Endless Sphere

But enough about me. I recently stumbled across an old image on my hard drive and thought I would post some highlights from pioneers in this field. I first came across this article by David Clay when I was getting started with my solar bike effort in 2007. David built a solar bike in 2000 and rode i...

I woke up early this morning to the sound of pouring rain and thought to myself "this is a great opportunity to test the bike in the rain!" Expedition-scale planning has a funny way of redefining what passes for a good idea. At 7 AM, the roads were delightfully empty, the air had a freshly washed sc...

I’ve been putting in more 10-40 mile rides with the plywood panel on the trailer to try to flush out any failure points and it’s looking solid. Now it's time to finalize the Arduino microcontroller hardware and software. This is the arrangement of photo sensors I used on the Tilt-o-matic 1.0 trailer...

I'll probably need to change out the clutch for a larger one, assuming I can find one which will fit. Even on the highest setting, the current clutch occasionally has trouble overcoming the friction I deliberately designed into the tilt assembly to eliminate backlash and excess play which tends to ...

I took the new trailer out for a road test with the Arduino and light sensors mounted on a breadboard. Aside from some minor teething pains, the system looks like it will work as intended. The handling is so good I can almost forgot that it's back there. With a fully loaded bike the trailer will be ...

The very first e-bike I built, back in the late 1990s, had two arrays of spacecraft type GaAs cells. One on the disc front wheel and one mounted on the frame, they could deliver a combined 100W in full Texas sun. I don't know how much the guy paid for them, but I'm certain beyond any doubt that it ...

Wooow ! solarEbike, you're setting a top level of DIY solar bike :shock: Oops. Now I feel bad for not peppering my post with winking emojis. Just to be clear, although I have built a solar panel using satellite cells , I don't consider €500/watt to be remotely reasonable. These cubesat prices are b...

... I definitely want to redo it but with satellite grade (35%+) solar panels and at least 150W so I can get an average of 100W. If you find someone willing to sell you 150W of 35% efficiency PV cells, please let me know. Good news! I found some commercial off-the-shelf pricing for satellite solar ...

I'm wondering, would it make sense to finish off a drilled carbon fiber hole with a thin coating of epoxy just to seal off that cross sectioned area and tidy up any fraying? That's probably not a bad idea. Some of my holes were backed by an epoxy bonded aluminum insert before drilling and the remai...

I bought this motor/gearbox combo two years ago and finally got to see it in action today with all the key pieces in place. The overall assembly appears to work as intended. A major milestone for this project. It's a bit loud so maybe turn down your volume? 9lghYgTJMbY The motor is rated as 5.2 rpm ...

The Tilt-o-matic 2.1 trailer body is nearly ready for its first road test. Tested and approved. The wobbles are gone. I think we have a winner. ZBROu5Ktm2U The serpentine at 0:40 was me intentionally trying to destabilize the trailer but it was happy to lean with me instead of trying to buck and th...

The Tilt-o-matic 2.1 trailer body is nearly ready for its first road test. I've removed the u-joint and replaced it with modified Bob trailer mounting hardware. This seemed like good timing to post a few notes on working with carbon fiber. The axle dropouts and smaller tubing on the left are origina...

I’ve been wanting to design and build a bike & trailer setup with some solar charging, some thing that would allow long distance travel and perhaps a RTW trip. Go for it! If you start now, you might even finish before me. :) Good to hear you're also looking at the Sun Trip bikes. Lots of interestin...

Yesterday, I left the bike with just the 82 watt solar roof panel out in the sun for most of the day. I ran some errands around noon and then left the bike to charge from the sun until the battery was topped off again. This isn't a typical day for me but the log file tells a story with a little bit ...

I was wondering about the direction of carbon fiber for driveshafts, so thank you for the answer there. Good luck! The challenge with designing carbon fiber parts is that you really need to orient the fibers so you have strength only where you actually need it. If you pile on 0°, 90° and 45° orient...

It's hard to say from here, but I thought your current u-joint was fine, and the twisting was spread though the long sections evenly. I'm pretty sure the offset between the vertical and horizontal hinges in other joints it just to make production easier. Good eye. I took another look this morning, ...

I think you can use plain bearings or plain closely size holes instead of ball bearings. Stiffer that way, and the hitch barely moves anyway. That's an interesting idea. It would be easier to fabricate as the 22 mm holes sized to the press fit the bearings were giving me some pause. I found an even...

I think if you bolted a rigid child-sized mass in that position, you'd have the same kind of problems you're facing. I was thinking the same thing. Must have been an interesting challenge trying to prototype that design without using actual children. Thanks for posting the photo of your design. Do ...

Endless Sphere to the rescue! I really appreciate all the feedback. You guys rock. [*]The trailer's center of mass is too high? I need some room for suspension travel but there's room to lower the the boom. I think that's the main issue. The torsional axis of a one-wheeled trailer is a line between ...

Yesterday, I took my new trailer design out for its first road test. You won’t believe what happened next! pXxHGZaWDUE Learning to fail is a critical step on the road to success. I learned something yesterday. To explain what happened, allow me to recap some highlights from my solar bike trailer fai...

This happened back in January. I've already replaced it. Justin's take was that it was beyond repair.

Yes, it stung. I was a lot more careful about labeling and double-checking connections before applying power after that. I suppose the dead CA3 may come in handy for spare parts later on.

Wiring always surprises me too once I put it all in one place trying to clean it up. I'm usually just to chicken to trim all the wires to length, in case I make any changes later. Tell me about it. I was envisioning something more like this masterpiece... or at least something that could be describ...

A few clicks and how much money for the 3D printed parts? That's been my hesitation with such doings. That said, the pieces look great and the ability to get shapes and fits that are exactly what you want (or what you think you want) is great. Your point is valid. I was being cheeky. "A few clicks ...

But wait, there's more! Emboldened by my initial successes with designing my own 3D printed parts, I decided to apply my favorite new tool to a couple of design challenges on my long list. Where do I mount additional switches to control the trailer tilt motor and to cut power to energy sucking acces...

Looking good. Did you have any wind when testing? How it behaves in a cross wind will be important. I suppose if it gets windy, you just flatten out the panel to minimize it's wind profile. Here's some anecdotal wind data. This was a particularly blustery day on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge...