Triketech wrote: ↑Dec 31 2021 10:03am
This is one of them from 5 years ago; it's been updated with a Wolf Battery and relocation of components since. At 5000 miles did a motor teardown. Replaced clutch & gears since I had spares but they were still had at least another 5000 miles left on them.
http://www.triketech.com/Drivetrain/Pow ... AC-V2.html
I've read this page before, and it was very informative. Your site helped guide some of my decisions 6 years ago when I was restoring an old Thunderbolt trike.
39" vs 31" front track will definitely improve lateral stability and that helps reduce the rear "skid steer" from jolts, although adding the hub motor tends to toss the rear much harder when it bounces. It's not so hard to control when it's anticipated, its when its not anticipated when you leave a loaf in the shorts.....
The worst I've experienced is a pothole on Kingshighway Blvd launching my rear wheel into the air at 40 mph in traffic. I still retained control of the trike by waiting for the wheel to contact the ground and regain traction before correcting the steering. It was scary, but not enough to "leave a loaf in the shorts". I eat like a 300 lb lardass and burn through all the calories(close to 4,000 a day, mostly from nuts and produce, about 15 lbs of food in a day in all), keeping me thin, so the lower GI tract is always primed and ready with pounds of material and I'm having to find a restroom every few hours to assure nothing is ever left "in the shorts". Many a poor public toilet has been clogged as a result, and that would be a massive dis
asster if such a monstrosity was inadvertently deposited in my pants while pedaling, nor certain the pants would contain it. True desperation is when you will waste no time to sit in a doorless stall or even a filthy un-partitioned seatless steel prison-style toilet at a park, in view of other people in the restroom. Still greatly preferable to messing one's pants with a massive solid loaf while pedaling. Sorry for the graphic description, but when you eat like a horse and exercise enough not to get fat, it's unavoidable, and I mention this because NEVER has a close call on my trike resulted in a close call down below. It's THAT stable. I don't feel at risk from my own actions while riding it. Hoping the rear suspension improves the stability over those sorts of rough roads though. It would be nice to greatly reduce any jostling of my insides during those times where it feels like I have a bowling ball or a brick sloshing about in them, because that is not at all a pleasant feeling.
When speeds begin to exceed 30 MPH a good term to be familiar with is "Crushable Substructure". Those would be a trike rider's legs.
My nose piece would be the first thing to crumple, albeit at the speeds I ride, its effects would be insignificant at best. I ride a fun little deathtrap.
Were you aware that an 10 MPH collision with a concrete wall will is a leg busting experience?
Yes. I studied physics a bit during school as an electrical engineer and in my own time on the side, and impulse is no joke.
Apologies for the safety point; I'm still a bit sensitive to loosing John Abbey (Airmoose). From a safety standpoint, I feel a lot safer driving a shifterkart at triple digits than on any pedal powered machine on roads with speed limits in excess of 25 MPH. That said, I don't always obey safety dictates..
John died doing what he loved. There are worse ways to go. He was a valuable source of knowledge on velomobiles and I miss his input. I ride with idiots in greatly more massive vehicles sharing the road all the time, and unfortunately, have no means to prevent or isolate myself from their idiocy other than to not ride. And this thing is my transportation.
Frankly I've been on the fence over custom building an E-trike frame-up. We seem to keep adding unit stuff to trikes without evaluating the system so it's always ending up as a kluge. Even from the OEM's, but keep in mind, these are the folks who mount hand controls upside-down to look better in the showroom. It helps to have a vehicle design and fab background too.
• Drivetrain on a trike has a long path and needs a wide gear ratio to pedal at 2 wheel fall over speeds
• 20" rear tires eliminate long cage derailleurs
• Once a rider has 300W+ of boost they don't care much about a few watts of drivetrain loss
• Current Mid Drives are the most efficient but clobber the drivetrain with ratio limits and rapid wear
• Hubmotors add excess unsprung weight
• Virtually no trikes on the market with optimized front suspension
On the first point, I'm heavily considering a jackshaft kit with two or three speeds acting as an intermediate gear selection, and having two chains. I wanted to buy a Schlumpf HS Triple, but I wouldn't be able to use my Sempu torque-sensing bottom bracket, and no one seems to make a torque sensor that isn't a bottom bracket torque sensor. Further, the Schlumpf HS is limited by its BCD, so I'd have to go with a 38/4X/56T chainring setup, which would make my low gearing barely adequate even with a 20.5" rear wheel diameter(Mitas MC2 16x2.25" tire), which would mean 4.1 mph @ 60 rpm in my lowest low gear. The Schlumpf is an easier solution, except for the fact that there is no torque sensor available that would allow me to retain torque sensing PAS and use the wide gearing it offers, so the other outcome is that I have to make my own torque sensor, when my limited time could be spent perfecting the aerodynamics instead, or settle for a cadence sensing PAS which won't give me the kind of workout I'm after.
Regarding the long-cage rear derailleurs and clearance, that is something I am concerned about. I haven't had a chance to install the 20" rear wheel motor and see how much clearance I have. This lack of a wide rear range is not a major issue if I have some kind of 3rd gearing system to keep the overall range to my liking. I'm aiming for at least 1200% gearing range, and require nothing less for my application. I'd prefer around 1500%. My motor limits me to a 7-speed system however, due to the 135mm dropout width. There is a possibility of adding a 4th gear non my front chainrings as well. This is not an easy goal given my design requirements.
300W is enough if you're on flat terrain. I ride with 250W quite often. It is inadequate for many of the hills where I live, but on flat ground, it is more than enough. If I pedal with moderate effort, 250W is enough to get me to roughly 35 mph on the flat, but I'm pedaling with another 250W to do it, and this modest amount of power allows for my legs to do the accelerating up to cruising speed @ 600W+. On hills, this is obviously not tenable due to the length of time required and I tend to put it in the 750W or even 2500W settings and still pedal hard. I need to be able to keep traffic speeds to not get crushed. Before motorizing it, automobile drivers doing 35+ mph have deliberately ran me off the road while I was slowly climbing steep grades at < 10 mph, and it is only through dumb luck that I didn't crash or get injured.
I don't consider mid drives a solution for me. Their negatives defeat the design philosophy I have in mind. I like simplicity of maintenance, longevity of components, cheap build/operating cost, and repairability with readily available parts.
A lighter hub motor build with quality design and components, perhaps a high-efficiency non-PMDC design type with no cogging losses, to allow Leafbike levels of power, at half the weight or less, for me would be ideal. No one makes it for hobbyists at this time, even though many companies have demonstrated prototypes. AMZ made a geared hub motor of 7 lbs that could do 50 horsepower peak.
I'm very pleased with adam333's suspension design for the KMX. It's probably as close to optimized for this particular trike as is possible.
Which is why I'm stuck on the fence; the FS26 is like a 100 watt light bulb burning at 75 watts when only 60 watts is needed. It's that need to go all the way to bright thats driven my career.....
I know the feeling. I have 2500W available in a vehicle that can hit 45 mph with about 750W and hard pedaling, and currently only top out around 45 mph. And I have a Milan SL velomobile, that completely unmotorized, I can almost hit 50 mph in. My unmotorized one is actually FASTER than my motorized one in a flat ground sprint, and can keep about the same rolling average if I put the motorized one to 350W of assist. I'm all for combining the strengths of each into a unique vehicle, and then dumping car-like levels of power into it for the application of hauling ass, hooning about the neighborhood, and overall general hooliganism.
Goal accomplished. Thats all I can say for now.
It will be interesting when you can tell me more.
