Amberwolf's DayGlo Avenger, MkII

[Solcar]

Bumper sticker is a nice touch.

[amberwolf]

If I thought they'd stay stuck on the trailer kennel shell, I'd put them on the sides of that, too.


Today was the store meeting where we could bring our dogs up, so I brought Nana, the St. Bernard, and she was a great hit...and behaved mostly, but I did have to keep the muzzle on her, as there were many other dogs of various types and training levels, and I can't predict what they will do that she might not like, nor can I control them--just her.

She had no problem in the kennel trailer, except that she wanted to get out right after getting in (cuz it's very hot out there, even with the iced towels and whatnot I put in there for her), and it took a bit of calming and convincing for her to lay down and stay still at first. Once we were going, it was fine.

I couldn't go faster than about 15MPH, and even that was pushing it, because the trailer gets this side to side shimmy above that, and then she gets up and it really starts to wobble around. It flipped over on it's side once, on the way home, because of that. Two passing vehicles stopped, one in either direction, to help and to block other cars, and one driver got out to help. I was surprised, but thankful.

Nana was not hurt, or apparently even very disturbed by it all, but she was happy to get home.

I wasn't hurt either as I was already in the process of trying to stop once I saw (in the mirror) and felt the shimmy get uncontrollable, but it was too late...all I could do was step off the almost-stopped bike, let it fall, and try to keep the trailer from falling over hard, but I could not reach it in time and it tipped over fully on it's right side.

I guess the lesson is to keep it at 12-13MPH max, no matter what, with that trailer, until I can determine exactly why it happens and fix it (if it's even possible).


I wish I had pics of the store event itself, but we can't do photo or video on premises so there are none. I had planned to take pics of Nana in the trailer once I got home, but after all that had happened I just wanted to let her out of it, and back into safe-home for her to feel better about it all. Before we left, it was too hot to make her wait in the trailer while I took pics.


Now, a couple hours later, everybody's settled down and napping, although I can't sleep cuz it's still too hot (94F inside and out).


The bike itself performed fine, and didnt' have anything break in teh fall, although there's now more scratches on stuff on the right side than in the pics from last week's crash.

The Fusin motor got pretty danged hot; not as hot as last time I used the trailer, despite using it mostly at similar speeds (I think), if a bit less load. This time I could easily keep my hand on it's casing even 10-20 minutes after I got home, and didn't need to put any cooling water on it at any point. No cutouts of motor or pack or controller, either.

At this point I'm pretty sure it must've been halls overheating causing the cutouts before. Not much else makes sense.


Max wattages I saw realtime on the CA were around 700-800W during startups, with me cranking on the pedals pretty hard in lower gears, nearly standing on them to try to reduce the load on the motor at startup.

Typical wattages were in the 150-400W range, depending on slope and speed; it seems like the slower I go below 8MPH the worse the heating gets despite the lower total input power, but that is a guess based on hand-checking the motor cover after running at those speeds vs at higher ones.

10-12MPH seems the ideal compromise between trailer shimmy and motor heating. Keeping in mind that I am pedalling quite a lot--about 75W worth according to the realtime CA display, as that's about how much it goes up on the motor if I stop pedalling.

[Solcar]

Maybe put a sticker on top.

Nana's a real trooper, took it all in stride.

I was thinking about the hitch on the trailer and came up with a couple of observations. The one is that the hitch being up high tends to destabilize the pulling some. However, the second observation negates the first some, and it is that if the trailer tends to get tipsy, the hitch being high enables the bike to be able to hold it up some.

[amberwolf]

The latter was part of my original reasoning for doing it that way, along with the fact that I could just hook it to my basket's rear rack at the time.

Nowadays, I've seen many much better systems, like the BOB, but at the time I had not found that or most other behind-the-wheel hitches--the rest all hooked on the left dropout, which I did not want to do--it's just too weak a point for putting *all* of the pulling tension/torsion/compression on from a trailer hauling as much as several hundred pounds, especially on a cheap aluminum framed bike like DGA, which is already carrying a lot of stress on the seatstay/chainstay from teh rack and pod system.


So I would like to do a modified BOB with all the pivots in one point, much like what I have now but much lower down.

Part2: DON'T KEEP RIDING YOUR BIKE WITH LOOSE SPOKES:


Now for the bad news...that rear wheel I put on there is toast. The one with the airless tire, off some cheap 26" MTB I got off Freecycle some time back.

I had felt some "wiggle" in it a few days ago, and noted that some spokes were not as tight as they should be, but it was still relatively true, and I didn't have time to re-true it, so I left it alone.

Each consecutive ride I noticed a bit worse wiggle, as if the axle nuts were loose, but they weren't--instead, the spokes were getting loose enough in places to (I assume) let the RIM wobble sideways.

I expect the fall-over yesterday was the clincher, because although I did not notice a real problem with it then, probably because I was pulling the trailer and it already has the wobble/wiggle that pulls the bike around a bit, I'm still sure it was already warped. I was not concerned iwth the bike at all at the time, just Nana and getting her home safe.

But today as I headed out, the rear brake rubbed a bit, and I could SEE some warping of the rim; several spokes were very loose, mostly on the left side. But I had to be at work pretty quick so I couldn't stop and do anything about it, and I felt it getting worse the whole way there. By the time I got there, the wheel was bad enough that I knew before I left work for home I'd have to do something.

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When I got off work, and finally had the chance (in the 115F heat at almost 2pm, but fortunately in breezy shade) to work on the wheel, and man is it MESSED UP.

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The best I could really do was to take the brake pads off the rear, because with them on there it could not turn past them in two places, even with spokes tightened to the max on the corrective side, and loosened to floppiness on the other side.

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Then I did what I could to retension the rest of it, but that wasn't much. I'm not even sure I can rebend the rim back into shape when it's off the bike, but I'll have to try, cuz I don't think I can get this airless tire off of here and onto other rim. If I can, I will, and put one of my better non-MTB tires on there, too, over the airless "tube" instead of the knobby MTB that's on there now.

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One option I do have is to completely unlace this rim from the spokes and hub, and relace the rim and tire off the *front* wheel (otherwise identical to this one) off that bike onto the spokes and hub for the rear. Since the airless tire keeps the nipples pressed into place I can pretty easily do this, but I'd rather leave that wheel alone as it currently is a working wheel that's relatively true, to use for an emergency spare for the front of one of my regular non-electric bikes.

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It's hard to see exactly how bad it is on the bike, so I'll put up better pics once I get it off of there. Right now I'm cooling off, and intermittenly napping involuntarily, after a very slow and hot ride home and taking the dogs out for potty break.

[Solcar]

The trailer hitch my bro-in-law made had two arms attached right above the rear dropouts and then they went back and connected together at a small barn door type hinge. The trailer had a matching hinge and then a pin is dropped between the two. That allowed freedom of movement in all dimensions.

I have a feeling that it will be possible to straighten that rim. I hope so!

[MadRhino]

....

DSC04756.JPG

It's hard to see exactly how bad it is on the bike, so I'll put up better pics once I get it off of there. ...

We can see enough, and IMO that rim is not worth re-lacing. You would succeed, but the wheel will have uneven tension and require frequent maintenance.

[amberwolf]

Probably; we'll see once I get a chance to get it off of there. If I can get the airless tube out and onto my rim that had the flat tube (stem failure), I would rather do that. Just not sure I can physically manage it.

Funny that I put this airless tire wheel on there so I wouldn't have to deal with rear wheel problems, and then the wheel itself gets toasted instead of the tire/tube.

Anyway, I went ahead and moved the pack back to CrazyBike2, and will go back to using it, now that the pack is essentialy proved working ok. Still needs a range test, but I've already shown it'll do at least two days worth of work commutes without a problem, and I only need one.

viewtopic.php?p=451895#p451895

THen I just need to fix up DGA ASAP as a spare, just in case.

[Solcar]

I should explain the hinges used to make the hitches a little better. I believe the hinges are the type used with a padlock when locking a door. I also ought to clarify that the hitches on the trailer only essentially make use of the triangular half of the hinges--the built-in pivoting action of the hinges is disabled when the hitch is made, and prevented from being able to pivot. Basically, these type of hinges offer a triangular piece heavy sheet metal of appropriate size with a strategically drilled hole--that is the half of each hinge that really matters, though the other half has convenient holes for attaching the hinges to each assembly.

When the trailer is connected up to the bike, the joining pin is inserted after lining up the two padlock holes--one on each hinge. One hinge is on the trailer and one is at the rear of the bike.

I couldn't find a picture of this type of hinge on the Internet and I don't use the trailer any more, having removed the hitch from the bike, but if you like, I can try to take a picture if you might be interested in it. I have removed the hitch from the bike to save weight and because it endangered my foot as a scraping risk in tight quarters because it extended out from the rear of the bike.

[amberwolf]

Anything like the one I used as my kickstand hinge here?
http://electricle.blogspot.com/2009/02/ ... guide.html

I'm still not sure quite how it'd hook up and give 3-axis freedom of movement, though. I could do it with enough hinges, of course, but I don't think it'd hook up like you describe.

Also, even the hinge I used above quickly wore at the hingepin area, with all that bike weight on it as it moved. I expect pulling that kind of weight (whcih it would have to do) would do the same thing even faster as a hitch pivot.

[Solcar]

That one in that picture is pretty close to the one that was used in my set-up.

Even though the hinges mating at their tapered ends would seem restrictive in the up/down direction, the play in the pin joint allows plenty of freedom up/down. Don't really need that much in that regard because the major pivoting is left/right. Probably advantageous not to have too much up/down freedom of movement. It ought to work to use a padlock instead of a pin, too, as I seem to recall doing that.

One thing that I left out is that the very end tips of the hinges are bent outward from the joint to improve smooth meshing.

[amberwolf]

Decided to start working with that "normal" Bell trailer, on CrazyBike2, since I'd much rather be hauling things on that bike anyway.
viewtopic.php?p=490948#p490948


Also decided that I should finally get around to fixing DGA's rear wheel, since I've managed to put it off since late August. Was not nearly as hard as I thought it would be to get the solid tube and tire off the bent up rim, and over onto a good wheel, but it definitely took a lot of effort, and wore me out enough to need a nap afterward. On the plus side, I didn't stab myself with any tools or break anything except the tip of one cheap screwdriver.

Basically I had to use GOOD STRONG flatblade screwdrivers to HAMMER between the rim's inside edge and the tire's bead.

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I couldn't push them into the space, even a little bit, without the hammer. After prying with two of them about 1" apart, I got the bead out enough to slip the tip of a file in there to hold it open while I pried elsewhere around the rim, an inch or two at a time, until I popped off all the bead on one side.

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Then I was able to use a flatblade screwdriver worked and pried under the tube, between tube and rim, and then pry the tube up and over the same rim edge. That got me a little bit of it over, and repeating that a few times got it off enough to roll the rest of it.

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There are no markings on it except for it's size. I'd hoped for a brandname so I could add some data to one of the air-free tires threads.

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Since with these things there's no chance of a hernia thru the tire's sidewall, I decided to re-use the Kenda Kross tire I liked so much on the rear of DGA with my friction drive, but had to set aside due to a fabric tear in the sidewall.

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Getting the tube into the tire was a little harder than expected, as it kept popping out where I'd already gotten it in; turns out it is a fair bit larger than the rim/tire. I guess the idea is the compression of hte foam helps to keept he tire/tube on the rim even under sideloads, so it doesn't roll off as easy.

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Getting the tube/tire onto the rim was actually easier than getting tubed tires on, because I didn't have to worry about puncturing or slicing the tube. Took a lot more force, but it was way easier to apply it.

The old rim is pretty trashed:

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maybe worth saving, maybe not. Into the wheel closet it goes.


So now, except for no rear brake pads (had to take them off to even ride home bakc when the wheel bent up), DGA is ready to roll again.

I thought I would take it out for a spin, but when I pulled out the Vpower/CammyCC pack from the storage shelf to stick in the cargo pod, I found it wouldn't power up the bike. It's got ANOTHER dud cell in it; troubleshooting to be found in the post after this one:
viewtopic.php?p=492155#p492155

[amberwolf]

So....a few months later I finally got back to DGA, now that I need it because CrazyBike2 is broken for now:
viewtopic.php?p=545492#p545492

The Vpower/cammy battery works again, after removing the dud cell and recharging. I didn't use it for my commute today, though; instead I used the ammo-can RC-LiPo pack first tested on CrazyBike2. It is 14s 2p, so 58.1V (4.15V/cell) at 10Ah.

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Ride data for my commute today, same path as with CB2, no pedalling:
19m 30s trip time
4.599miles
22mph max
14.1mph avg

31.2Wh/mile
2.684Ah
143Wh
55.41Amax

58.0Vstart
54.6Vrest
48.7Vmin

0% Regen
0Ah Regen
-10.7A peak Regen

This is the Fusin gearmotor, which has a freewheel, so there shouldn't be *any* regen current. I did attempt to disable the FW but that didn't work, and it just slips when rotating wheel faster than motor or regen, etc. It's just possible that there is an intantaneous momentary regen current.

Ride was fine, but I never did get back to putting the rear brakepads back on, so I should fix that. I'm going to be riding DGA for my work commute at least for tomorrow and probably Saturday, until I have time on Friday and Saturday night to fix CB2.


Instead of clamping it to the bar-end, this time I mounted the CA in the instrument-hole in the "dash". It's just clear-taped on for now, but if I have to keep it in there very long, I'll mount it inside the dash instead of on top of it. Hopefuly I'll have CB2 fixed so I can move the CA back over to it, rather than permanentizing it on DGA.

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Just as I was leaving work today (literally as I was about to ride off), I met an older gentleman with a white delta trike, with what I think he said was a Hill Topper kit; it's a small hubmotor on his front wheel. I was about to start a conversation with him about his bike, mine, ES, etc., when he just continued on his way. It was kind of wierd, because he was the one that had stopped to talk to me. Oh, well.


I had several hails from poeple, several on bicycles, most of them saying "nice ride!" or similar. Didnt' get to stop and talk with any of them, though.

[amberwolf]

Just for the heck of it, I rode today's identical commute at 15MPH cruise speed instead of 20MPH, to see what the difference in power usage is. Turns out it isnt' much, probably because of the large number of complete stops and starts on the route. Pretty much same nearly-zero wind conditions as yesterday, and same directions for what breezes there were.

Ride data, no pedalling:
21m 39s trip time
4.558miles
19.6mph max
12.6mph avg

27Wh/mile
2.256Ah
122.3Wh
54.9Amax

58.0Vstart
55.2Vrest
49.2Vmin

0% Regen
0Ah Regen
-11.9A peak Regen


I forgot to note yesterday that as I arrived at work, the left front turn signal mount broke; looks like it had been flexed one too many times (it's made from a steel strip so it can bend if the signal hits something rather than breaking the plastic casing). I ziptied it to the handlebar temporarily; that's the blue tie seen in the CA pic in the previous post.

The ammo-can pack is performing well so far, and is balanced within +/- 0.02V on all cells, after one fairly deep discharge (on CrazyBike2) and two shallow ones (on DGA yesterday and today), and bulk charging at 4A max each time.

But the Fusin motor is making some noises I don't like, and has been since I overheated it a while back. I'm worried that the gears are deformed or damaged, and taht a tooth is going to break off and trash them all.

If I have time tomorrow, I am going to work on getting one of the other two Fusin cores from Dogman operational, and swap it out with the existing one. That will do two things, or three if i get the non-freewheeling one working.

1--Get an undamaged gear cluster in there, since I'm pretty sure that's where the noise comes from.

2--Change the winding type from 36V overvolted to 48V to a 48V at 48V. It'll slow down the bike and it's acceleration, but it will also hopefully limit the current a bit and keep me from destroying the motor...maybe. Or at least allow me to more safely go higher in voltage on this bike/motor, wihtout worrying so much about frying the motor, without limiting the current at the controller. I could be wrong....I'm sure I'll smell it eventually if so.

3--Add regen braking, assuming I use the non-FW unit. Not totally sure how good an idea that is, given that I have had problems with even my wrenches and other torque arms on the 36V@48V fusin at 1200W peak, and even eventually breaking a good wrench with the 9C on CB2, a few days ago, probably from the rocking back and forth from the regen braking and acceleration at only 2KW peak. But if I can keep the axle fixed in place, it'll sure save on brake pad wear.


Anyway, we'll see how things go tomorrow, cuz I am also trying to work out how best to fix CrazyBike2 to get it back on the road. I would much rather have it working before Monday next week, than ride DGA that week and the next, as I will be having a much much longer commute of around an hour or more each way, probably more than 30 miles round trip. Much more comfy on CB2, especially after a likely hard night helping remodelling a store several nights in a row.

[amberwolf]

Since it's gonna be at least a few days or more of using DGA exclusively, I moved the CA to inside the "dash" (it barely fits...well, actually it doesn't fit up at the top but only further down inside...I'd ahve to taek it out of it's casing to fit it in properly, which I'm not going to do).

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Since I need more range for the long commute, I moved the main CB2 pack over to DGA into the pannier, and the ammo-can pack to on top of the rack. I would prefer to mount it on the right side to balance things, but I can't find the little rack-ear "shelf" I had planned to use for that. I'd bolt the shelf to the rightside vertical rack support panel, and then strap the ammo can to both that and the shelf, which would be secure enough for my riding, and should be secure enough evne for a spill. WHen I find the shelf I'll get that done.

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Added rear brake pads, and found I had to completely retrue the rear wheel--it was so bad it pushed hte brake arms back and forth even with the pads over 3mm away from the rim. It's better now, but not perfect. Good enough for todays ride and still giving me a little rear braking at least, without rubbing. Several spokes are as tight as they can get so the rim must be badly bent.


Not much else to do with it for now, until I see if anything fails on the ride out tonight or back tomorrow morning. Should take about an hour to get there, but am leaving myself two hours in case something goes wrong during the ride, since I've never taken this route before. Had actually planned to ride it out and back either yesterday or this morning, just to know it, but too many other things had to be done around here that I couldn't do the last week, so I will just deal with it as needed tonight.

[amberwolf]

Ride both ways was relatively uneventful, and only had to use the primary pack, recharging at each end. My only real issue was that the bike lanes were unusable for long stretches of Cave Creek Road, either because of road damage or because they have been restriped at some point in recent years (after I was last on that road, which has been a long while up north of Sweetwater, and a few years even up to there), and are far narrower than a bicycle. In some places, they are only a few inches wide, with ridges of pushed-up asphalt at the join with the "gutter", making it impossible to actually ride in the lane itself. This is true in both directions.

So for a number of stretches, I simply had to ride in the right traffic lane, forcing all the cars to go around me. On my way there, at 8-9pm, it wasnt a big deal because the traffic was pretty light, even on Bell Road whcih is normally horrific traffic during daytime. But on my way back, at 7-8am, it's still "rush hour" and there are a lot of people that are probably almost late for work or just impatient or whatever, so it was fairly stressful.

Sidewalk riding was pretty much as unsafe as street riding, becuase of the number of driveways, damaged concrete, sign posts and utility poles right in the center of the sidewalk, and lots of cars pulling out across the sidewalk and even partway into the road, waiting to make their turn onto the road. Most of that was on Bell, but a fair bit on Cave Creek Road right where the bike lane was the most unusable.

So I chose to ride the road for all of the trip except for my copule of hundred yards of attempting the sidewalks.


The most whiteknuckle part of the ride was in the morning going downhill on Cave Creek Road, becuase at the edge of the road, for over a foot into the road from the gutter, are typical iron grates for drainage--not a big deal. But whoever last resurfaced the road (and improperly remarked the "Great Sonoran Bikeway" bike lanes into uselessness) not only didn't smooth down the edges around the drains, they actually left "rolls" of asphalt on some of them that raised the edges up to three inches. More of them don't have "rolls" at their edges but just very very thick asphalt around them, leaving what amounts to a 1.5-2.5 foot wide pothole that is anywhere from 1" to 3" or more deep.

Most of these drain-potholes are in the wider (but not wide-enough) section of bike lane that is mostly usable, but one must essentially exit the lane every few dozen feet to every couple hundred feet (guesstimate) to go around them. If you don't go around them, you'll need good DH-type suspension and a light bike to avoid a crash and/or wheel damage--I definitely don't have that on DGA, which is not only heavy but even heavier than usual with two packs on it, and has only a basic RST Omni spring/polymer front shock, and hardtail.

These are mostly on the southwest-bound side of CCR, downhill. I'm glad I rode that part in daylight, because at night even my "moped/scooter" headlight might not be sufficient to give me reaction time to avoid them.

On the trip home, on Bell Road, most people passing did so in the next lane. But on Cave Creek Road southbound, most people passing me were so close that had my mirror stuck out any farther, they probably would have hit it; I started taking more of the lane to force them to pass me in the other lane, becuase some areas of the right side of the road were as noted above, unrideable, and I couldn't risk finding one of those spots suddenly and having to swerve, and ending up runover by a car that I didn't have time to see. For the most part, this worked, though a number still passed closely and never changed lanes completely.

There was only one person that was aggressive and honked at me, and that was on Bell Road, as I slowed during approach to a red light, letting it coast down so that hopefully the light would change before I arrived (it didnt'). SInce I was approacing an intersection, and there were no cars directly behind me in my lane, I had taken the lane to prevent right cross/etc. As I was about 8 or 9 car lengths from the intersection, some guy in a small dark car (dunno what kind) approaches me from the rear left, out of one of the two lanes to my left that had already almost slowed to a stop, only this care was continuing at at least half speed (25MPH or more). I guess they didnt' wnat to slow down or stop for the red light, so they thought they'd just go around the already-stopping and stopped traffic in what they assumed was an empty lane.

I was wearing my brown leather jacket, and light gray pants, and a not-yet-used and thus unfaded bright orange mesh vest over the jacket. I don't normally wear such vests these days, as I am on CB2 where it couldn't be seen anyway. But I figured on this ride in the morning it would be a really good idea, and it might be what let them see me in time to not run me over in their impatience.

They honked medium-length, and rapidly slowed, but were probably less than a bike-length from me before they matched speeds and then stopped, just as I braked to a stop at the intersection, and just as a couple more poeple in the stream of pedestrians walked directly in front of me in the crosswalk--I couldn't have continued to get out of the car's way even if I had had time to try.

Usually when someone behind me honks, if they cannot get around me they keep honking, even if we are sitting at a red light when they could not go anyway (and when they are going to go straight, not turn!). This guy did not, at a guess because he was not honking out of aggression but out of warning, though the warning was useless as I coudln't have gotten out of his way anyway--not enough time to ditch right or left or accelerate (even if my path hadn't been blocked by pedestrians). So after we stopped it was all quiet, no revving/etc.

But right after the light changed, and I was on my way across the intersection, and heading to the right side of the lane again, when the other cars to my left were far enough ahead of me and the car behind me that he slammed his throttle to full and roared around me, and he almost hit the car in front of him before he was able to slow down, not only squealing his brakes but actually skidding on the road. I guess he must've been really late to work or something.


Charging at work was easy, with an outlet in the vestibule well out of the way of all the construction crews and materials and such.


The actual ride uphill on Cave Creek Road required fairly close power monitoring, trying to budget watts to 500 and under, to prevent overheating of the geared hub motor. I mostly ascended at 12MPH or less. At some points I had to pedal a bit, though not strenuously, but probably enough to add 50W to the system. I didn't want to damage the motor, because I could not have pedalled the rest of the way up by myself, or gotten home very easily after work. Plus I really don't wanna have to fix another motor. When i got to the top of the hill, I felt the motor, and it was fairly warm on the outside . Later I felt it maybe 10 minutes or so, and it was getting hot as heatsoak thru the casing finally started venting some fo the heat of the motor inside.


The ride home I managed 18-20MPH for most of the ride, with some stretches needing slower speed due to poor road conditions vs traffic to my left. No worries about overheating the motor, even at 600-700W as I was at-speed for most of that. Never got more than very warm.


Ride data for the to-work (pm) route:

55m 16s trip time
14.73miles
22.2mph max
15.9mph avg

32Wh/mile
8.919Ah
469.39Wh
50.87Amax

58.3Vstart
52.3Vrest
47.5Vmin

0% Regen
0Ah Regen
-8.7A peak Regen



Ride data on the wya home (am):
50m 4s trip time
13.98miles
23.5mph max
16.7mph avg

27.0Wh/mile
7.077Ah
377.1Wh
55.03Amax

58.3Vstart
53.1Vrest
48.2Vmin

0% Regen
0Ah Regen
-15.4A peak Regen

I'm considering moving the 9C over to it until I get CB2 back and working, but would rather not.

[amberwolf]

I took Cave Creek Road to Bell and Bell to work, just like yesterday. Uneventful, same as then.

To see what the alternate route would be like, I took 44th Street south to Greenway Road, then that east to Greenway Parkway, and that east to 31st Ave, and south on that to home from there.

Surprisingly, the road was in very good condition, with many stretches in excellent shape, and one long stretch brand new. Like Bell Road, Greenway and especially Greenway Parkway are 45MPH for most of the stretch I rode, and three lanes westbound for most of that. Almost everyone went around me in the other two lanes, usually changing lanes many car lengths back, often signalling the lane change (which is really unusual around here). A few only went just far enough around me to not hit me, but all of them were far enough away to not worry about much. Only one honked at me, and they did it exactly as they were at my left rear quarter passing me, then they gunned their engine and went from about 50 to over 70, maybe 80MPH and almost ran right up the rear end of traffic ahead of them before they barely managed to slow down.


It was a nice enough ride, and in all 17 miles, I only had to stop twice before getting onto 31st avenue, probably 9 miles continuous at 20MPH before the first stop, and several more miles before the next one. I managed to make two of the lights on 31st Ave without stopping, but the 1/2 mile stop signs on a couple of the roads plus a 15MPH school zone didnt' help.

Before I got to 31st Ave, Wh/mile was 27.5; it got a lot less efficient after that, down to 29.6.

Motor never got hot on the wya home, but it definitely got hot on the CCR uphills.


Ride data CCR/Bell to work:
54m 58s trip time
14.54miles
21.5mph max
14.6mph avg

31.6Wh/mile
8.113Ah
424.08Wh
51.84Amax

58.0Vstart
52Vrest
47.8Vmin

0% Regen
0Ah Regen
-13.6A peak Regen



Ride data GW/31st home:
1h 1m 29s trip time
17.14miles
23.0mph max
16.7mph avg

29.6Wh/mile
9.657Ah
504.42Wh
51.67Amax

58.3Vstart
51.9Vrest
47Vmin

0% Regen
0Ah Regen
-8.47A peak Regen


Oh, and I forgot to mention yesterday that the "airless" tire on the rear SUCKS with the weight of both packs plus my stuff for work loading down the rear. It's enough to make the already mushy-feeling tire actively wobble around, almost like having a tire slip off the rim when it's flat, if you've ever had that happen. It's scary at speed going downhill or in a narrow strip with traffic next to you. It's much less of a problem with less weight on it, but it is still bad enough that I don't like it at all.

If it weren't for the probability of a rear flat, and the essentially complete inabilty to fix that on the road due to the way my rear rack/pods work on DGA, I'd just put a normal tube in the tire again. It *can* be fixed on the road, but to get to anyting on it you have to take the wheel off, and that means laying the bike on it's back (after unloading the pod completely), and taking the brake pads off because the arms cant' retract enough to clear the tire.

Oh, well.

[amberwolf]

Before leaving for work last night, I moved the charger from being just stowed in the cargo pod when not using it, to mounted in the triangle, to give me a little less weight back there, and more room in the pod. I considered removing the ammocan battery pack from the rack, but decided not to in case I ended up needing it for any reason.


I took the same route above to work last night, and it was far from uneventful. A few miles in, suddenly I felt something wierd with the rear wheel, as if a whole bunch of spokes had broken, then was almost dragged to a stop on the uphill from an underpass on Greenway; made it to the top barely but only by strongly helping in lowest gear pedalling, and still the motor was pulling over 800W, and I was wiped out by the time I got up there. I doubt I was able to do 10MPH. If I coudl've stopped and gotten onto the sidewalk I would have.

When i got up to the top and onto the sidewalk, I found the rear wheel practically tacoed. No spokes were broken, but *ALL* of them were loose, like wobbly floppy loose. It was as if the whole rim were suddenly made smaller, so that all the tension on all the spokes was released. This did not happen slowly over the ride, it was sudden and instantaneous, and while on smooth road. My rear brakes had just been working normally 20 seconds before that, at the red light at the bottom of the underpass.

I can't figure out why it would go from true enough to have no brake rub on closely-set brake pads, to what looked like I'd been run over by a car, in less than a second.

I managed to manually bend the rim back straight enough that I could then retension it with spokes, but it was still wobbly enough at the best I could do in the 15 minutes or so I could spare without being late to work, that I had to not only leave the rear brakes unhooked, but also actually take off the brake pads completely.

I did nto flip the bike over to do the work, but instead went into a parking lot and put the pod on a curb, and put up the double-leg kickstand from Auraslip, so I could have the rear wheel off the ground for freely spinning it, without emptying the bike.

I found I suddenly had other problems when I attempted to start out again. My headlight would not stay pointed down at the road surface a few dozen feet ahead of me like it used to, and the throttle was hard to move and would stick. Both were caused by the yellow "fairing" on the handlebars. It had moved upward and to the right for no apparent reason. I don't handle the bike by it, or lean on it, etc. But there it was.

TO fix the headlight I drilled some slots in the bottom bakc corners of the plastic with my work utility knife, and threaded a velcro cargo strap thru there and back around the handlebar stem, to pull the bottom down and back, which pulls the light down and forward. Now it is almost where it should be.

The other problem required loosening the set screws for throttle and gripshifter on the right, and moving them rightward about 1cm. Any less and the fairing would just creep over to touch and rub again. This barely left room for my hand on the right bar. Oddly enough, it ended up improving the numbness factor, though. I have always had problems on upright bikes with my hands going numb after a few miles, reagardless of hand position or bar shape or position. Only CB2 has not had much of that problem; my hands are nearly vertical, and gripping in a totally different way, as well as having my arms and hands up a lot higher (level with my chest/shoulders). Still can happen, but nowhere near as fast or as bad.


I continued the ride on Greenway, but the pavement is much worse on the eastbound side, unlike the nice westbound side from yesterday morning. So I ended up taking the sidewalk bike path at a slower speed for most of the way, because the messed-up rear wheel plus the squirreliness of the "airless" tire made it difficult to predict what would happen when I hit bumps or holes or big cracks in the pavement, and with periodic groups of cars moving past me at over three times my speed, I didn't want to slide out becuase of it and end up under a car.


All of the traffic *except* three people were normal and nice. The worst was a woman in the far left lane, not even affected by my presence on the road, yelling out her window "GET OFF THE ROAD!!!!" as she sped by at something around 20-25MPH over the 45MPH speed limit. She never changed lanes or had any other traffic move into her way as they went around me, so she had no reason at all to be an ass like that except just to be an ass.

Two others roared their engines as they passed me without fully going into the other lane, having nearly run up my rear rack before bothering to change lanes at all, but they didn't swerve right back into the lane in front of me so at least they're not stupid as well as asses.

Eveyone else was courteous and safe, though most did not signal their lane changes. One car that could have changed lanes actually stayed behind me with their hazard blinkers on on one of the worst-traffic areas, and only turned them off and went around me (signalling and everything) after the other large traffic burst was gone past. I wish I could thank them for that.


The sidewalk wasn't bad, but because I couldn't see all that far ahead, I couldn't ride it very fast, no more than about 15MPH or so, less in some places. When I got to where there are a lot of driveway and street crossings, I moved back into the road again, as wheel problems or not it was a lot safer than those crossings.


I rode home westbound on the eastbound sidewalk (which is a wide bike path, unlike the narrow westbound side) because I didn't need to hurry, and I didn't want to risk anything with that stupid wheel. Took a LOT longer becuase I basically had to almost stop at every driveway and street crossing because of morning traffic; I did not use the road at all except for 44th st south to Greenway from Bell (bike lane, no traffic). Also because of "scenic detours" the "bike path" with the really wide sidewalk for several miles of Greenway eastbound side, the distance was longer.

But it was nearly completley empty of driveways/crossings and no other traffic on it at all, except in two places, so I was able to ride at nearly 20MPH on it, due to it's very good condition most places. Even so, it still took almost an hour and a half of actual riding, not counting waiting at crossings or driveways or intersections--closer to two hours including those. At some intersections, I and other pedestrians and cyclists had to wait several minutes for cars to stop turning or going thru on red lights, etc., while we had a walk light, to get across.

Most of them did not even slow down for the red lights when turning, even though there was cross traffic too--they just pulled into it and forced the cross traffic to go around them to prevent crashes. I'm amazed there were no accidents.

Once I got to 31st Ave for southbound, I went back to the bike lane in the road, as there is little traffic and msot of it is only 25MPH or less.


I need to rebuild the wheel again, but that will have to wait till tomorrow or Saturday, as I was too tired today to do it before sleeping and getting ready for work again tonight. I just have time to type this up while I eat before getting ready and leaving.

I did end up taking the ammocan pack off, as that is less weight on back and may help the squirrelliness. I don't have time to work out the mount on the front so I'll just have to hope things work like they should on the other pack.

Also have to figure out the fairing problem, and fix that. It was weird how it all started at once, as if I had hit some gigantic pothole or even crashed, but neither of thsoe things happened. Maybe the consequences of an alternate-universe version of my ride leaked thru into my universe here, and affected the bike.


Anyway, ride data:
55m 15s trip time
15.9miles
22.1mph max
17.2mph avg

35.3Wh/mile
10.8Ah
556Wh
49.56Amax

58.0Vstart
51.6Vrest
46.8Vmin

0% Regen
0Ah Regen
-4.2A peak Regen


Trip home:
1h 22m 24s trip time
18.58miles
21.9mph max
13.5mph avg

27.8Wh/mile
9.733Ah
512.65Wh
60Amax

58.3Vstart
51.9Vrest
47Vmin

0% Regen
0Ah Regen
-13A peak Regen


And now I'm off to get ready for the last trip this week (until Sunday night when I go back in again for 5 more days of fun).

[amberwolf]

pics from yesterday:

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[amberwolf]

Mostly uneventful on teh way to work, takign the sidewalk route from yesterday morning but in reverse.

But on the way home this morning, the instant I started cranking and hit the throttle as I left work, there was a loud SNAP and I reacted by stopping everything I was doing and putting my feet down. It sounded like a chain snapping, which would be wierd since I was barely putting any power thru the pedals, but when I retried my startup, I got zero motor power, though I could hear it running (including the gears, which sounded normal so they weren't likely the noise source or damaged).

I thought about it for a minute, and decided there was almost certainly nothing I could do about whatever was wrong in the motor, without tools or parts I only had at home 15+ miles away. Not having any coworkers with trucks at the moment, I couldn't just ask for a ride home.

I shifted down to the granny ring and pedalled away at about 7-8MPH, and I managed about a mile before I realized there was no way I was gonna pedal another 14+ miles home, especially after the long hard night at work I had just had--I wanted to go to sleep right then as it was.

So I stopped at 44th Street and Paradise Lane, on a wide part of the sidewalk out of the way of anyone else that might come along. I put my helmet under the cargo pod to keep it from tipping leftward from the weight in it, and the kickstand up, which put the front wheel off the ground about 2-3 inches. Disconnected phase and hall wires, undid the torque arms, unbolted the wheel, and took it off.

Took off side cover on right (covering clutch/gear) and noted that the tack-welded cover plate on the clutch was popped off on two of three welds, and the last broke as soon as I touched it to push it down, so I pulled the plate off adn immediately saw the problem: The clutch itself is cracked from one of the roller recesses to the outside, preventing the clutch from pressing the rollers into the drive shaft, thus preventing any power from transferring to the wheel.

This also means taht I was not actually hearing the gears, just the unloaded motor revving really fast, when I tried again at the start of the problem.

I stared at it for a couple of minutes, trying to figure out a way to force the rollers onto the shaft or at least get something jammed in there to give me even partial power transfer, but I couldn't think of any. Then as I reached for my toolbag to put it back together and just pedal as far as I could toward home, I saw the hose clamps I keep in there for various emergency uses.

One was just enough bigger than the clutch's outer diameter that I knew it could hold the clutch together well enough to work, if I could fit it in the narrow space available. It turned out to fit ok, but it rubbed on the side cover a little. I decided I would have to live with that and see how far it would get me, if ti worked at all once back together and on the bike.

While I was working on getting the motor together after the clamp repair, an older gentleman came up and offered help, tools, or a ride to get parts. I had just done the clamp fix, so I politely declined for the moment; he said to just knock on the door of the nearby house if I did need anything and he'd be glad to help. I got it back together and tested it ok for a few hundred feet, and came back to let him know that it seemed to be working. He offered again that if I had further problems I could come back and he'd help if he could.

I don't meet all that many people that really want to help out; I was grateful for his offers even though I didn't end up needing the help. Though I tell ya, if he had come up before I got the wheel off, I might've taken him up on the help, and asked for him taking me and the bike back to my house.


I kept the bike in 3rd lowest rear gear and shifted with the front derailer only, starting in granny and upshifting to the other two as needed, and staying at 10-13MPH, trying to keep wattage below 250-300W, which i mostly was able to do. The repair got me *almost* home, lasting 17 miles, about an hour and ten minutes or so of actual ride time.

The repair itself didnt' fail, but the motor doesn't like running so slow, apparently, becuase just like last time I rode at those speeds, it severely overheated and cut out, less than half a mile from home, even though this time I was not towing a trailer full of dog nor was I letting the motor do all teh work, but rather doing as much as I could myself. At a guess that might be 50-75W. The motor was so hot on it's outer casing that I could not keep my hand on it. I poured all the water I had with me on it, dribbling it on there to do what I coudl to cool it faster than just the cool morning air was doing, although I knew it would not likely fix the problem any time soon, and I'd be pedalling the rest of the way.

Half a mile I could do...barely, but I did. After getting home and letting the dogs out, I got the wheel off and motor apart, to take pics and check wear and let it cool off with a fan blowing on the actual motor core (which smells quite bad but not burned, and the mtoor windings are a little on the dark side. ).


Carnage pics now. Note all the aluminum filings built up in the grease and whatnot--they're scraped off teh inside of the right cover by the hose clamp. I knew that would happen, but decided that was better than not being able to use th emotor at all to get home.

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The crack is over 2mm wide when not compressed with the hose clamp, but only shows as a hairline with it compressed.

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Anyway, the total ride was almost two and a half hours; I didn't get home till almsot 10am, and left shortly after 7am. I'm guessing I took about 30-40 minutes fixing the motor, but don't really know for sure. I know when I got home I was so exhausted even the dogs coudl tell, and didnt' go jumping around at me like usual, but kinda hung back more and went to play by themselves quickly after greeting rituals were over. I got them fed, and sat down to get th emotor apart, got it cooling, and then I dozed off sitting there till the dogs barked at someone knocking on the door. By the time I realized why I'd woken up and whatnot, they were gone so I dunno who it was, but I'd had nearly an hour's nap. Not enough, but let me get some food fixed up and now I'm typing this as I eat. Then I'm gonna sleep some more.


Then I'm gonna fix a bike. Not sure which one, cuz at this point both DGA and CB2 need just about the same amount of work to get them running.


Ride data to come later as I don't remember where i set the paper.

[JohnC]

That gotta suck repairing an ebike on the sidewalk with no sleep 17 miles from home.

You need a plan “B”. A bus ride on Valley Metro is $1.75. Even if you have to transfer buses to get home, it’s better than trashing yourself and your motor.

[amberwolf]

I considered it, but the bike is like 80lbs, and the box sticking out the side with all the weight on it there means it can only go on the rack side closer to the bus front, and no other bike can go on there with it. That rack isn't built for that weight, and I couldn't have lifted it up there anyway--probably not in normal conditions, and definitely not right then.

All I could have done would be to go back to the store, and leave the bike there, go home, get parts and tools and come back, probably the next day. But there is nowhere at that store I could keep the bike at--unlike my home store at Metrocenter, the one I was helping remodel has no back room space that's not in use or that wouldnt' be in the way of someone stocking stuff or moving things around, etc. When I am there at night it doesn't matter, and it can be left inside the front of the store, since no customers are there. Not an option during the day when the store is open.


After the older gentleman offered, I probably could have asked him for the ride home instead, but I thought that fixing it and riding home was better, plus I kinda wanted the experimental data on whether the fix would work or not. If he had come up before I got the wheel off, I think I would have asked him, though.



As for the repair so far from home with no sleep...I have had worse in my regular biking days, pre-motor, such as having a wheel collapse from too much weight of cargo, and being unable to do anything to fix it, and essentially having to drag the bike and cargo many miles home. And other various failures precluding riding or even rolling the bike home; I've never had a bike light enough to carry more than a couple hundred feet, because they've either been really crappy heavy frames, or had cargo racks or baskets or whatever on them making them too heavy. The Nishiki I am still working out a TongXin middrive for will be the first "light" bike I have ever had that's still a working bike. (the Schwinn Sierra is not yet back together but it is a pedal-only bike, and it's light enough, too).

But I used to be in better shape, with knees that didn't scream at me while pedalling without assistance, and I myself was 30lbs lighter then.


Anyway, I just woke up so my mind is rambling worse than usual, and I need to go eat something. Then I will ponder which bike to fix first.

[amberwolf]

I couldnt' get the clutch off this motor or off either of the dead ones, so fixing the FUsin is out for now. Before I tried moving the 9C from CrazyBike2 over to DGA, I decided to fix up CB2 first:
viewtopic.php?p=551029#p551029

Seems to have worked though there are issues to resolve, still.

May be a while before I get back to DGA.

[amberwolf]

Alrighty...I decided with the problems CrazyBike2 has had with bad valve stems and leaky tubes, I better try getting this back on the road. So I dug out all the Fusin stuff, and fixed both the 48V motors from Dogman.

They have both been overheated enough to severely darken the windings, but there are no phase shorts. Halls on one didnt' work at all, green (center) hall on the other had no output.

Found that there was a solder blob on the back of the PCB for the one with no halls working, that shorted 5V to ground!

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It seems to have come out of the wire harness solder points, most likley when teh motor was overheated in Dogman's hill-climbing tests. Once removed, the motor works fine. It does have several cracks in teh wire insulation, though, in at least two of the phase wires, so I should replace them at some point.

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While running it to test it, the impossible-to-remove clutch/gears just fell right off. Sorry, no pic, but there is a vid of a later test run:



Then the other motor with the green hall not working turned out to be missing a resistor, it seems to have fallen off (and no trace of it was found) along with at least one chip capacitor (whcih I found stuck to a magnet's end).

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the resistor is supposed to be a 42ohm that connects the hall signal output pin to the green hall wire--the ones for blue and yellow are present and working, as is a fourth that connects the hall power wire to the hall power bus on the PCB. As my hands are too shaky to desolder a resistor from any of my pile of scrap electronics, I just bridged across the pads with solder, which only took a few tries to get right.

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Now this motor works, too. I still can't get it's gear assembly off; this is the one with no clutch/freewheel, just the planetary gears fixed to the axle via a Y-mount, one gear on each end of the Y. It can be used with regen braking, if I want to try that.


So both motors now work, using the 48V Fusin controller system including it's 3-speed switch.


That's as far as I got before I had to clean up everything, feed the dogs and myself, and get ready for bed so I can work tomorrow (though I still can't sleep I have to lay down and try to relax, at least).

Plus, the dogs were really getting upset at me not paying attention to them:

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[texaspyro]

Plus, the dogs were really getting upset at me not paying attention to them

Check your bed for hidden doggie presents... they can be vengeful beasts

[amberwolf]

Yes, they can...fortunately they only leave me drool and muddy chunks, besides the ever-present fuzzy bits.


Mostly when they're grumpy they just don't come up onto the bed, or leave as soon as I am not actually direclty paying them attention--especially Nana. She goes to sleep in her kennel instead, with a gigantic sigh. If I get up to go see her, and she's still grumpy about not getting enough attention, she actually sometimes catches the kennel's wire door with her claws and pulls on it, mostly closing it, and then puts her head down between her spread out paws. Kinda like "and stay out!"


No real news on the bike itself yet. I tried again to get the clutch off of here so I can soak the thing in hot soapy water to get all the aluminumy-bits-in-grease off of it and the rest of the motor, so it can be revived with one offered by Brother Paul, once it arrives via Mdd0127.

I also found my bottle of ATF, and some automotive silicone for the motor covers, cuz I think I am going to try oil-cooling one of the two 48V cores I repaired above inside this one's casing/wheel.

Although, actually, I should put the planetary/clutch off the 48V unit onto the 36V one, and run THAT in the ATF, first, so I can compare it to running it sealed, air-only, under similar conditions to the above slow speeds, which have nearly killed it twice. I need to find a BBQ thermometer first, so I can monitor temperatures inside before and after ATF is added.