I’m looking to cart products around to sell on foot.
Basically I want a box on wheels with bars in the front that I can lift and then walk forward. Similar to the idea of a rickshaw, but instead of seats for people, a container that can hold ~200lbs of weight. Or the type of thing you’d connect to a bike, except I want to just pull it on foot. The added element is that I want to be collapsible or able to be dismantled when not in use. Surely this must exist but I have no idea what term to use to search for it.
“Rickshaw” mainly brings results related to pedicabs. The closest I got was “utility cart” like this for example. But the problem with these, unlike a rickshaw style design, is they don’t scale well with the addition of weight where two wheels is easier than 4, depending on the surface. Also, versions that can be taken apart of collapses aren’t rugged enough.
I’ve used a hand truck put into the flat configuration in the past. But that lacks the box component to contain the products. I can stack boxes on it, but that gets unstable. And, again, the 4 wheel flat design doesn’t scale well with weight compared to the rickshaw concept.
So, yeah: what do you call that?
When you tow something the pulling force has to be down low, aligned with the load, to make it efficient. With the human body, given the height of your hands, it will always be easier to push a load than to try and tow it. The angular force when pushing a wheelbarrow, along with the weight of your body, helps the wheelbarrow along. If you turn around and try to pull it, your body takes that angular force instead of the front wheel. Like, instead of the lever and wheel doing the work, you have to not just move the load along, but lift it too. In short, there’s a reason why you can’t find something like this. It’s the same reason that why you look at wagons or pull carts, the handle is connected as low to the load as possible, and may likely have an angle built into it, also the same reason why flatbed type push carts say right in them “push, don’t pull.” Same with wheelbarrows. In short, you’re going to hurt yourself.
Your post doesn’t make sense. “A four wheel cart doesn’t scale well when compared to the rickshaw design”? Given that a four wheel design spreads the weight to four wheels instead of just two, four wheels can obviously move more weight more easily than two.
As above, especially in uneven surfaces, pushing is easier than pulling given that angular force is reversed (pushing the wheel over a bump and using the angular force to help rotate the wheel versus lifting the load up over the bump using your body whilst pulling). No question.
Gonna have to disagree just on this point. Unless you’re worried about sinking into soft ground or something, two wheels can take the weight just as well as four. Fewer wheels is often more maneuverable and there’s less friction. I mean, you specifically mention wheelbarrows which show this trade off; stability for easier rolling/maneuverability.
Yeah no doubt but OP said this in reference to “scaling up with more weight” and in reference to moving things around, so there are practical size limitations on how long the wheelbarrow/lever can be and how much a person’s arms can lift. You wouldn’t use a wheelbarrow to move a pallet of stone without custom building some freakishly large pallet moving wheelbarrow to act as a massive lever, but you could certainly move a little bit of stone at a time with a store bought wheelbarrow. Assuming normal size implements, for the pallet, a person isn’t strong enough to not need four wheels. You might make a very long lever with the right balance and be able to lift the stone pallet and move it a few feet at a time, before resetting the fulcrum and moving the load again, a few more feet, and you could move the load with just one finger, easily, as you suppose, but in no way would it be more practical than using a four-wheel pallet jack of normal size. I’m not a physics guy so I’m sure I’m not explaining this as clearly as someone more versed might and I agree there are times when it’s easier to pull, such as pulling a dolly up a flight of stairs or over curb; I guess I’m assuming we’re talking about moving a load along the average ground where you can get the proper angle.
For OP, check the Worx Aerocart, 8 in 1.
I appreciate where you are coming from with your input. At the same time, both pushing and pulling have their place, as evidence by the fact that humans have successfully used both to transport stuff. I don’t have the smarts to explain why the rickshaw style approach would work better for my needs; but I’ve found that it does in some use cases, my intended use being one of them. At the same time, I will see if I can find something like a wheelbarrow which has a flat, square box instead of the typical design. Maybe that would be an option.