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https://appliednw.com/3-types-gravity-conveyor-systems-industries-can-benefit/

Nice link,but not what I am referring to.These conveyors are common throughout industry;skate conveyors,etc.

The one I am referring to has a wheeled delivery cart that is on tracks.

It takes a package from the conveyor,delivers it to it's destination,then returns for another load.

Imagine 2 buildings with the outgoing conveyor higher than the destination.

The buildings could be configured with one conveyor each delivering to a

lower level on the opposite building.

This would work with people also.You would simply arrive one floor,or more, lower than your starting level.

When arriving from the street level,take elevator to the top floor.

Ride the conveyor to the next building,one floor lower,and leap frog to your destination.This could be an energy efficient method of people movement within a city.A horizontal elevator/ conveyor.

I am sure this ( People conveyor-horizontal elevator) has been considered,and rejected because of cost or other factors.

Jus thinkin'

You haven't recently watched 'Temple of Doom' recently ,, have you? recently?

The difference in the standard conveyor and what I am describing is that the empty cart returns to the starting position using energy stored in the gas spring onboard of the cart.

The cart plus load is much heavier than the empty cart,and some of the downhill energy is stored in a gas spring to power the cart back to the start,ready for another load.

This frees up floor space that would be occupied by a regular conveyor,and with modern wireless technology,could be directed to different delivery or receiving points with very little energy requirements.Guide track not required.

An outside fire escape on tall buildings is a good example of stored energy used for return,except in the factory example,it is stored in a delivery cart and can be programmed for different destinations within it's energy limitations.

Why a gas spring (piston friction decreases efficiency both coming and going)?

How does this free up floor space, which has to be maintained open for passage of the cart?

For intermediate stops, how do you propose to maintain partial compression of the spring from one stop to the next? Ratchet mechanisms are possible, but they introduce inefficiencies.

Despite these possible issues, the basic idea is sound, but it depends on many combinations of circumstance to be viable.

A few examples, together with energy/friction/rolling resistance calculations, would be useful. Can you furnish such information?

I do not know all of the details,I only saw a video where these carts were being used effectively.

It would be nice if I could find that video.

They silently moved material from source to destination and returned,using stored energy.

Energy Inefficiencies aside,they served a very useful purpose.

This was not about maximizing energy efficiency,it was about production efficiency.

Sure,the carts used the energy from the upstream equipment,but this was not a factor in the overall usefulness of the carts.

The floor space was not tied up at all times,only when the cart was passing,like a fork lift in a plant.

Fork lifts are very inefficient,energy wise,but their usefulness makes them necessary.

You are focusing on the minutia, not the big picture.

Nearest I have seen is gravity operated pedestrian gates though conveyor tracks. Four powered roller tracks laid end to end making an 80m continuous length with three 900mm gaps between. Sections of gravity roller spanned the gaps and were hinged on the upstream side. The gravity sections were fitted with a counterbalance weight so that they sat vertical allowing pedestrian access through the conveyor until a pallet came along and pushed the section down allowing the pallet to pass. A soon as the pallet cleared the gap the weight pulled the gravity section back to vertical. There were twelve lines of conveyor coming off the production lines each with three gates. It costed out at less than ¼ the price of three pedestrian bridges over the tracks. Each powered section was equipped with multiple limit switches and clutches so the pallets could accumulate without touching, forming a 750 pallet FIFO live storage system. The system would not allow a pallet onto the gravity roller section unless there was a clear space to stack it on the downstream side. What I liked was the simplicity and reliability. No computers, no PLCs, just limit switches hard wired to one pallet station upstream and one downstream. When I saw it, it had been operating 24/7 for 6½ years with only one limit switch fault and two burned out clutches and one complete change out of all the bearings.

The late Fred Dibnah, the UK's most prominent Steeplejack, used a contraption labelled the "flying buckets". A braked pulley wheel was clipped to the top of a factory chimney, and two buckets, tied together with a rope, was used so that the descending load hauled the empty bucket back up to the top of the chimney.

The counterbalance method of working inclined planes is pre-eighteenth-century technology to get wagon loads, and boat loads, of stuff from the top to the bottom of a hill.

Gravity works. It's only a question of detailed mechanical design.

An escalator uses very little energy when fully loaded.

Loads are basically balanced,or nearly so,minus friction.

Water wheels likewise absorb energy from one place and deliver it to another.

I know it is very old technology,mother nature has been doing it for billions of years,rain,waterfalls,etc.

The interesting part to me was that in the application to which I refer,is that the cart was not in a fixed position and the delivery point was variable.

That depends on whether it is an up escalator versus a down escalator.

Keep smiling..it will amke them wonder what you are up to....Normally,the up and down are powered from the same motor and gearbox,so if both sides are equally loaded,the only losses are friction and mechanical,etc.The actual lifting is "free"

Similar to pump that is moving water from one location to another,with zero head lift.

You get the point,I am sure,unless you want to play the devil's advocate and pick apart minute details that I left out,but are obvious to anyone skilled in the art.

Keep smiling..it will make them wonder what you are up to...

Talking about escalators brings back painful memories for me.

I unintentionally got my name in the Guinness Book for the longest accident.

I fell down the up escalator at J.C. Pennies for 37.521 minutes.

It hurts to think about it.

I saw something similar in a foundry between molding machines and a pouring station that used an inclined track, It used a spring can and cable to pull the empty cart back up to the molding machine.