Amberwolf's Delta Trike Build v1.0 (The Delta Tripper)

[amberwolf]

I worked on CrazyBike2's replacement for most of today, about 9-10 hours, but the last hour or so of daylight I spent adding that old Navy case to the rigth side under the seat to carry the tools and spare tubes and DMM and cargo straps, to free up the space in the main cargo rack for actual cargo.

No pics yet cuz still waiting on the camera card to dry out (might be by now but I'd rather be sure than damage something by it still being wet inside).

I was gonna use the old Sony camera but the battery is empty and I dunno where I put the charger.

 

[amberwolf]

I decided that since it got wet outside today, I would declare the card in teh rice dry, and test it, and it worked with all the pics intact, I think--so here are the pics from before:

Doesn't look so bad, after all, does it?
View attachment 7





Guess it is a good thing I had not yet put the battery boxes down there...they'da been sqwooooshed. Or at least, the one on the right, whcih woulda probly been the EIG one in the white box.


Now for the pics of the fix, or the fixpix. Double wrenches, 3/8" on outside, tapped onto axle cuz it's a hair on the small side. Probably gonna break easier cuz of that but only solution I had at 6am rushing to get done to be able to go to work. Inside wrench under washers is a 10mm which is a bit loose on there, but better than a poke in the eye.


View attachment 2


Wrench on the leftside tip is another 3/8", again had to tap on, better too tight than loose.


Closer view to show the badly-welded 1/8" (3/32"?) plate steel off an old retail sign added to either side of the ripped-off dropout, and then welded up the middle to fill it some where the dropout piece is missing (presumably still in the intersection; I never went back to look).




Stuff I did that night when I got home (EDIT: I did that the night BEFORE it happened, I just forgot ops), moving the Fusin headlight down, mounted on a bit of old broomstick along with teh front reflector that had been mounted where the broom stick is now.



Now I can actually get to the key and turn it on and off and take the key out (couldn't before cuz it was under the car headlight and right at the steering post, key abutting the post--tha'ts why it's scratched up at the tip there next to teh ring).

 

[amberwolf]

And today it performed very well, including hauilng this 60lb load of 1/2" square tubing sections from retail signage (the T bars that sit over teh aisles to say waht is on each aisle). Worth saving partly becasue they are designed to snap together with the little pushbuttons like crutches and stuff have for height adjustments; can use them for quick-release of stuff, like rails on the trailer, etc.






Took like 40 minutes to get it tied down, though, because the wind had been bad from around late morning until midday, but right then (from just after 2pm to almost 3pm) was really bad, getting worse as I worked on it--some gusts actually blew the tubing off the rack when it was just sitting there, and I had to keep my foot and then arm on the not-yet-installed/tied-down little cardboard L-pieces I used to keep it from sliding off the sides from vibration/bumps. By the time I got it tied down, rain was coming; I didn't get a mile down the road before it began a very light sprinkle, which died away and sun broke out again.

Wind was still really bad; I couldn't rde on McDowell itself because of it as it was so strong it kept blowing me into where the traffic would have been only a second before, each time. So I stuck to the sidewalk until it ran out going under the 101....

 

[amberwolf]

...now here's a rant: There is sidewalk on the north side of Mcdowell from 101st Ave just west of the 101 until a few dozen yards east of 101st Ave. Tehn it just ends, with a fence and a 6-inch (at most) wide curb. WTF? So one must cross Mcdowell to the south side, continue on until you get to the 101 overpass of Mcdowell, where the sidewalk again just ends, with a steep gravel slope (I mean REALLY steep--I don't think I could even walk on it; it's angled so much from the road edge up to the top of the bridge over Mcdowell).

There is, however, a sidewalk on the NORTH side of Mcdowell here, that does go under the 101. But that sidewalk doesnt' go very far west of the 101; it vanishes into the same fence (wrapped around) and dirt lot that it did from the west side over at 101st ave.


There's a crosswalk right there at the 101 west side, with a light and a button, but it doesn't work. Press it all you want and you never get a walk signal (I waited a few cycles just to see; there's a lot of intersections these days like that), and the traffic is heavy enough that it would be a big risk to try to cross without all of it being stopped for you. Traffic comes from the 101 southbound exiting to Mcdowell, as well as Mcdowell east and westbound, at this T-junction.

Anyway, I gave up and just waited for a light to stop the eastbound Mcdowell traffic, and rode out onto eastbound Mcdowell, just as the last of the stream of 101-exiting cars passed me there, and went as fast as I could (20MPH), not daring to get near the road edge with the wind gusting around, but basically taking the righthand lane (only two lanes there), then suddenly it merges both eastbound lanes into one....thankfully the shoulder gets a lot wider (from a few inches to almost a car's width) just after that, and there is also a ramp up onto that northside sidewalk, right where there is a break in the median too.

So I pulled off to teh side and waited for traffic to pass, then got to the middle and waited for westbound to pass, then got onto that sidewalk and follwed it's twisty-curvy-rampy sort-of-smoothness until I got to 91st Ave, and crossed to its east side, to continue up the bike lane there...but the road is so bad I had to get on teh sidewalk again instead.

 

[amberwolf]

Several times it sprinkled on the way home, but the wind was much more of a concern. For almost the first 2 miles or so, I guess, on 91st Ave northbound, I had to stick to the sidewalk because of traffic and really bad road conditions that I was afraid would either break the trike or vibrate the load off (or me!), at around 10-12MPH. At that speed, I didn't need to use the throttle hardly at all-maybe about 75W, becuase the wind behind me was pushing me hard enough to move me without anypower at all at just under that speed!

But there were also side-winds, in big gusts, from the west, blowing me toward walls and trees and poles and stuff to the right of the sidewalk; so I couldn't go any faster than taht even when there were very clear and nice stretches of sidewalk that would've been safe to do so, with no driveways or breaks in the wall along it for quite a ways.

After that I was able to mvoe to the road, and even at 20MPH it was only around 150W, sometimes up to 250-275W, to sustain that speed; the wind was getting gustier and pushing a lot harder. At one point I stopped to put on my jacket and gloves and firefighter pants because I could see a really dark raincloud set coming from the southwest, and didnt' want to get caught in that in just my jeans and t-shirt, cuz with windchill while wet I'd probably end up sick (certainly very uncomfortable!). I was (still am) already very hurty cuz of the sudden weather change, between hte low pressure and the humidity, I guess. Didnd't need anythign else on top of that.


But it was still hard to stay in one place on the road, even with really nice "new" asphalt, nice and smooth all the way from there to almost Northern (around 3-4 miles I guess; I don't remember where the bad ends and good starts). Traffic was thankfully very light; it seems to be only heavy up to the point the bad road surface ends, for some reason. I expected it to be heavier where the road is newer, but I guess it isn't repaired based on that. All the driverss were very courteous and went all the way around me into the other lane whenever there wasn't enough room to give me a whole car's width between them and me, no honking at me, etc.

Then I got to part of the route that is the same route I took to the previous store at 94th Ave & Northern. Other than the problem of the wind trying to gust me into traffic, or tip me over, it wasn't so bad. But there were tractors and other farm implements out and about on the road on NOrthern eastbound, before and after me, so I guess people were watching out better than usual and tending to stay in the far left of the left lane anyway, so I didn't get hit from behind on the many occasions I had to steer left to keep from tipping over from the wind gusts.

It was also very dusty, even with the sprinkling rain with intermittent downpours, though less and less of the dust with each one of those--but for all of the farm coutnry areas on 91st Ave and on Northern it was pretty hard to see (or breathe).


I got home after about an hour and 10 minutes, only about 10 mintues longer than my trip to this workplace, whcih is ~16.5 miles one way. (stats later when ifind the paper I wrote them on) Sprinkles were very very light, but wind kicking up bad, and thunder kinda close, so I hurried to get the trike up as close to CrazyBike2 whcih is "up on blocks" (chairs) on the back porch as I could, so I could use my "tarp" over them both.



Can't see it in the pic but one corner to the front right in the pic (where front of trike is) is folded up a bit to leave a big air gap, on the side away from the wind, cuz teh chargers are hooked up and running under there, too, for lights and traction packs.

I got it tarped up just in time, as you can see the downpour's first drops wettng the ground around it.

Was enough short bursts of rain to turn the ground to mud for a short time; now it's stopped but is still occastional thunder and lots of gusty wind, nowhere near as bad as it was earlier. Now it's just nice enough (75F) to leave the doors and windows open and air out the house. (humid though).

(note: had to submit the posts in chunks, cuz ES would stop responding with the one long post; dunno why).

 

[Sancho's Horse]

Dude, that description of your bike coming apart, slow motion, detached...scary stuff. Glad it didn't turn out too bad. I had this crazy slow motion experience when I wrecked my car. I was driving on some snow/ice which nobody had driven on except for one person, and I made the stupid decision to stay in the wheel tracks of this earlier car. The tracks had essentially iced in, which was fine...until I hit the spot where the previous car had started to lose control. This resulted in a roll-over and coming to rest upside down wedged at an angle against a telephone pole. The crazy slow motion part was I had a small military bag I kept my carving supplies in, and I remember looking over and seeing these incredibly sharp knives come out go into the air, and eventually stick into the passenger interior door panel making a line of knives/exacto in the door. Lots of memories in those few seconds.

 

[amberwolf]

That would've really sucked if the bag had opened in a different part of the roll....


Since the wheel fell off, I have been uber-paranoid at every little tilt of the trike, and since I ride on crowned and often very uneven roads most places, it sucks, cuz I keep getting little panic attacks, and have almost crashed twice because of my reaction to the sudden slight (VERY slight) rightward tilt of the trike--causing me to instinctively slam on the brakes and lean to the left and because nothing is actually wrong until I do that, the trike almost flips over to the left (into traffic).

So far all Iv'e gotten is an adrenaline rush. But if I can't stop myself from doing that, it's gonna get me squoooshed.


In ohter news, I was gonna post three days worth of data tonight, cuz I fell asleep before doing it last night or the night before, but I've lost the paper with Mon and Tue data on it. All I can really remember is the distances of just under 35 miles each day, the times of just over 2 hours 10 minutes or so each day, and around 26WH/mile, around 16Ah used, and average speeds of around 16MPH.

For Monday, I took my usual route from the previous two weeks of Butler to 51st Ave, south to Northern, west to 91st Ave, then instead of continuing to 94th, I turn south on 91st and head down to McDowell and west to 101st ave to work. Then home was the reverse of that.

For Tuesday, it's the same to work, but coming home it's the parking lot to 99th Ave then north on that to Northern, then my usual route home.

For today, Wednesday, I took 29th south to Northern, west to 91st, south to Thomas, west to 99th, south to the parking lot to work. Then home was the reverse of that. It was notably faster, and more efficient, as I did not have to stop very much, unlike when I take Butler, which has lots of stops (at least every half mile, sometimes more, plus detours where Butler doesnt' go thru, and places where there's lots of speed bumps I have to almost completely stop to go over (less than 5MPH for some of them, or it's like driving over a small pile of 2x4s at 40MPH in a car).


I may do the same ride to work again tomorrow, except go west on Indian school instead of Thomas, cuz the road between IS and Thomas is like a washboard. Imagine a 2x2 in the road every 10 feet or so, and riding over that at 20MPH on a no-suspension trike, or say 4x4s instead of 2x2s and at 40-50MPH in a car. That's what it's like to ride most of 91st ave between IS and Thomas, because of cracks in the road that are "pinched together" like crustal faults, and they stick up like little mountain ranges, some of them more than an inch or two high (and only as wide as a broomstick or so).

I have to either slow down to 10-15MPH, or be beaten up and tossed all over the place, actually bouncing around the road dangerously, for that kind of road surface. There's some stretches of 99th Ave like that too, around the same area, which makes me wonder about the land there.

I have considered taking the time while riding home to explore parking lots and such to see if they also exhibit the topology; if they don't then it's likely to be a symptom of traffic slowing and accelerating, compressing and stretching the asphalt surface (which is probably just a few inches thick over dirt, like much of Phoenix, instead of an asphalt layer over a concrete bed over gravel over rock, like a good road should be, so it will last more than a couple of years before crackign apart).

The other major danger is the manhole covers, as most of them are near the edges of the road, and they pave around them, not raising them up when they add new asphalt, so some of them are several inches below the surface of the road--worse than a standard pothole because these are sharp-edged holes, some of them a handspan across and some a foot or two, depending on what kind of manhole cover/access they are for.

Sometimes (when the resulting hole would be right in a car tire's path) they will add a concrete ring around it instead of asphalt, and a new metal cover ring inside that for the cover to sit on, so it is all nearly level, only a half inch or less border (some stick up, some are still holes); those are tolerable but still not much fun. The other kind are very dangerous to any bike, and could be fatal to me on the trike if I hit one wrong, causing either rear wheel to dip quickly enough it could flip me over, or the small front wheel could sink in far enough fast enough on some to potentially cause me to either lose control or to actually flip over the bars. Niether is that likley, but losing control is a possibility--I almost have a few times when I couldn't avoid them, and hadn't slowed enough before reaching them.





Anyway, today's data to compare shows Wh/mile is notably less than with all the lttle stops and starts, and time is faster too. Also, apparently I have a lot of side street detours on the Butler route, adding up to nearly a couple of miles or more! Actual trip time is also significantly less, by as much as half an hour (trip time listed in my data is what the CA shows, that doesnt' include time waiting at lights and stuff, just the time while moving--that's one pet peeve of mine, that hte CA doesn't have an option for true elapsed time)

1h 50m 48s trip time
32.83miles
20.7mph max
17.7mph avg

22.8Wh/mile
13.84Ah
746.3Wh
30.1Amax

58.0Vstart
51.4Vrest
50.8Vmin


Lighting battery use is dependent on actual travel time, as I run the lights all the time day or night. If I have to sit at a few lights waiting for a left turn for a while, that may increase use enough to notice because of the turn signal, but not very much. Typically it's around 8Ah for these trips, sometimes 7 and sometimes 9. I havent' written it down, because I don't haea wattmeter on the lights and I am always in a hurry to get the charger unhooked during break at work, and get it packed back in teh bag, so I barely have time to look at the display to be sure it says FULL and what the voltage is, and the Ah put back in. Haven't had time to write it down whn I see it, and I forget all but the gist of it later. At home, I almost always am so tired that I lay down right after I get home and get the dogs fed and let out to play, and start the bike charging, and give it a once-over checkup to be sure nothing's about to fall off. I usually fall asleep before charging is done, so it sits until I am aobut to leave the next morning, and I don't have time then to note it down either--just ot verify it says FULL and the voltage is right, and the Ah count is near what I expect.


I *have* had one problem, last night, where the traction pack charger (black Kingpower / kingpan) didn't finish the charge cycle for unknown reasons. It just had the red light on, no green or yellow, so it was in an unknown state. Pack was only at 58.0V instead of 58.2 like usual, and Ah count was still at 0.8something, meaning it hadn't fully reversed the count of Ah used. I turned it off and back on, but it is so close to full voltage that it wouldn't kick back on, so I had to hope it was still working but just stopped for some fault condition I don't ahve a list for.

When I staredt he charging after getting home today, it did start normally, verified by the CA readings. So hopeflly a onetime glitch. Hate to have it puke out on me whiel overnight charging and it not actually refil the pack at all--I wouldn't have time to do anything about that, and would have to take it with me and recharge at work (assuming it even *would* charge the pack at that point) so I could be certain of enough power to get home...I figure I can do 50 miles on this pack at present usage levels and just barely be at LVC of 49V (14s), 3.5V/cell. At 33+ miles each day, depending on path, I'd have to ride at a relative crawl to save enough power to make it home a second day without recharging from the first day and the outbound trip of the second.


Anyway, I'm dozing fitfully pretty often now so I should submit this post.

 

[amberwolf]

by accidetn while getting ready for work today I found the SOny's charger, so I brought them with me and the mount and put it on the trike at luhnch. Then I took vids on the ride home startig aruond 3pmish tll almost 430pm when Igot home, of some of the bad road sections; YT takes forever, so if they ever finish uploading I'll post them here.

Each one is a relatively short section of the ride, just kinda showing how bad some of the areas are. Any long stretches of good road I turned off the camera, as there is not enough memory to get more than about 40 minutes of the ride, which wouldnt even hae been half of it. And that would probably never upload to YT, ro take days, if it idd. And it'd be terribly boring, as if what I did record isn't already.


Note that the camera must have some sort of image stabilization thing cuz the bumps are much worse than you can see in the videos, for the most part, especially the ridges on the first video.

Bike noise and wind noise are terrible. You can hear the front freewheel thru the fork/stem/handlebars (camera is clamped to the upper left handlebar just above the left front turn signal/marker light). When i startup sometmes you' hear something like a kick; thats' the Fusin sensorless motor trying to find direction and startup; it doesn't always do that but someims an it's really loud and jerky when it does.


On camera, I had to stop a couple of times to fix things--the first one I guess I snagged some baling wire in the rear wheel; it caught the spokes and flailed around; I didn't knwo what the noise was (dunno yet if you can hear it on camera but it was loud like a spoke broken and wahcking the frame every rev) so I stopped and got it dpown off the road (99th ave is 50mph and two lane with no shoulder, just gravel to the right of a 6 or 7 inch dropoff where i was), just before a nother wave of traffic came by. It was quite a bump, which you cn see in the alst seconds of the vid MOV07264.


Thankfully most of them are used to farm equipment arund there, and since I have the same SMV sign many of those do, they react the same and go around in the next lane for the most part. Heck, when I was looking back waiting for oncoming traffic to pass long enough for me to lift it back onto the road, all the cars that had been in what would then be "my" lane all moved over to the other one, seeing that I needed to get onto the road. That is NOT something I expected, and would never happen over where I live near Metrocenter.

On Northern it is similar, until all the "farm country" areas have been passed, by the time 59th ave has been reached going back eastward toward home--poeople are more courteous than I expect, for the most part, though there are always some idiots.

Indian school form 99th to 91st was not fun though; the vid shows how cars passed me. to make my left at 91st I had to get over way before I was supposed to, cuz a wave of more traffic was coming up fast an dowuldn't have let me over. You cna see how bad the manhole covers areas i go thru the left turn lane up to the red light, though. MOV7266



One silver car in a vid segmetn on 91st ave moves around in front of me; he had been roaring up behind me *really* close, less than an arm's length behnd me--if I had slowed or braked AT ALL he would have hit me, and he jsut kept right behind me for 10-20 seconds, as if he was waiting for me to speed up, even though we were just about the only vehicles on the road as far as I could see behind or in front of me, and he had two lanes to my left to be in, I think. At least one, plus the lane I was in was a wideer one than normal, plenty of room for him to go around one way or another. Plus he couldve easily seen the SMV sign, and the fact I was already at the 20MPH speed that was less than half of his, long before he reached me. When he finally did pass he just kinda barely swerved left around me and then right back in front of me and roared away. Probably hard to hear in the vid with wind noise.


Oh, and the second troulbe stop was cuz the headlight I put on the broomstick near the cranks had vibrated off cuz of the potholes and road ridges and whatnot earlier in the ride. end of mov7266 begin of 7277


Most fo teh stuff I go over in the vids is at 20MPH. But on crossing Grand at Northern, I'm down to 16-17MPH over the tracks and just before, slowing to 12-14MPH as I cross the intersection (just coasting) and holding that speed or less until after I cross the second tracks. Even so, you can see from the camera shaking how bad it is--the entire trike is bouncing around just like that.

Then a while later after I get on 61st ave, I took a turn on Laurie , and it's horrible. I'm only going 5-8MPH there, and on one spot I slow to a near complete stop to cross a deep section of missing pavement. (did a special uturn just to show you guys that road, cuz after the first time I took that road was the last tillnow an i used Seldon to it's nrtoh instead))

For a couple of intersections I am only going 8-10MPH, and it's still bad. Those bad spots are impassable at 20MPH; I'd probably crash from being bounced off the trike, or the wheels might come off. It feels like tehy're going to at 20MPH on the ridged parts of 99th ave in the first vid; those are someof the ones that feel like 2x2s across the road.







Off camera I did have one close-call--I was waiting at a light at northern and 61st Ave to turn left on 61st, and some lady in a big SUV comes up beside me and then after stopping, starts to move again (red light still) and starts to sidle over at an angle into the lane and space I am occupying in the turn lane, after looking directly at me, eye contact thru her open drivers side window and all, and only stopped when I yelled out HEYYYY!!!!! at her, when she jerked the wheel back to the right and slammed her brakes. Then she yelled out "sorry didn't see you!" and then she gunned the engine and ran the red light (thankfully all the cross traffic had already gone thru). Of course this owuld happen when the camera wasn't running....but it wouldnt' likely have picked up her SUV anyway cuz I had it angled downward to see the road better. Still, Iturned it on as soon as she started speed off but it didn't start recording in tie to catch anything (it takes a few seconds to power on and then get into modes.


So when I got home I decided I would DayGlo up the trike a little. I will have pics tomorrow; I was just too fumblefingered to hold the camera and operate it when If inished, and now it's too dark. Anybody that says they didn't see me now means they should have their license revoked for being blind. :lol:



Oh, also, this is what people got to see of me on the way home:


I got this off a register counter being tossed out; it's a milk-plex cube for the top of the light pole that tells you wich registers are open, with hamster on all four sides, open on top and white on the bottom witha hole for socket and post. So if I put it on a pole on top of the trike and stick a CFL in it, it'll make me even more visible (and less aerodynamic :lol at night, both as a cube and from the downlight off the bottom, and I can put a DayGlo pink border around it to make it more visible in daytime. (and make the pole pink, too).

Mostly I was pondering it as a joke when I saved it from work, but after that lady above I am kinda seriously thinking about it.

 

[amberwolf]

oh, yeah, i got lost tyinping up the aboeve, and forgot to post that i took the LED MC tailight off hte old kennle trailer that has'tn been used in ages, and used it to replace the incandescent taillight on the trike.

since the LED TL only has red LEDs and no white "license palte" downlight, I put one of those fishtank LED light bars across the back of the clamshell rack just under the LED TL to simulate te same thing, only brighter and whiter, with a strip of electrical tape across it's back facing edge just in case it vibrates up over time so I don't end up with white light shining to the rear (illegal). It was still too light outside to see ther esults of that part, but the LED TL red lights are much brigher than the incandescent one.


The whole reason i did decide to do the dayglo paint on the trike (after being inspired to think about it by the stupid lady) was cuz I already had the box of paint out so I could primer-white around the sides of the LED TL unit, whcih is all clear plastic, so that it has less outside light coming into it and is easier to see the red light from it even in daytime, and so more red light is sent to the rear instead of jus tscattered around to the sides which I don't need.


Anyway, we'll see what it looks like in the dark later; i'm still too wiped out to get bcak up na dlook. already dozed off tyoing up the first post, and almost a couple times on this one. now i'm gonna let that happen. cu2mrrw

 

[amberwolf]

frgot to post data from yesterday:
1h 53m 49s trip time
32.39miles
20.4mph max
17.0mph avg

23.2Wh/mile
13.91Ah
750.4Wh
28.92Amax

58.2Vstart
52.3Vrest
50.9Vmin


and today, same route as the day before yesterday:
1h 53m 55s trip time
32.36miles
20.5mph max
17.0mph avg

22.5Wh/mile
13.38Ah
724.66Wh
31.17Amax

58.2Vstart
52.6Vrest
51.0Vmin

I rode slower for a long section of bike lane on Northern prior to reaching Grand, cuz I suddenly felt really tired, and didn't feel confident in reacting to 20MPH situatins, so i slowed to 15-17 for a cpuole miles at least. Lots of stoplights this time, too. I sped back up to just under 20MPH just before tgrand because of the traffic flow and no more bike lane, and narrower lanes. Slowed to 15 or so to cross grand and the tracks cuz the road sucks, and at one point took the sidewalk just after grand until passing the second set of tracks cuz of the road, my tiredness, and traffic.

Ther's a vid of that but will be a while before it's uploaded--the stuff from yesterday hasn't even gotten near completion. I was actually trying to vidoe another of those idiots taking the train tracks instead of waiting for the green light and turning directly onto Garand, but the camera didnt' wake up fast enough so I missed him; I left it running anyway, and then I pointed it rightward so you can see the "path" along the tracks I am talking about more clearly, as I pass the tracks while on Northern.


I turned it back on again some time later, I forget why, but I think I missed that too. I wish it's standby was longer, but it only pauses for a min utre or two, I guess, before powering off automatically. Want it ot be ready to record instantly at any time I hit the bugtton., but it doesn't work like that.




anywya, i also took picks of the lights just befoe i left for owrk, has both flash and nonflash versions of each one



View attachment 3





then here's daylight pic sof the new color scheme right after i got home today. if i'd had more white primer or paint i'd've done more dayglo; probably whole back end in pink cuz it's extremely visible especially in earlymorning/predawn light, which is what i ride half my route in to work now, (fist half is still very dark) .




View attachment 12





also got more 1" square tubing, which is what i used for those now-pink anti-twist bars from the rear axle to the BMX BB shell.


View attachment 8


and pics of the now-broken glass tubes that used to waterproof the LED downlights. I guess they broke from the bumps today, on the washboard road sectionso f 91st or 99th, or any one of a number of other bad spots. LEDs still work firne, jus tnot waterpoof anmore.

 

[amberwolf]

i also forgot: as of last night, the tirke now has at least 652 miles on it, with only two major parts of it breaking off so far, and one tire coming off the rim. I'd say thats pretty good for an experimental piece of junk i only intended to ride a few miles on to test out the theory of a trike..... :lol:

 

[emiyata]

i also forgot: as of last night, the tirke now has at least 652 miles on it, with only two major parts of it breaking off so far, and one tire coming off the rim. I'd say thats pretty good for an experimental piece of junk i only intended to ride a few miles on to test out the theory of a trike..... :lol:

The amount of load you are hauling and the speed , I am sure you went beyond what the original designer intended. Using things surplus or just junk is the name of the game. The place I get bike parts people bring bikes with a flat tire to junk. Many of them have less than 10 rides. He gets so many bikes he runs them in the shear and cuts up the frames.
I went to the local surplus house here and picked up a new industrial rain suit(a bit dirty),shrink wrap tubing and some copper split rivets (building battery charger and tester).

 

[amberwolf]

The amount of load you are hauling and the speed , I am sure you went beyond what the original designer intended.

I doubt that much of anything I do with stuff is remotely what the designer intended. :lol:

Using things surplus or just junk is the name of the game. The place I get bike parts people bring bikes with a flat tire to junk. Many of them have less than 10 rides. He gets so many bikes he runs them in the shear and cuts up the frames.
I went to the local surplus house here and picked up a new industrial rain suit(a bit dirty),shrink wrap tubing and some copper split rivets (building battery charger and tester).

I used to love going to all the surplus places...lots of them don't exist anymore--not enough people willing to pay as much for the stuff as what it is than scrap recyclers for the materials themselves, these days. Even those that still exist I rarely get to anymore, because I am afraid I'd buy stuff I don't really need just cuz I can imagine a use for it. :lol:


It's been extremely windy and gusty the last three days. I don't remember if I wrote down the data from the previous two days, but I did write it down today. Previous two days it's been about 26Wh/mile, and the day before that it was about 23Wh/mile IIRC, without the winds.

Yesterday on the way home in the afternoon, I hauled about 150lbs of trailer+dogfood; would've been almost 250lbs but a coworker was concerned and volunteered to take some of it with her to my home store, which is only about 2.5 miles from my house, so that I could go pick it up there after dropping off the stuff I'd already tied down on the trailer. As I had about 17 miles to go to reach home first, I took her up on that.

With the winds buffeting me around I couldn't ride with traffic very stably or fast. They were from the southwest and northwest, gusting hard enough to sometimes push me several MPH faster than I was already going, quite suddenly, so I'd actually have to brake to slow back down to 20MPH, then throttle back up cuz the gust would die and I'd slow down to <15MPH, and repeat this over and over. Other times I'd get the same thing only in reverse, gusting slowing me down several MPH, even with full throttle, just under 900W of power constantly. This happened frst on 99th Ave, where I had no option but to keep going, taking the whole right lane, actually riding quite a bit to the left side of the lane as the gusts kept pushing me hard to the right; actually tipping me up on the right wheel a few times!

After the first couple of tips I decided to stay down at 15MPH or less, until I reached Indian School Rd and could turn east onto it, essentially away frm the wind, so I had a tailwind that pushed me so hard it only took about 150-200W to go 20MPH! :lol:

Still very gusty, though, and a mile later once Ir eached 91st Ave and had to go back north on it, I was in the same predicament, but at least I had a sidewalk to ride on instead of the road, and could go a lot slower, util reaching I thinka bout Camelback, a mile north of there. After that there were typically enough structures on the west side of the street to block enough wind to make it possible to seafely do 20MPH on the street, since most o th e wind was from the west.

It was still stressfully gusty to Northern, but was mroe even by the time ireached there and headedeast, almost directly away frm the wind. Rest of the ride to 61st ave where I turned north to go to Butler and continue home was more like 300W to stay at 20MPH (nromally around 500W or so when no wind). After that structrus interfedrf enough to keep wind down except on certain stretches of bulter and it was a more normal ride. But then after i got home about 6pm (2 hours after leaving work) I had to unload, feed dogs, put them allb ack in, then go up to my home store and pickup the rest of the stuff and come back home; that took around an hour and a half, so I got home just in time to try to go to bed at 8pm or so. Was too tired to post then and am really too tired to do it now ut can't sleep.


Today was about teh same, only much stronger steadier winds, both on the way to work and the way home. Plus, the pack didn't fully charge last night--the charger (again) terminated with just it's read "on" light and no "result" or "status" light on--usually yellow hen charging and green wen done. I think it had been 16Ah used up, and it only put 12 back before it stopped. only 57.4V instead of 58.2


guess i had a naptime typing. I forget what else wI was going tosay there.

anyway it was worse witht e winds today; less on trailer only 1 bag of food so about 50lbs total incl trailer. On 99th from Mcdowell thru Ind schol was full throttle ~900W the whole way and still only 17MPh--that ought to get me past 25MPH, so the winds were that strong, pretty steady--and teh ewinds were still crsoswidns form the west, but msotly northwest I guess.

mmm...had another nappy i think. lessee where I was:


On Ind sShocol road it was <200W to go 20MPH for the mile to 91st, then was about 700-800W to stay at only 18MPH. I stopped once to check things afer some rought road around bethany and the mtor was getting pretty warm. it's not meant for more than 500W continuous, and I'd been doing at least 7ooW continuous with bursts of 800-900w for seconds at a time, every couple dozen seconds, for quite a while.

still, even by the time i got home at 7pm it hadn't really gotten hot hot; and i checked it once after an hour or so, when i got done wiht dogs and dinner and my first unintential nap.


was going to talk about some other stuff but i forget what it was. maybe tmorrow.

data fom ride:
2h 5,m 41s trip time
33.51miles
21.5mph max
15.8mph avg

30.2Wh/mile
19.49Ah
1011.1Wh
36.94Amax

57.4Vstart
51.0Vrest
48.8Vmin


maybe i'll remmeber tomorrow what i was gonna say.

 

[amberwolf]

On the way to work there was strong steady cold wind from soutwest. Very cold, for me--felt like 30F or less with windchill; was officially in the mid-high 50s F, which means at least several degrees colder out where I live, and even colder than that where I ride presently. I had to keep moving all my fingers or they would go numb in less than a minute, despite the "hand windshields" and two layers of gloves, as well as longjohns under my clothes, another longsleeve longjoghn-like shirt just under the leather MC jacket, and teh fireman's pants over my regular thick jeans. Also pedalling (well, might as well be fake pedalling as it doens't do anything past about 5MPH) to keep my legs moving and blood circuilating. I only had to stop for two red lights the whole way there (I forget which ones, but seveal miles apart), and two stop signs (both right by my house) so not mouch chance to exercicse my hands/etc during the wait for green. Ended up stopping two times to do this, between lights.



Back home, less wind than previous days by a lot, but still cold enough to need my jacket (not te rest of the gear) to keep from shivering from windchill. Also no cargo (well, a couple of wire racks, maybe a few pounds, on the trailer). Was able to ride my normal route except was so tired I did't want to take northern in traffic past 61st ave, so took the butler/sidestreets route; it's only a few minutes longer due to the many stops and starts and a couple of traffic lights that won't change for me, and I cant' just cross becuase of heavy constant traffic on the cross streets, so I have to wait fo r a car that's gonna make a left turn (as I am already wiating at hte straigth thru they cant' reach the small sensor loop even if they pull up behind me really close, which some do).



Much mroe "efficient" today at about 26Wh/mile, vs the 30 yesterday and day before, but not as efficient as previous nonwindy days, especially when I can ride all the way on Northern home, wihtout many stops or slowdowns. (but that's heavy traffic and as I get closer to home there are way way more morons out tehre, making it more dangerous to be on those roads because of their impatience and stupidity).


This mornig the pack charger was STILL RUNNING, which is very strange; it was down to almost no amps, maybe 0.08A, but only up to 58.0V. I'm gonna have to open up the ammocans and check pack balance, but I can't tonight; will ahve to be Friday night after work or Saturday morning thru midday before I go work an evening shift at my home store (which is not going to be fun, as I will be *starting* work aobut the time I usually *leave* work presently, and working until after I would usually be asleep. ).


I expect it's the charger and not either of the packs, but I gotta check, cuz one of them is RC LiPo and we all know how that stuff can be.



data fom ride:
1h 51m 32s trip time
31.86miles
22.1mph max
17.1mph avg

26.2Wh/mile
15.60Ah
831.38Wh
28.96Amax

58.0Vstart
52.0Vrest
50.1Vmin


Sorry i stil don't remember what i was gonna talk aout yesterday.

I did remember something else: a couple days ago, maybe three, i didnt' see until too late a rock that was bigger than a golfball but just a little smaller than a small orange, mabye the size of a biliard ball? very dark colored on dark asphalt in the complete darkness between 1-mile intersections with oly my headlights to show me what's there. I hit it dead on with the righ t rear wheel (the motor wheel) which was a heck of a jounce; I thought I was going to crash for a second, and the trailer wheel hit it too, which almost flipped over the trailer--it bounced back and forth between wheels for a couple of seconds!

I pulled over and stopped (somewhere along the bike lane segment of Northern after I pass Grand beforfe I go south on 91st) to check it out, and found no damage to rim or tire or spokes, but it was dark even with the flashlight, so I meant to chec k i tout at lunctime at work--but as uusaly I forgot all about it until just now (I probably remembered on the road a few times, as I saw various debris). Must be ok though as idt doesn't feel any different than bfeor. Should do an inpsection when it's still ligh t outside though, but next time that happens willb er tomorrow after i get home from work cuz I probaly wont' remmber while at work either, or wile i'm on a part of the road that i can pull over and stop for a long while and check it out.


Oh, and there's now at least 788 miles on the trike at this point. Will break 822 by the time i get home tomorrow, and at least another 5 on Saturday.

 

[texaspyro]

How many SPERM (spokes per mile) does this thing get?

 

[Sancho's Horse]

On the junk note. A pretty good starting point for the frame of a trailer IMO...here in the US where these things were recently outlawed...are baby cribs with the drop-down sides. Lots of these things are just entering their end of useful life cycle, and the baby resale shops cannot take them, so...there are lots being discarded. Easily had. Their dimensions are pretty good for a bike trailer, they can take a fair amount of weight, and they have a built in suspension/strapping system with the spring supports. I have one, but we might exit the Chinese century and enter the African century before I have time to convert it. So...just throwing it out there.

 

[amberwolf]

I had to give up on the Youtube video uploads--they always time out after a few hours and never finish, even on the extremly short stuff only a few MB in size.

How many SPERM (spokes per mile) does this thing get?

Actually, I have yet to break a spoke or wheel on this thing. Mostly I think it's because it's not yet constructed in a way that allows a load as heavy as I have put on CrazyBike2, and because it has two rear wheels to distribute what loads I have put on it.

There *is* more impact strain on the wheels because the frame doesnt' flex like CB2s' (being much shorter than CB2), and there is way wya more sideloading on the wheels, so I am surprised that nothing's broken yet.

I *have* broken off the *entire* wheel and part of the frame, but that wasnt' loading, but instead motor torque at the axle combined with insufficient nut tightness and too thin a dropout/frame, and only torque washers rather than arms. The fix of more than tripling (probably quadrupling) the original frame thickess where it ripped the axle thru the dropout has so far worked fine, along with wrenches for torque arms. It's survived 377 miles since then without issue (but it was about 461 miles to break off in the first place...).


Total mileage now is 838 miles, and after my work commute today will be 843 on the trike, and about 1350 miles on the Fusin motor wheel itself, which hasn't broken any more spokes since tensioning them all as properly as I could (which they weren't from the factory).


I think I mentioned the almost-small-orange-sized rock I hit with the Fusin wheel, which didn't apparently damage anything, though I expected the wheel to come apart from it.

(I've copied this section fo the post to the Fusin kit review thread, too)

A pretty good starting point for the frame of a trailer IMO...here in the US where these things were recently outlawed...are baby cribs with the drop-down sides. Lots of these things are just entering their end of useful life cycle, and the baby resale shops cannot take them, so...there are lots being discarded. Easily had. Their dimensions are pretty good for a bike trailer, they can take a fair amount of weight, and they have a built in suspension/strapping system with the spring supports.

It's an interesting idea I hadn't thought of, but I havent' seen any of those around here. I have enough bits to build something like it from retail fixtures, and would proably be even stronger.

My biggest dilemma is how to build a trailer that's wide enough to fit big things on easily, but will fit thru wheelchair-sized gaps in anti-car barricades on trails and such, and will fit on narrow sidewalks for the occasional place that cant' be traversed by road, without having hte whole platform above the tires (making the load up too high and too easy to tip over). So far the best idea is wheels that "jack down" with fold-out "leaves" that would go over the tires to support the wide load. Then it is only tall/wide when it absolutely has to be. But it will be notably heavier that way, and more complicated.





I still can't remember what else it was I meant to talk aobut before, but it feels important.

I think I mentioned that the glass tubes over the white LED fishtank lights both shattered from the vibration of the severe bumps and holes on the roads (I think from the ridges in the roads on 91st and/or 99th Ave; those are the worst parts of the roads out there by far).


However, I foudn a worse road on my last day's return trip from the most recent remodel, last Friday: Thomas Ave, east of ~75th Ave--it becomes really bad, with cracks in the road across it's entire width (at least on the eastbound side), every dozen feet or so, maybe a little more. Some of the cracks would be wider than my entire trike wheel, at least 2", some of them 3" in places, possibly more but I coudln't tell at speed and was in bad traffic (friday early rush hour) so couldn't stop.

But I had to go slower, only about 15MPH at best, because every crack would jar me around as much as those 2"+ ridges on the other roads had, and I didn't relish the idea of either having the trailer flip over and drag me under a car, or the trike itself flip over and dump me there, or have the trike actually break apart from the repeated impacts. It was bad enough I coudln't even kepe my feet on the pedals all the time, as they'd get shaken off at some of the impacts.

Problem is, at those speeds, traffic gets even more pissed off (despite having two other whole lanes to go around me, as I was only using the right hand lane of three) than when I'm at 20MPH. Part of that is because in the city proper, as opposed to areas with farm sections and farm equipment on the roads sometimes, drivers have no idea what the SMV signs mean, and they ride rigth up behind me close enough to almost touch my trailer with tehir bumper before they pass me, so the person behind *them* only has a second or so to see me and slow down (if they weren't already), and then find out htey have to move over to another lane.

Drivers generally do not plan ahead at all in the city, and only change lanes at the last second--it is what causes a lot of collisions around here. They wait until they are *at* an intersection to change from the righthand lane to make their lefthand turn, on a 3 or 4 lane road, and just honk and rage and gun their engine at others that are in their way. Sometimes they just hit other cars instead of being patient or planning ahead (or simply missing their turn and going farther down and turning around), and then everybody has to stop and wait for police and sometimes ambulances to get there to take care of the often multi-car collision scene.

Sometimes they dont' even change from the righthand lane to make their lefthand turn, and simply turn left from that lane once they reach the intersection, going across the lanes of straight thru traffic, forcing them to slam on their brakes or crash into them (whcih also happens).

So you can imagine how far back traffic must get backed up behind any vehicle not able to keep pace with the rest of traffic for whatever reason, even on multi-lane roads where the lefthand lanes are nearly empty of traffic, because people simply don't want to be bothered with paying attention to conditions ahead, or planning ahead and bieng in the lanes with less traffic.



Anyway, eventually I managed to reach an area with a passable sidewalk to ride on that didn't just disappear (common in this city, where an areaalong a main road will have a sidewalk for a distance, then just suddenly not have one, often at an intersection but sometimes in the middle of a stretch with no other path besides the road. Somteims it turns into a dirt or rock path, sometimes it just turns into a wall or a fence, and the only possible way around is to ride or walk in the street). I can't remember for sure but I think it was around 59th Ave, maybe a bit before.

I was trying to reach 51st Ave so I could test-ride it as a return path from the next remodel, which starts in a couple of weeks, down in Laveen at 51st Ave & Baseline--just a hair closer to me path-wise than the last remodel at 101st & Mcdowell, but harder to get to because both the main roads to it are high-traffic ones.

Anyway, shortly after I managed to find and get onto a sidewalk path, the roads got a lot better (of course), but nowhere near good enough to ride on with traffic. At one point there was a parking lot I could stop in, and get off and take pics of the road cracks, but these are only about half the size (or less) of the cracks in earlier westward parts of Thomas. There are still some areas with chunks of pavement missing that are pretty big--big enough to catch and break my front 20" wheel if I were to hit one; thankfully most of those are closer to the lane boundaries than the center or righthand parts of a lane, where I would be riding. I managed to get a pic of a small car entering my FOV in the righthand lane to give some scale, I hope. Oh, and the curb on the median is a 4" high curb, rather than the 6" high ones we have some places, AFAICT.

 

[amberwolf]

It may be a while before I do much with this or anything else.

There was a fire at my house today while I was not home.

 

[amberwolf]

I've been riding DT still for errands and going to the house some mornings to do stuff, but mostly have been using Bill as a chauffer since the house fire, as I am at his place until it's fixed up or I wear out my welcome or I decide I can be on my own so I can have a dog again.

No issues with it so far, beyond what's already been noted. Motor wheel still makes awful noises from what I think is it's freewheeling-cassette mechanism sometimes, but no failure yet, probably cuz I am not using that (it doesnt' even have sprockets on it ATM).


Am using only the larger 48V20Ah pack off CrazyBike2, not the smaller 48V10Ah pack, as I don't need the higher range and sometimes do need the cargo space, as I am not usually hauling the trailer with it except when I know for sure that I will need it.

I'd really rather be riding CB2 instead, but stuff just hasn't worked out to fix it yet.

 

[amberwolf]

Cb2 has been rideable for a ltitle bit now, and dt just sitting. A few days ago me and bill went ot breakfast using the bikes, with him riding dt and me on cb2. It was only a couple of miles round trip but he thought it was still a lot of fun, even though we went really slow so he could get used to dt, and beause the roads are all bumpy and DT has no supsension, faster speeds woudl've brused his recently0-operated-on insides.

So there's more thumbs up for ebikes, even when they're as crazy as mine.

 

[amberwolf]

AFAICR, I havent' used this trike since the above. I've cannibalized a few things (lights mostly, and tires) from it; half the lights are now on my new Mk III version of the kennel trailer (used for Tiny and Yogi, though not at the same time).

But there are still times I wish I had a cargo trike, instead of CrazyBike2 and a trailer, so there is gonna be a new version of this trike that may end up cannibalizing yet more parts from this one...though I would rather leave it intact, if the other one gets finished quick, it should be ok (since DT is primarily a backup for CB2, and basically hasnt' been used in a year and a half).

There will be a whole new thread for this new trike if it materializes, but for now it'll just go here at the end of the DT thread.

Dogman may be coming out here to Phoenix, and has suggested we try buildng a trike, though I've made the idea a LOT more complicated than what he was thinking of. :lol:

I think it'd be really easy to build something lek what he'd suggested, which is more or less a front hubmotor delta, a stretched out lowered version 20" wheels of Delta Tripper, just *slightly* narrower so it'd go thru the front door whcih DT won't. Since it'd be lower it'd also have a frontend more like CB2. The chain would probably go back to a double-freewheel transaxle for the wheels. Or use the axle setup off DT's trike kit. But it'd be simpler to do like DT, with the pedals driving the front wheel instead of the rear.


But I doubt we'll end up building that, mostly that's cuz I would like something that does a lot more than what this one could, and rides better. I figured doing all the work of making a new one would only really be worth it if it does quite a bit more than the existing stuff.

So...since the trailer can carry at least one St Bernard in it, the trike ougth to be able tod o that, too. And I like the way CrazyBike2 "feels" for sitting and riding on, so why not combine both those things.

Boiled down to it's essentials, then, it comes down to taking the essentials of design of the front half of CB2, from the seat on forward, and grafting them to the intended design of the Mk III kennel trailer (which still isn't finished the way I would really wanna do it, but it works so I left it).



So the two layouts below are fixed-frame non-tilters/leaners, and both delta cuz it's the easiest way to setup the build, since if it does happen there will be very limited time (a few days at most) to get a basic rolling frame together. Ideally I'd like to get it under power too but that might not happen while he's here.

The first version of the drawing shows the seat a few inches lower than CB2, and 20" wheels on front and rear. Solid fork in front, no suspension either frnt or rear. Rear wheels basically at the back of the trike.




Second version shows seat same height as CB2, 20" rear and 26" or 24" front, and possibly a suspension fork in front. None in back, but if the pwerchair stuff gets used direct drive then it might have it. Rear wheels are farther forward to get the seat closer to them, even though it puts a lot fo cargo weight past the rear axle which I don't like the idea of.






Not shown in either one is a probable cargo rack over the top of the cargo box.

remote steering on both, maybe using CB2's old parts at first, then if the trike actually works replace them with new parts meant for the purpose like I did on CB2, for strength and reliability.


The cargo pod on it will be the dog crate off the existing MkIII trailer for now, to simplify things. It'll ahve to face the rear, unlike on the trailer, cuz it'd make the trike way too long to leave a space for the door to open and dog(s) to get in and out, much less get cargo in and out of it. Would probably add at least a foot and a half or two feet, depending on whether I made some sort of hinge to swing the seat out of the way.

The only other way to do it would be to ahve the entire front frame hinged to swing the front sideways relative to the rear, and that complicates things too much.


So for simplicity, door goes at teh back. Would then add a "window" at teh front so I can see the dogs and they can see me, more or less, depending on where the seat back top ends up.


Probably make a mounting plate welded to the door wire to hold the SMV sign presently on the back of CB2.


Lights...I don't have any lights to use other than what's on the trailer and Delta Tripper, except the incandescent stuff that's on DayGlo Avenger. Not sure which stuff will get moved over yet.


Pedals--they'll drive the front wheel, like DT, but in a less direct way to help with the twistng/derailing problem in turns. Pedal chain goes up to an IGH mounted on the headtube, then the IGH output goes to a chain to the frnt wheel. If I use a suspension fork then I can use a derailer locked in one "gear" as a tensioner to keep the chain from loosening on bumps.

I ahve a steel 29er fork off a cheap bike, and while it has no rim brake mounts, I can fix that easy enough. It's not great suspension, but it's probably better than nothing.


Ideally, I'd like to make a pivot (yaw axis) on the trike just behind the seat, where it mounts to the front of the cargo area, but there may not be time/materials for that at this time.


I've been digging thru my sheds and boxes in the house, to find the powerchair stuff, because I have (or had, not sure) a pair of good brushed powerchair motors with gearboxes that have wheel axles on them, to either mount a chaindrive to them to indirectly drive some freewheels on BMX wheels on the rear, or to directly drive the wheels by using medium-sized powerchair wheels (around 12" I think?) isntead of bike wheels.

They'd be really strong, no spokes, "mag" wheels, but solid tires. So, I might use the mounts that came with those motors that had pivots on them to allow them to be used with suspension springs. I even think I have two of the little springs that were for them, though I don't have the struts so I'd have to put them on the junk bike suspension parts I might still have, at least for now.

 

[amberwolf]

The idea has been percolating and mutating, maybe refining, in the back of my head, while a lot of life crap was going on yesterday.

Some combination of the two versions is looking likely, but I've been really trying hard to figure out how I'd put the pivot in there for the front-end tilting.

To do that, I'd basically need to leave the triangular area under the seat as part of the rear end, so the major part of the trike does not tilt, just the rider and front wheel/frame.

I think Dogman brought a pipe bender, so I could use that to bend a pipe into a pivot rail under the seat area, for the front of the triangle area. It'd get slit along its top surface, which is the inner radius of the bend, and a bearing or two on a stick would go into that slot. (like the wheels you hang sliding doors from) The front end of the trike would then "hang" from that, since the front of the triangle would be pushed down it would be pulling down on the bearing. Doing this means that the bearing at the back does not have to support the entire bending load on that joint.

Then the back of the front end, behind the seat, would have the center pivot of that radius, with it's bearing between the trike section just in front of the kennel, and the front end just behind the seat. Then somewhere close to that, a disc brake to use as a tilt-lock, based on another trike I saw here on ES a while back (2-3 years ago?), though I gotta find it again.

I haven't figured out how to draw this in MSPaint in a way that shows what I mean; I think I'd need to build it in a 3D program, and it's easier to build it physically. :lol: Or at least, mock it up, and take pics.

 

[amberwolf]

I've also been trying to figure out a way to use a rear suspension as the front "fork", and still be able to turn. There have been some motorcycles made like that, but I have had a lot of trouble finding the pictures I thought had been posted here on ES of them, or via a websearch. I guess I just don't know the right terms.


If I thought I could build one, I'd really like to build the in-hub-steering mechanism that someone here on ES made for his vehicle (but I can't find taht either right now, and can't remember who it was). I thought of a way I might try it, but it would really suck if it failed, and I'm not that confident of my idea yet--and I haven't worked out all the details yet, either; been too tired to think about it for long enough at a time, or draw it out.


Buuut...while writing the above, I actually thought of a way to use even a hubmotor and still get "in hub" steering, by using a bearing rail like I would use for the tilting trike bit, on either side of the wheel, and inside that rail's inner radius would be a large D-shaped plate that has an L-bracekt on it's flat side next to the wheel, and the wheel axle would bolt to that. Then the rear-end suspension/frame would mount to the outer radius of the bearing rail, so that the wheel could pivot steering-wise within that area.

Then I just have to figure out how to make it turn using the handlebars, but I expect that a version of remote steering just like CB2 uses should work fine.

Brakes...well, I guess there'd still have to be a "fork" coming up off the two D plates for rim brakes to be mounted to, but disc brakes could be done with just a caliper mount on one or both of them.


Pedal power. Now that gets more complicated. The only way to do it is to have the chain come straight down from above, with a tensioner that keeps it taut during bumps. It will still twist with steering, so it has to be kinda long, to have the length to twist without derailing, or binding inside the links.




It's not as elegant, small, or probably precise as what I recall from the other thread, but it ougth to work, and should be a lot stronger and less flexy than a typical fork, and allow much better suspension techniques to be used than a typical fork does without getting way too expensive for my budget.


It would also look much more interesting than a typical fork to viewers of it, as it would make the whole thing look noticeably different from most any other bike/trike they've probably ever seen. (as if my stuff wasn't different enough already).


But doing the pedal chain from the top messes up the neatness of the look, so....my mind has been thinking of alternate methods to get pedal power to it.

One is of course to use the pedals to turn a generator to provide power to run a motor, and use wires to move it...but that's really lossy vs a simple chain, and the idea is to ahve backup power in case all motors fail.

Another is to use a shaft drive along the suspension stays, with a large gear on the end with a curved face to the teeth, mating up to a toothed face on the hub. This is probably not something I can manufacture, and would have to take existing gearing and modify it and affix it to a shaft and hub. Not even sure I could. It would also require U-joints and possibly expansion joints in the shaft itself, to allow flex as the suspension moves. Almost certainly way too complicated.




Same as with the above tliting stuff, applies to the drawing for the steering part, though this is sort of what a side view might look like. It also shows a box around the front end, becuase I could make it so there are cargo pods in front, too, or at least a frame to attach bags or boxes to. The pink part is a shock/spring, and the black frame from the hweel hub to the middle fo the trike frame is the rear suspension/"swingarm" off the Mongoose Hatchet I got from Bill.





EDIT: I found the thread about in-hub steering
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=42257
and it *also* has the pic of one of the motorcycle suspensions I was thinking of, though not the one I might be able to build (it's way too complex).

 

[amberwolf]

Well, what we actually started and are half done with building is very different from what I would like to build above, but it should still work for the same basic things that CrazyBike2 does, but as a trike. It's a rolling chassis, pedalable, but that's all so far. Has tweaking and details to go.

Dogman will probably start a thread for it tomorrow, and I'll post up my own details and pics and thoughts there.


In the meantime I've been considering how the concept above could be built, and given that the smaller trike we just did start building ended up about as long as CrazyBike2 (might be able to be made a teeny bit shorter), one that can have the doggie kennel as part of the trike is gonna end up like 10-11 feet long.

I dunno how well that's gonna work out since it still has to be narrow enough to fit thru the front door or various bike pathways, etc., so the leaner bit is looking more and more like it needs to happen.

I might not even be able to make a workable trike like that. It might have to be much wider, and simply have to be parked in the backyard, and be unable to use most of the bike paths (cuz they often put poles in there to keep wide vehicles out).

Well, I guess we'll see if I ever get around to working it out.

 

[amberwolf]

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