order to move said bar (7) between a raised position in which it extends in the axial extension of the guideway (9) and a lowered position in which it forms an angle (a) of between 60° and 120° with the longitudinal axis of the guideway (9).