Amberwolf's Raine Trike

Chalo said:
High and narrow seems like a super bad idea.
I agree. I already did this to myself with Delta Tipper...er, Tripper, and found how problematic it is.

If DT hadn't been cannabalized to build SBC, I'd have him ride that around to show him the problem (and DT's seat wasnt' as high as this one is going to be).

I'd just be building it as a lighter, narrower, less-long SBC if I could.

What's the prospective track width of this thing?

Edit:
I just saw your earlier post that stipulated the thing will be several inches narrower than the door of a house. I would not make a trike with such a terrible track width to center-of-mass height ratio. For a 36 inch wide doorway, you're looking at less than 28 inches between tire tracks. And he wants the seat bottom higher than that? No way. Tell him he can have it high or he can have it narrow, but not both.

Yeah, I already went thru this with him, but....

So we'll try it his way, with the bare frame (just enough to make it rideable, and show how hard it's going to be to climb up onto and down off of) and a single motor (just enough to push it to 15MPH+) and let him see what it's like. Then when it doesn't work as desired, I'll rebuild it the "right" way. Or if he really likes it like that, I'll finish it the way he wants it.

Personally I don't think it'll even get used at all regardless of how it's designed and built, because it's not a completely enclosed highway-capable car with air conditioning, bucket seats, and cushy suspension.

However, since he doesn't have a car, then theoretically this is better than pushing himself to the store (or wherever) and back in a wheelchair, since he can't walk that much at a time, and can't afford Uber/etc. for most trips, and won't even attempt a ride with me on my trike (in a chair bolted to the cargo deck with the rack removed).

With luck I'll get the basics done next week sometime, if I get the time off work I'm expecting. (was supposed to be this week, but they couldn't spare me).
 
He's changed his mind and given me the "engineering" lead, though we're still working out which aspects are higher priority, so I can work out a compromise between what it has to do for him, and a safe ride, and practical considerations of construction.


Width is less of a priority now; it no longer has to fit thru a doorway, but would be better if it could. Seat height is still likely to be higher than is good for safe maneuverability at any speed, but it no longer has to be as high as a bicycle's seat.


This is what it might look like when lowered; it also gets a little shorter (meant to do that in previous drawings).
 

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I've got some of the trike actually built now, pics after the text below.

Since Raine's been unavailable to discuss design/use more, and I only have a few more days of this vacation to get a start on the trike, I just went ahead and started building this version, but only the rear and main "keel" tube:
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This part would be the same regardless of riding position/etc, so I'll get it built, along with the front end, to make a rolling chassis. I can then work out a pedal chainline from wheel to just before the pedals, probably about like what it shows in the gray color in the side view. There will need to be a transfer axle from the centerline chain from the pedals off to the left side wheel where it will then drive the sprockets of that wheel.

At present I'm going to build it for a "regular" 26" rear wheel on both sides, as that gives the most flexibility for the various kinds of wheels I have. If I have to use a narrower wheel, I can weld or bolt on blocks to move the dropouts closer together, but it's unlikely to be needed.

I was planning on an IGH in the chainline, but I can't find any shifters / "shift pull chains" for the IGH's I have--I thought I'd kept them together but apparently not. That also means I can't use one in the rear wheel either. So instead I'll simply use a multispeed freewheel on the rear wheel itself, probably a 7 speed as that's the most common stuff I have laying around.

I have two rear geared hubmotors, one already in a 26" wheel (Fusin) and one bare but can be built into a 26" wheel (Ezee). From experience I already know the Fusin works for this kind of usage, though it was used in a lighter trike (Delta Tripper), albeit with fairly poor acceleration. For now, it's the only motor to go on the trike, and like DT will go in the righthand wheel, while the pedal drivetrain will go to only the left wheel (also like DT).

If everything works out with the trike in general, but more acceleration or pulling power is needed, then I'll build up the Ezee into a wheel for the left side, and add in a second controller.


Construction so far:

First I removed the keel beam (from an old treadmill) from the Eclipse frame I'd started out with as the front end (because I'm going to end up building a more custom front end).

Then I laid it out on bricks along with square tubing, and some wheels with screwdrivers into the ground at their base to hold the wheels up. Pretty much like I did at the beginning of this thread, but a different layout, based on my experiences with SB Cruiser and the Mk IV trailer.
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A bit of study of what I had available, and some measurements of wheels with tires on, etc., and width of the best coolers I have (ones I use most often),
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gave me 27" between the two tubes front and rear of the tires, and 32" length of those tubes, so it should still fit thru a doorway if necessary. 5.5" between the dropout-support tubes. The track width itself can be widened a bit by angling the wheels outward at teh bottom; I"m probably going to do this when building up the dropouts, but it isn't shown in the drawings above.

More layout study:
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Once I was sure of positioning and placement, I notched the rear of the keel for the rear crossbeam, bending the notch tabs out to 90 degrees so they can be used to weld to the crossbeam.
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THen I cut a hole for the front crossbeam in the keel, rather than a notch, to preserve its' thicker/stronger top wall, and add the walls of the crossbeam to it.
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Once those were done, I clamped the pieces in place, verifying squareness in all directions, and then tack welded at teh corners of each piece.
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View attachment 4

Then I took two 27.1" long pieces that were left over from the fixture I'd cut the two 32" pieces from, and ground the .1" off each one, to just friction fit them into the inboard side of the wheel well areas, making the outer part of the cargo deck area, and tack welded them in place.
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Last steps done tonight were to add the vertical tube onto the left corner of the front crossbeam (this tube is the rear corner of the seatbox, and the vertical support for the canopy, and the forward connection point for the outboard angled dropout support rail). And to add those inboard and outboard rails, though the inboard one doesn't have support at it's front yet, as that will be a separate rail across the front of the cargo area, at the level of the front of those rails.
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Of course Kirin and Yogi supervised, but fell asleep on the job.
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Got dropouts made and installed today, though I had to make a slight change to the frame for spacing of the "stays".

I'd originally planned to use a QR left wheel, because one of the best rear wheels I have not in use on a bike is that type, and it has a wider rim than any of the good non-QR types I've got.

But all the good QRs I have are significantly narrower than either the Ezee or Fusin hubmotors, too much to be able to bend dropouts for. And it isn't possible to use washers to fill the space on a QR, because it's axle doesnt' stick out far enough to then be suported by the dropout.

So for now I've gone with a regular axle hub. I might be able to swap the QR axle for a regular axle; I havent' investigated it yet; for now I'm just working on getting a rolling chassis as quickly as possible.


With the change in width needed, I thought I'd have to move the inboard stay farther inboard, but I'd forgotten that I'd planned to stick the outboard dropout in the center of the stay tube, and the inboard dropout on the outboard edge of the inboard stay (so the chain can reach all the sprockets). So I actually had to move teh stay *outboard* half an inch. :oops: (this is why I tack everything first, tehn when I'm sure it will all do what I want, I fully weld it).




A first test of the wheel position was done using dropouts cut from a junk frame and tacked onto the outboard stay in the place the real dropouts (which I still had to make from plate steel). I put them on vertically so I could move the wheel up and down until it's "optimal" spot was found.
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Once I could see where the wheel would sit, and the axle, sprockets, etc, relative to the frame pieces, then I marked and cut some plate steel saved from an old desk chair. It's about 4-5mm thick, and not super-hard but not soft. Not nearly as "good" as the almost-10-mm thick stuff I used for SB Cruiser's dropouts, but good enough for this trike, at least for now. I only had enough of this for two of the dropouts, so they're on the left side. This side isn't going to have a motor on it at first, though it might eventually, so I wanted to make dropouts that can handle that.
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I've got some slightly thicker stuff off another chair I'll use for the right side (which will have the motor in it), but i haven't made the dropouts for it yet.


The outboard dropout actually passes all teh way thru the tube on that side, thru a slot I cut with the angle grinder. (it's a pretty rough slot, but once welded all around it won't matter--just tacked at first though).
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The inboard dropout gets clamped to the outboard side of the inboard stay, then welded. It's just tacked for now, like everything else.

Since it's axle is the hardest to get in and out of dropouts, and needs teh more precise positioning of them, I used the hubmotor wheel to bolt the dropouts to, while positioning and clamping them in place, so I can be sure they're aligned correctly, and the wheel is also straight in the frame front to back, and cambered correctly (as I want the top to be inboard and the bottom outboard of the axle as much as is possible while keeping them both within the space of the "stays", so the bottom doesn't stick outboard more than the frame, and the top doesn't stick inboard into the cargo area).
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I did make one mistake I didn't realize until after tacking them on, in that I put them about half an inch too far back vs the dropout slot I'd actually cut in them. I'd placed the dropout unit centered, but the front end of the dropout slot itself was half an inch behind the centerline. This meant I couldn't pull the wheel out of the frame unless I deflated the tire. Not a big deal, but annoying.
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So since I hadn't yet "finished" the end of the dropout by rounding it for an axle anyway, I just ground it out that extra half inch, rather than cutting the tacks and repositioning the units. Then I also cut the slot up and back at an angle to allow the axle to come out a bit easier or go in easier. That gives enough room between the two of them to get the wheel out even if I get fatter tires for it eventually.

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I'm going to use a regular derailer on the rear wheel. It'll be at around 70-80 degrees rotation from where it would be on a regular bike, because the chain will come up from the bottom instead of from in front. This also allows it to operate above the angle "stays" the dropouts are mounted on, since it can't fit between the stay and the wheel and still reach all the sprockets.
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ATM I just have old-style derailers that are held on with the axle nuts, but I'll most likely be making a different mount so it won't get in the way of the axle/wheel being removed, and doesn't have to be taken off with teh axle/wheel either. Probably cut off the normal mount tab, and either weld it back on in a different place to bolt thru it to the dropout above the axle, or make such a mount from scratch.
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If I find a working derailer of the type that bolts onto the dropout tab (threaded hole), I'll use that--but I don't know that I have one not in use on a bike. Won't matter till I get far enough to put a chain on anyway. :)
 
Got the right side stays and dropouts built and installed, and then mocked up a possible front wheel/fork positioning based on proposed seat height. Then I ran out of steam myself and had to come in and lay down for a bit. :/

Ignore the seatube and stays on the large gray bike frame in front. They can't be there when built, as the seatbox will take that space--it's going to be around the same size/shape as the one on SBC behind the new trike in the pic. The Raine Trike is about two feet shorter than SBC. There's a foot less in back, including the trailer hitch on SBC. The front wheel is about a foot farther back than on SBC; it's tire front edge is about where SBC's front axle is.

I wanted to make the SBC itself shorter, too, but haven't wanted to alter it until I knew what it would do to the handling. There's space between cranks and front tire to do it, though probably not by a foot. ;)

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I haven't decided yet on what to do for the support of the front of the inbaord stays. If I draw a line from the outer lower corners of the seatbox rear frame, thru the front ends of the inboard stays, to the center of the rear top bar of the seatbox frame, it makes a complete triangle, which stiffens the frame. But it's more tubing than either of the toher two options (meaning, more weight).
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I could put a vertical tube in line with each stay, from top to bottom tube of rear seatbox frame. Or I could put a horizontal tube thru both stays, from left to right verticals of rear seatbox frame. Both of those will be easier to build the wooden fill of the seatbox frame, than if I did the diagonals.


The piece of steel I'd intended to use for hte rightside dropouts couldn't be, because it had raised areas/indentations stamped into it that if ground away would make those areas too thin, and if left in place would get in the way of washers/nuts/etc. So I spent some time digging around for more thick metal, and finally ran across an old bracket I'd originally planned to use for a shock mount on the unfinished frame I was going to replace CrazyBike2 with before the housefire. THat piece plus just one mostly-flat section of the metal I'd started with made the dropouts, shown below with teh hubmotor bolted to them, outboard first then inboard:
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Then the offset slots cut in the outboard stay (to angle the dropout), and teh cut/angled section of tube on the inboard stay (to angle the dropout against)View attachment 9dsc06808.jpg
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The dogs are supervising in the background, from an area that stays in shade the whole day so the ground stays cooler.
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I did mess up a couple millimeters on the inboard rightside dropout's height when clamping and tackwelding it; still have to fix that. It makes the rightside wheel tilted inward at the top just a bit more than it should be (more than the leftside wheel).
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But otherwise, it's all tacked up and ready, assuming the rest of the design works out ok.

outboard rightside, from underneath
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from above
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from behind
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inboard rightside, from underneath
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from above
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Full setup, from rear above, then from rear, with Yogi inspecting it
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Left wheel, above
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right wheel, above
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whole thing above
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I also found the short piece of tubing that matches the keel; with this I can do the same thign I did with SB Cruiser--weld the short piece onto the front end of the keel at an upward angle to go to the headtube, to make a stronger main connection from there to the rest of the trike. It isn't as light as using a pre-existing bicycle front triangle, but gives me more options on angles and shapes of he frame in front of the seat, and I'd have to highly customize any bike stuff anyway to get the pedals and remote steering anchor, etc., in there.
 
... Hadn't seen this thread!

... Small suggestion next time you want to do something like making dropouts in a plate of steel:

Instead of cutting slots like this then trying to cut away the inner part as you did here:

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Drill a hole where you want the axle to end up and then cut slots to the inside tangent... That way, you haven't created a stress-riser and a pre-started crack, as is clearly visible in your other images. About the only thing you can do about it now is weld up the cracks and hope you got it. Otherwise, they'll eventually fatigue crack.
 
RTIII said:
Drill a hole where you want the axle to end up and then cut slots to the inside tangent...
That would be the preferred method, but:

In steel like this, I don't have bits that can drill thru it (more than once per bit, anyway). Thin steel (or really soft, like I can bend with hand tools) I can do, with oil and time, on the little drill press. But not this stuff.

So what I do for slots like this is to cut them with the angle grinder cutoff wheels, then use well-used grinding wheels with rounded edges to smooth out the end to finish the slot, and round it to the axle curve.


That way, you haven't created a stress-riser and a pre-started crack, as is clearly visible in your other images.
I looked thru all the images of the dropouts and don't see this. Which one is it in, so I can fix it?

FWIW, I've used this method for all of the dropouts I've made, including those on CrazyBike2, which have seen loads high enough to break the frame, and have not exhibited any failures. (might just be lucky, but so far never seen any fractures in the dropouts).

In various projects mobile and otherwise, I do get stress fracture failures in other areas, sometimes in tubing that's been drilled or cut, and sometimes in the middle of stuff that has nothing I've done to it during building (but could have manufacturing defects, or just see too high a stress at that point).
 
amberwolf said:
RTIII said:
Drill a hole where you want the axle to end up and then cut slots to the inside tangent...
That would be the preferred method, but:

In steel like this, I don't have bits that can drill thru it (more than once per bit, anyway). Thin steel (or really soft, like I can bend with hand tools) I can do, with oil and time, on the little drill press. But not this stuff.

I work with stuff like this all the time, as you can see in my various threads. ... I make a lot of stuff out of steel, far beyond what I publish here. For a simple and very recent example, on Sunday I fabricated a special 4" across the flats end wrench out of what was laying around, including some really good steel. WHY make a wrench you can just buy? Well, you can't buy a wrench like I made as a standard, off the shelf product, because I curved the handle to match the inside diameter of a 55 gallon drum! The steel I made the handle out of was some pretty awesome stuff! And, the 1/2" square tubing I made the flats out of was no slouch either, though, admittedly, I didn't need any holes in these pieces.

Here are the two new plastic drums I fitted Sunday (yesterday) to my Stuska water-brake engine dynamometer - replacing two steel drums because I was just sick and tired of having to fix all the damned leaks caused by rust:

Stuska_plastic_drums_installed_1_2.jpg

And here's a spare fitting that needed the special wrench and the wrench, sitting on top of one of the new barrels:

4_inch_barrel_wrench_4_2.jpg

I'll BRIEFLY point out that when I did the recent kick-stand work on my San Rafael, I had to use steel virtually identical to yours, and bored two M10 clearance holes in identically thick stock - no problem:

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... So, when I hear of your difficulty, I am reminded of a conversation I had with a close friend who happens to be a machinist of many decades, and he related a story where he was having trouble with another vendor making a part to his specifications in their CNC milling machine. In the conversations with them, they made a complaint much like yours - that it was costing them a new bit roughly per hole of a particular size in a particular piece of steel. Incredulous, but not wanting to alienate his vendor, he asked a few questions and It became clear to my friend that even though they have a business that makes stuff using a CNC four or five axis milling machine, they had somehow not been aware of the importance of not turning a drill bit too fast! The issue was that they were spinning the bit at maximum speed - because the material was hard (!!) when what was needed was spinning it slowly instead! Doah! They then slowed it down to something like 150 RPM (I don't recall exactly what he said, but it was fairly slow) and now they got a great many holes out of their bit and were a bit embarrassed - if you'll pardon the pun! :lol: Problem solved!

Try slowing it WAY down. High speed is almost never helpful. I saw where you got that metal - a commercial office chair; I can tell you a standard "HSS" bit should have cut through it like butter - presuming a sharp bit, turned slowly with only modest pressure on the drill handle. Choose a speed where the most material is coming out - that will likely be about the best speed. And as for pressure, don't push too hard - it dulls the bit and does NOT help! (Note, once a bit is already dull, pushing hard CAN help, so, how hard to push needs to incorporate into it how dull the bit may be.) Also, try and avoid as best you can letting the drill bit hit a surface after punching through - that dulls them, too. (You know, like when you're drilling through a bit of tubing or something close to another part.) And, finally, buy packs of 5 or 10 or so 1/4" and smaller bits in bulk - they're dirt cheap. I just bought 10 1/4" HSS bits at the local Harbor Freight for less than $5 - and start your hole with the small bit. This keeps the cutting tips of your more expensive bits sharp because you're doing the punch through with a cheap throw-away, and only using the outer edges for cutting to simply enlargen an existing bore!

When to use and not use "cutting fluid" is a bit of an art I have not yet mastered. The only thing I'm sure of is that it's required when drilling through - or milling - aluminum and other very soft materials (softer than your cutting tools) because otherwise the material gums up the cutting tool and causes tearing. Generally, I avoid it for steels and only try it to see if it can help for particularly difficult situations - and even then, I'm quick to remove ALL of it if it doesn't work out.

amberwolf said:
So what I do for slots like this is to cut them with the angle grinder cutoff wheels, then use well-used grinding wheels with rounded edges to smooth out the end to finish the slot, and round it to the axle curve.

I can then recommend: cut your slot short of where you want it and don't over-cut the depth. Then use your grinding wheel or whatever to make the surface that defines the depth. A sharp round bastard file can make quick work of finishing off a slot like you made for this trike. This technique also avoids the stress-riser problem because by not over-shooting, there's no stress-riser "built in." (Large radius curves - the larger the better - are the best way to avoid stress cracks caused due to material shape (as opposed to due to brittleness or something like that).

amberwolf said:
RTIII said:
That way, you haven't created a stress-riser and a pre-started crack, as is clearly visible in your other images.
I looked thru all the images of the dropouts and don't see this. Which one is it in, so I can fix it?

Looks to me like all of them show it, but I'm not saying they're already stress cracked, only that you've pre-started where the stress cracks will come from. Here's one:

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Those two slots that over-shoot will eventually be where cracks start - most likely, in this image, the lower one first!

amberwolf said:
FWIW, I've used this method for all of the dropouts I've made, including those on CrazyBike2, which have seen loads high enough to break the frame, and have not exhibited any failures. (might just be lucky, but so far never seen any fractures in the dropouts).

My guess is that your having avoided stress cracks in those locations is simply because the thickness of the materials alone helps delay their onset. But with long-enough duration of those stresses, they'll come. It MIGHT just be that they'll come after we're all long dead and the bike has long since rotted away 150 years from now, but... should it stay in service long enough, those are the kinds of things you want to avoid! :)

amberwolf said:
In various projects mobile and otherwise, I do get stress fracture failures in other areas, sometimes in tubing that's been drilled or cut, and sometimes in the middle of stuff that has nothing I've done to it during building (but could have manufacturing defects, or just see too high a stress at that point).

WAY back when, when I was actively pursuing a carrier in aerospace engineering, I got a lot of training in stress cracks and failures. When you DO find a crack, the best way to stop it is to drill a small-ish hole at the end of the crack to stop its propagation and then weld (welds will NOT stop cracks without drilling first, so we were taught - something to do with "crystal alignment"), or "sister" a patch. As for cracks that come along where you don't think you did anything, you probably did, especially in YOUR work: you probably put loads on the part that the original engineer never envisioned and right where the cracks appear is where there's some change you didn't notice happens, often a change in the shape (thinning point of a tube or a crimped section or bend, etc), but it could also be to treatment of some kind such as the extent of the heat range of a weld done which changed the brittleness of the metal - or some other similar process.

Now, to something you often talk about in your threads: electrical efficiency. Today I went 7 miles with my San Rafael, over virtually flat ground (doubt there was 10' in elevation change over any of it - just curbs and the like), at about 10' above sea level, towing my usual trailer, one way empty and the other way loaded with around 100 lbs, not quite but almost entirely using the throttle and with me putting in very little energy due to my bum knee. I started with a freshly charged battery and recharged when I got back. Traffic was fairly light but there were lots of stops and I went as fast as I could. I was shocked I got it up to around 24 MPH, though most of the trip was peaking more like 20 and ... I forgot to capture the average, but it's still in the bike if I go look! AND... It took 3.41 Ah to do those 7 miles.

Here's the charger following the top-up after the trip:

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Oh, gosh, there's a bit drill bit in this image - take care of your bits, keep them sharp, and they'll take care of you! :D
 
Thanks for the info! I'll reply to the above later; too tired right now, just noting some stuff down typed up over the last hour+ (got distracted) and when I hit submit I saw the above post was already there.




Today was kinda wasted; I spent most of the 3 hours I could use on the trike trying to find headset races and bearings for the fork I wanted to use--but apparently I don't have any races that will fit it at all; it's a slightly larger steerer tube than anything else I have in a threaded-type non-suspension fork. (just large enough that teh other fork steerers will fit snugly inside this fork's steerer).

It's a Trek cromoly fork; despite looking at it's label several times today I can't recall the name on it. But since I haven't got the right race for the base of the steerer (and it was given to me without one, or I've lost it in the years since then), I'll have to use one of the alternatives. For now, that's going to be the fork off the Eclipse frame; it's cromoly too but it's not as nice a fork.

Brake bosses on both are for center-pull cantilever brakes, and may not work for Vbrakes. This is important because I don't know where any of my link wires / yokes are for the cantis I have, except on the old bikes that are complete and "in use" (meaning backup unpowered bikes in case all else fails--one each for me and my brother).

I've used Vbrakes on canti bosses a couple of times, with the right brake arms that have long enough slots to let the pads reach teh rims. But they didnt work as well as they would have with the bosses in the right place on the fork, because eithre the pad angle was wrong or leverage was wrong or pad would rub on rim when not engaged, if it was at teh right angle when seated on rim. Not all arms will even work with them, some don't have slots long enough to work at all.


Anyway, I'll use this fork for now, change it later if I have to. I"ll be using the headtube off a junk "Y-frame" "FS" bike, which (like SBC) will be welded to the keel downtube once I get that welded to the existing keel to determine the angle it needs to meet at with wheel and fork in the tube. Given that SBC's steering seems to work very well, I'm going to replicate the angle and caster/etc it's at.


So, that's it for today, as I had to deal with other things
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=49550&p=1325796#p1325796
about as soon as I got those parts sorted above. Then a few minutes ago I got done cleaning up the scattered parts around teh yard work area, cuz I ahve to go back to work the rest of this week, and probably won't get back to the trike much for at least the next several days.
 
RTIII said:
Try slowing it WAY down. High speed is almost never helpful.
That's what I do; maybe my drill press (the cheap small one from HF) doesn't have a slow enough rate?


I saw where you got that metal - a commercial office chair;
On the left side, both are. On the right side, one piece of it is; the other was a bracket off something in a car, though it's been so long I dont' remember exactly. It was a lot harder to grind thru than the chair parts, even though it was thinner.

And as for pressure, don't push too hard - it dulls the bit and does NOT help!
Yeah, I discovered that quickly--the tip heats and unhardens. :(


Also, try and avoid as best you can letting the drill bit hit a surface after punching through - that dulls them, too.
I have the press on a plastic rollaround cart; it's high enough over the cart surface that any bit long enough to go thru can't hit the surface, but even if it did it's just plastic. :)

But I *have* had that problem with drilling on stuff already "in place" on a project, that could not be removed to prevent that. :(

And, finally, buy packs of 5 or 10 or so 1/4" and smaller bits in bulk - they're dirt cheap. I just bought 10 1/4" HSS bits at the local Harbor Freight for less than $5 - and start your hole with the small bit. This keeps the cutting tips of your more expensive bits sharp because you're doing the punch through with a cheap throw-away, and only using the outer edges for cutting to simply enlargen an existing bore!
I've used this basic idea quite a bit, though usually with "found" bits (there's a lot of stuff on the side of the road, and sometimes cheap at yardsales/goodwill/etc in bags of "stuff").

I also have a "sharpener" from HF but it doesnt' appear to actually sharpen anything enough for things harder than plastic or wood. :/


When to use and not use "cutting fluid" is a bit of an art I have not yet mastered. The only thing I'm sure of is that it's required when drilling through - or milling - aluminum and other very soft materials (softer than your cutting tools) because otherwise the material gums up the cutting tool and causes tearing. Generally, I avoid it for steels and only try it to see if it can help for particularly difficult situations - and even then, I'm quick to remove ALL of it if it doesn't work out.
I have an "oil pan" under the press to collect and repour the stuff thru a filter into my applicator bottle; mostly I'm just using runny oils that can help lubricate and cool the bit and surface, so that it's less likely to unharden things when I cant' keep things from heating up.

I've also used water from a hose, for some cases of steel stuff, takign the whole setup outside to an area that needs to be watered anyway. This doesnt' really work well for most things, but it saves my bit tips for some things.



I can then recommend: cut your slot short of where you want it and don't over-cut the depth. Then use your grinding wheel or whatever to make the surface that defines the depth. A sharp round bastard file can make quick work of finishing off a slot like you made for this trike. This technique also avoids the stress-riser problem because by not over-shooting, there's no stress-riser "built in." (Large radius curves - the larger the better - are the best way to avoid stress cracks caused due to material shape (as opposed to due to brittleness or something like that).
This is what I generally try to do...I'm rarely completely successful at anything I do, as I don't really have time for most of the prep work needed to really do things right. Or a shop space I can just leave set up for certain things. (part of the plan after the fire was to turn at least one of the sheds into a shop, but intervening events have never left me with the time in sufficient chunks to rearrange all the shed contents to make space for this; when I did make space I ended up having to use it to park the trike in for bad weather. Just never enough time....).


Looks to me like all of them show it, but I'm not saying they're already stress cracked, only that you've pre-started where the stress cracks will come from. Here's one:
Ah--those are just surface "scratches" / grooves, which are removed as I grind the rest of the dropout shape, and prepare the flat surfaces for welding / painting /etc. :)



My guess is that your having avoided stress cracks in those locations is simply because the thickness of the materials alone helps delay their onset. But with long-enough duration of those stresses, they'll come. It MIGHT just be that they'll come after we're all long dead and the bike has long since rotted away 150 years from now, but... should it stay in service long enough, those are the kinds of things you want to avoid! :)
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Yes, yes they are. :)

But I think it's more from the subsequent removal of the "starters" during subsequent prep work that prevents the problem.
 
Good reply. Just a few points...

amberwolf said:
mostly I'm just using runny oils that can help lubricate and cool the bit and surface, so that it's less likely to unharden things when I cant' keep things from heating up.

...That lubrication effect is usually harmful to your effort to drill through steels. It usually lowers the coefficient of friction so much it'll make a partially dull bit completely useless and it'll encourage you to over-bear on a not-dull bit so it then becomes dull through too much force. Better to keep the tip cool by slowing down and even occasionally stopping. When I have a lot of drilling to do, I try and have some other job also ready to do and I alternate whenever the bit starts to get hot - let it cool normally, on its own. ... Remember, I said using oils (cutting fluids) is an art that I had not yet mastered, but I have made some really good observations along the way. Again, start dry and try the oil when you think you must, and if cutting action does not continue as well as before you added the fluid, REMOVE IT! All of it!

Water is a terrible idea - cools too fast and makes things brittle. Only use water when a specific quenching technique is specifically called for - and that's rare! And never cool just-welded things - with oil or water - unless you know EXACTLY what you're doing because while it tends to harden, it also tends to make things brittle. Better to re-heat to a particular temperature and then cool if you want to harden something - MUCH better control.

Using a machine tool that cuts that has a liquid cooling fluid is a whole 'nother game. The fluids are expensive and very special and are used continuously through out the machining process, from start to finish. The machine usually has built-in catch basins and sometimes specialized ports where the fluid is to be pumped. Both my mill an lathe have these features, though I don't use them.
 
sorry didnt' have time to finish earlier:

When you DO find a crack, the best way to stop it is to drill a small-ish hole at the end of the crack to stop its propagation and then weld (welds will NOT stop cracks without drilling first, so we were taught - something to do with "crystal alignment"), or "sister" a patch.
I've seen that advice before, I think when people make pinching dropouts, the cut in the end for the pinch leverage gets drilled at it's far end. I think I've also seen that in some of the aircraft crash investigation reports I've watched and read.


As for cracks that come along where you don't think you did anything, you probably did, especially in YOUR work: you probably put loads on the part that the original engineer never envisioned and right where the cracks appear is where there's some change you didn't notice happens, often a change in the shape (thinning point of a tube or a crimped section or bend, etc), but it could also be to treatment of some kind such as the extent of the heat range of a weld done which changed the brittleness of the metal - or some other similar process.
It's possible--I think in many cases I'm just overloading the part at that point; it's usually straight tubing of one type or another, often many identical pieces but only some of which fail, and some of which are loaded in what looks like the same way but obviously isn't (most stuff I build isn't really fully symmetrical); or a defect existed in one part and didn't in another.

I love failure analysis; the process and the results...I am not necessarily good at it, but I love to participate in it. :)
 
RTIII said:
...That lubrication effect is usually harmful to your effort to drill through steels. It usually lowers the coefficient of friction so much it'll make a partially dull bit completely useless and it'll encourage you to over-bear on a not-dull bit so it then becomes dull through too much force. Better to keep the tip cool by slowing down and even occasionally stopping.
Thanks--I"ll try that process instead; see what happens for the rest of this trike project with it. There'll be a fair number of holes I'll need in stuff, though most will have to be drilled in-place on the frame as I go, with the handheld power drill, rather than predrilled on the press. But I can use the battery powered drill/screwdriver unit, which is easier to control it's speed than the corded VS drill I have.




Water is a terrible idea - cools too fast and makes things brittle. Only use water when a specific quenching technique is specifically called for - and that's rare! And never cool just-welded things - with oil or water - unless you know EXACTLY what you're doing because while it tends to harden, it also tends to make things brittle. Better to re-heat to a particular temperature and then cool if you want to harden something - MUCH better control.
FWIW, I've used the quenching of welded stuff fairly often, with no failures of welds (or HAZ) done that way. Doesnt' mean it's a great idea, but it has prevented some other problems I had with softening of metals during welding that later caused deformations/bendings that don't happen when I quench.

As for me knowing exactly what I'm doing before I try something...no, most of the time I have a vague idea at best. ;)

But I'll stop using it on teh drill stuff, and see what happens.



Using a machine tool that cuts that has a liquid cooling fluid is a whole 'nother game. The fluids are expensive and very special and are used continuously through out the machining process, from start to finish. The machine usually has built-in catch basins and sometimes specialized ports where the fluid is to be pumped. Both my mill an lathe have these features, though I don't use them.
I've never used any specific cooling fluids; just oils and water; my lathe doesnt' have any specific feature for it (it's ancient, almost a century old I think, and acts like it). I've never used water on the lathed stuff, but I have had to use oils to cut some stuff (without it it would "chunk" certain things, regardless of how I angled or pressed the tool, or what speed it was at). But I have very very little experience with it so far; I wouldn't even have one if it weren't for Freecycle.org and some people that got tired of it rusting in their sideyard almost a decade ago. :lol:) .





All that said, I wish I could report more progress on the trike, but we've been waiting to get a new manager at work, so I've been having the usual stress nightmares from not knowing how things were going to change (plus all my other usual nightmares from the fire, and losing Tiny and then Teddy). Now we've got the new manager, and so far seems ok, but my work schedule has now changed radically from the steady same basic one I've had for so long I can't remember when it last changed; two days off in a row, then five days of just past midday to closing time.

Now there's some open, some closing, and days off are not consecutive. The reason I'd had the schedule I had before was because I don't function well any other way. When I wake up from a nightmare (or don't even get to sleep because of a thought springing to mind from a previous one), it can take hours to get back to sleep. What happens most often on a normal day is I get home, play with the dogs, feed the dogs, lay down with some food and nibble while I look at ES (sometimes I doze off before I get to do that), and doze off at least once doing that. Then I wake from a nightmare, toss and turn for minutes to hours, doze again, and repeat that for at least 12+ hours to get a few hours (at best) of actual sleep. THen I wake to the alarm (or get up because I'm already awake trying to doze back off) and feed the dogs, then get ready for work and leave, to repeat the cycle again.

If nightmares don't wake me, then the dogs puppy-dreaming does, because of Teddy's fatal seizures-for-days cycle, a year ago. I don't remember exactly what order it happened in but she would grand-mal sieze, then she would puppy-dream sieze, then she would walk around and bark sieze. When she got weaker a day or two in, she didn't walk around anymore but the rest of the cycle still continued over and over. So now anytime a dog is puppy-dreaming, I flashback to Teddy's seizures, and the stress of that and memories of it keep me from sleeping or give me nightmares. And of course if the dog dreaming like that is in contact with me or the bed (they usually are) then it'll wake me immediately and leave me awake.

Then there's the asshats that drive around or thru the area with their booming-bass car audio systems, which can be loud enough to shake the bed as if someone is kicking it. They know what they're doing to people; it's been explained, they just don't give a frock about anyone but themselves. And the police won't do anything about it. And since shooting them is illegal...well, I just have to live with their crap. :/ (moving wouldn't help either because this type of asshat is everywhere, and you can feel their car audio for blocks so they don't even have to be in your neighborhood. Some of them can be a quarter mile or more away and still shake stuff off your walls).


So...since it takes me more than half a day to get enough sleep to function for the other half of the day, (not counting the couple hours or more each day of taking care of the dogs and feeding myself), I rarely get enough sleep. Sometimes I get enough, and wake up in time to even do stuff around the house or work on projects before I ahve to head off to work, but usually not. And that's with a work schedule setup to let me do the best I can. I usually spend the first day of my "weekend" sleeping in and recovering from the lack of sleep the rest of the week, and then accomplishing something the next day.

The new schedule (at least for next week) will probably keep me from sleeping at all for the first couple of days of it, just because I'll be worried about the differences in how things will be now, and haivng to be at work hours earlier than normal. (Even normally, there are nights I don't even get to sleep at all until after the time I have to start work at, for one of the days next week). I'll have to spend both my days off recovering, so I won't likely get anything at all done on anything.

Hopefully I'll be able to discuss the schedule with the new manager and get it changed back to what it was, or at least to the same pattern (always the same shift, 2 days off, 5 days on). Otherwise I expect I'll become wiped-out exhausted and unable to do much of anything on any projects until I get another week's time-off after the start of next year. (there's always a time-off-blackout at the end of the year for the holidays, so I don't get another one until then). This is what used to happen before I got the 2/5-sameshift schedule.



Anyway, enough bitching....the point was just that I'm under more stress than normal, and I have no idea when it will get better, and that it will probably get worse before it gets better.


Eventually I'll get back to the trike build, though.
 
Sorry to hear all that, hope it improves soon.

FWIW, I'm pretty sure my leg is not healing right and it's keeping me up through much of the night. I get to sleep OK, then wake around 1 to 2 AM or so and lay there in pain until maybe 5 or 6 when I finally get a few more hours and get up at 9 to 9:30 or so - like today. NOBODY does well without enough sleep, and it's been a few months like this for me, so no, I'm not doing all that well either.

We all have our problems! :wink:
 
I discussed it in brief with the new manager, and the schedule should go back to "normal" next week, but this week is still the messed-up one. I'll deal with it as best I can.

In the meantime, I did get a bit of work done today on the trike. I cut and tacked on the lower side rails and front frame of the seatbox (still have to cut and tack the top side rails). It's going to be a regular rectangle, rather than a front-sloped box like SB Cruiser has, so it has more room inside the box and more top surface area for the seat itself.

The inside will be 14" x 14" x 30", before adding styrofoam insulation (which loses about another inch and a half in each direction). With no chain going thru it, plus the extra volume from no slope to the front, it makes significantly more room than SBC's box.

Once the design is set, and it's all fully welded, I can start cutting and gluing/clamping wood into the frames to make it an actual box. (and cargo deck).


I also worked with Raine on figuring out seat height and probable pedal position. Seat height of SBC is apparently just fine, and it's pedal position, if just a couple of inches closer to the seat, would also be fine.

So I won't need to make a tall seat mount on top of the seatbox, just a good padded seat and back. (probably will use one off a powerchair I have, that has dead batteries and isn't presently in use).


Because the seat doesn't need to be higher than SBC's, it also means there needs to be just as much room between the "downtube" and the seat as SBC, and there also needs to be foot/pedal clearance between the front tire and the downtube. So this trike won't be as short as I'd hoped; but it'll still be at least a foot shorter than SBC.

Even though it's shorter, since I have to have the front wheel up farther than planned, it'll actually end up with jsut about the same wheelbase as SBC, and with the same headtube plus lower deck and the tilted rear wheels, it should handle about the same, depending on how the steering itself works out.

Still planning on remote steering, but it may not need it, and may be abel to use a tiller like SBC, though shorter than SBC's.



PResently the downtube and headtube are partially fitted to the positions they'll have, but they're not cut and tacked; I didn't have enough time before it got dark, and then I had to do all the stuff I'd usually do much later in the night (and actually the *next* night) because I have to be at work tomorrow rather than the day after, and several hours earlier. Now I'm trying to get to sleep...unsuccessfully so far.
 
More progress today; got the seat pulled off the powerchair and stripped of unnecessary (and heavy) framework and pivot hardware, tacked on the pedals and headtube and downtube, and built the tiller tube/stem.

So here Kirin proudly shows off her new creation....er, supervises the photography.
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The seat isn't attached yet, just sitting there. Later on I got Raine to test fit it, and we determined the seat back needs to come forward (it just bolts to the seat, so adjustment is easy enough), the tiller needs to be shorter (I built it out of a seattube and seatpost, so adjustment is also easy here). Cranks also need to come up and back a bit.
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The joint at the downtube to the keel is made as an overlapping joint, and once fully welded should be a lot stronger than just a butt-welded joint.
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Headtube is as close to the same angle as SBC's as I could get it by eye. I can change it if the resulting geometry doesnt' work as expected, but it looks like it should, tested by moving the two trikes' steering to the same angles and seeing what looks like the same positions and contact patch movements. If it is, then it should steer the same, and SBC steers fine.
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I cut the clamp off a cheap steel stem from a junk bike, and welded the seattube off an old Huffy bike (same one that the headtube on SBC came from) to it. Then used part of a seatpost I'd originally used for the pedal-boom-adjustment on Delta Tripper to weld to the clamp portion of a different (better) stem from an old ten-speed, also using the drop bars from it (since that's the kind Raine wants).
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It's adjustable because I can't predict how Raine will need to position them to steer adn ride, and Raine can't tell until riding it what works better. Plus, if Raine doesn't use teh trike and I end up needing to do so, I can just adjust it for me (and readjust back as needed), rather than rebuilding it every time.
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On my SBC, I can just move the bars up and down teh tiller tube (clamping stem), though the tube itself doesn't change length, so the practical amount of adjustment isn't that much or you end up with teh tube in your face. ;)


The cranks and pedals are off a kid's bike, and are just temporary. Because Raine needs short cranks, I may have to keep the cranks and BB shell/bearings, but change the pedals to something more appropriate (and not disintegrating). I don't think I have any 3-piece cranks short enough, and I don't have a tap I can use to rethread new holes drilled closer to the crankshaft.
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Of course the dogs supervised all day.





.
 

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I setup the Fusin 6FET controller, display, and throttle on the trike with the old 14s1P EIG pack from CrazyBike2, but the clunking thunking noise from the motor is way too loud to be good news.

It sounds like a handful of very large nuts and bolts rolling around inside a metal dryer drum--most likely something has broken off inside and is rolling around inside the motor casing; the only way to find out is to open it up, before whatever it is ends up in the gears and breaks them.

Whatever it is is in the outer part of the hub, as it makes the noise whether the motor is running or not, just the hub freewheeling around it.


This motor has a thread-on sidecover, though, rather than bolted-on, and needs a special splined tool to open it. The company (FusinMotors) wouldn't sell me the tool when I got the motor from them, and now they're out of business, so the tool is not available.
file.php


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmDYYXV8fRI


I've talked about making my own for a while, but only out of curiosity; now I need to do it. So I dug out a junked BMX frame with about the right diameter of tubing, since none of the thicker-wall pipes and such I have are anywhere close. :/ It's the thickest stuff I've got in anything close to the diameter.

But it's not thick enough.

I cut notches in the tube to give crenellations that match the spline indentations on the cover, which closely surround the cassette ratchet body. THen I welded a tube off anohter bike frame across the other end of the tube, to use as a grip to push down and turn the cover.

It did actually work, turning the cover a few rotations and raising it about 2mm, but it's not off yet, and at that point it jammed and will turn no further, the crenellations all bent and twisted on the tube.

I cut those off and cut new ones, but the cover is jammed good hard there, and wont' turn backward or forward, and again bent the crenellations, though not as badly as the first time.

I might be ablet o harden the metal, and retry, but I suspect that won't be enough, and I need something thicker, so it has wider contact at each face.


It might be easier to just drill a couple of holes in the cover toward it's outer diameter, then make a pin-wrench for it that pivots on the axle and is held in place by the axle nuts and some washers. If I make the wrench long enough I should have enough leverage to either get the cover off or break it. ;)

Eitehr way, the cover's gotta come off.


If it comes down to it I'll just have to lace the Ezee motor up and use it instead. :/

(I'd hoped to later *add* that motor to the trike, rather than replace the Fusin with it).
 
I had a thought that perhaps the disc brake hardware
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was bolted thru the casing into the other removable part, so I took it off. Didn't help, but it made me look at the axle hardware.

Under the greasy dirt and fur on the axle hardware, after removing the main nut and washers,
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I found there is a pair of jamnuts just outboard of the discside bearing.
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Removing all the axle hardware including those then allowed me to very easily use the crenellated tool
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to remove the cover completely, which is apparently attached to the entire motor, clutch, and planetary inside.
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However, no bits and bobs were found rattling around inside; other than grease for the gears it's pristine.
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If I held the axle in a wrench, and spun the side cover, I could still hear the loud crunchy clangy sounds, so the problem was inside the cover bearings (or freehub bearings).

I took all the driveside axle hardware off, and found it also has a jamnut, and a spacer, just outboard of the outboard freehub bearing. Removing these revealed the bearing is basically disintegrated--the bearings are not round, they're more like assorted potatoes, though you can't really see in the pictures--the camera cant' zoom in far enough without blurring.
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The bearing separators (little arches of metal that loop around the bearings to keep them all spaced apart) were ground up and squished up inside
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I removed all the broken bits, but can't remove the races (would need to make a pinwrench tool to remove the retainer ring for the freehub), and the sound and grinding feeling are gone. There's still a bearing for the cover, and it appears to be intact (based on feel and sound).

So I reassembled the motor, and now it spins without any abnormal noises.

Since it isn't using the freehub anyway, there's no need to worry about the bearing there, at least for now.



At least now I know (partly) what the motor looks like inside. :)
 
Bravo!

Now that it's apart, perhaps plan a re-assembly strategy that avoids that castellated nut.

Of course, you already know that the bearing's number should be on either race, and you can easily get an identical bearing based on that number. Perhaps it's worth while to get that number ASAP, while you're thinking about it, and record it somewhere you won't lose it - like maybe this thread? - and then you can hunt for it over time, as I suspect that someday you'll wish you had that system intact. (Since complete "junk" bike frames and many attendant parts are remark ably cheap, you might just end up with another frame that has a complete freehub that'll work on that wheel...)
 
Pics of trike at end of post.

I got the system running, except the speedo doesn't work (probably a broken wire between axle and JST to controller; all the axle wires were damaged in shipping originally, and haven't gotten any better since).

When I examined the axle wires at the exit of the axle, I noticed something I missed until now: there are actually 6 small wires; power, ground, white for the speedo sensor (inside the motor but not a motor hall), and 3 green/blue/yellow wires, which may be for halls. I'll have to check with a meter for signals on them, because they might just be there because the cabling already exists for this and is cheaper to use than making new cabling without them, but if they are halls then I can use sensored controllers on this motor too, which will make startups better.

For now the trike is temporarily wired up and tested around the block with teh motor (no pedal chain installed yet, lots of work left ot get to that point). It handles pretty well, though I only have a front brake and thats' with old hard pads and an awkwardly-placed lever on the bars, so I didn't try things I would on SB Cruiser. Teh brake *will* lockup the wheel, but that's mostly cuz it's a crappy old tire with little grip.

It does appear to corner well, though since the speedo doesn't work I can't be sure of the speeds, seemed like around 15MPH before wheel lift on the inboard side of the turn for a right turn going around the block, and a hair faster for a left turn (wider turn radius). Once the extra (small) weight of the wooden seatbox sides and deck are on there, and battery/chair/etc are fastened down, it'll probably corner even better.

As already known, the motor accelerates only slowly, even though it's about 960w peak according to a WU I had inline with the pack under the seat. I wasn't watching the watts display on the controller LCD, so I don't know what continuous it was using, or how quickly power dropped off from a startup, etc. Should be comparable to Delta Tripper, though, which has that data in it's thread.

Nothing else is going to get done today, since neighbors started a sonic assault with their subwoofers, and it's a bit better inside but I can still feel it (can't hear it; it's like someone's banging on the floor with a sledgehammer but silently, and as if they are vibrating my head and body). It's just enough to make me feel sick, not yet enough to start my head pounding (but they'll get there as they keep turning it up and up and up).



RTIII said:
Now that it's apart, perhaps plan a re-assembly strategy that avoids that castellated nut.
It's not a castellated nut, it's machined into the side cover below the surface. :(

But now that I have the tool, and I know to take the axle hardware off the other side :oops:, it's no big deal. :lol:


Of course, you already know that the bearing's number should be on either race, and you can easily get an identical bearing based on that number. Perhaps it's worth while to get that number ASAP, while you're thinking about it, and record it somewhere you won't lose it - like maybe this thread? - and then you can hunt for it over time, as I suspect that someday you'll wish you had that system intact.
It doesn't appear to be on the outboard side of the races, so until I make a tool to disassemble the freehub, I won't be able to tell. No point to doing that till I actually need it, as I might never use it that way. However, it might be a common hubmotor cover bearing (looks about right ID and OD at a glance), in which case I have a few.




(Since complete "junk" bike frames and many attendant parts are remark ably cheap, you might just end up with another frame that has a complete freehub that'll work on that wheel...)
I already have some wheels with freehubs, if it is a standard one and not something custom-made for that wheel; I just have to make the tools to disassemble the stuff. (if I ever do need to do this).
 

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Looks good! And you're test driving it way sooner than I thought you would! Good Job!

What does Raine think of it?

...What are those verticals for adjacent to the seat? An awning? ... A little far forward for that methinks...

And, I'm guessing you're going to make an enclosed box below the seat, yes?
 
RTIII said:
Looks good! And you're test driving it way sooner than I thought you would!
I'd actually hoped to do that last weekend, but the work schedule change and other intervening events prevented that. If it weren't for the motor issue I'd've had it going yesterday, and then been able to do more work today.


What does Raine think of it?
Eh, hard to tell. Raine prefers a car with cushy seats, A/C, etc....but no money for that, hence the trike. At least it can get him around locally, though I know he wouldn't use it for anything very far away (he'd get an Uber or something).

I don't even know that he'll actually use it at all, but it's always fun to build and experiment, and I have already learned from this one stuff I can use for my own next trike. :)

The handlebars are this type by Raine's request, so there would be different hand positions available, but now he says it doesn't matter if they're used or not. (which is a good thing, because it's hard to figure out how to put all the stuff on drop bars as I have no drop-bar-style stuff, and will have to make it up as I go along).


...What are those verticals for adjacent to the seat? An awning? ... A little far forward for that methinks...
Yes, as shown in the later design sketches, it's similar to SB Cruiser's canopy. Unlike SBC's, it'll be a "T" type, rather than an "L". SBC's is mounted further back only because the rear rack (whcih this trike won't have) made a good mounting point for it.

They're not further back because that would require more metal to do, adding more weight and complications to the frame. Done where they are, they use the seatbox frame rear as their starting points, saving metal and weight.


If I were building this for me, I might actually just extend the seatbox back another foot, moving the rear wheels back that far, too, and giving a huge centrally-located cargo area under the seat. Then there'd be just the existing small cargo deck area, and a trailer hitch ball at the back of that. I would probably add a cargo rack above the cargo deck like SBC has, but it'd probably be on the same level as the canopy, so that the canopy itself could also support longer cargo, and taller things could be fit in the bed than otherwise. It wouldn't be able to haul a dog in it, and would require the trailer for that and other large/wide things. Optionally, I'd massively widen (and lengthen) the cargo deck area (moving the wheels farther apart) and just go ahead and make the huge trike to carry two dogs at once that I've considered. :lol:

But that's not for this trike....


And, I'm guessing you're going to make an enclosed box below the seat, yes?
Yes, that's the seatbox, with insulated insides, and like SBC will have a lid that tilts forward, with the seat bolted to the top. (this type of seat is like a car seat in that the back folds down via a lever on the side, assisting in the tilting so it doesn't hit the handlebars).

It should have about 2.5 cubic feet of space inside the insulation. A small part of that will be taken up by a 50cal ammocan holding the battery, and a charger. Raine will have to leave the lid open during charging so it doesnt' overheat, cuz it's not weather resistant so I can't mount it safely outside the box. The only weather-resistant chargers I have other than the Satiator are the big heavy Meanwell HLG's, and I don't want to add that much weight just for a charger, as it's not likely to be needed very often on a ride, if at all. The only real reason to even have it on the trike is so it can't get lost. ;)

The battery was originally planned to be the old Luna "mini" 18650 pack sent to me for testing and evaluation and whatever uses I had for it, but it's BMS has proven to be unpredictable during recharge (including appearing to complete a charge but actually shutting down well before that or even not actually starting to charge).

Raine wouldn't really deal well with that, so instead I'm going to use the EM3EV A123 16s 20Ah pack, which has been reliable, has a BMS that's been well-behaved and proven to cutoff at LVC and HVC and balance correctly, and can easily handle the power requirements of this trike. It's bigger and heavier, but reliable.

I'd use EIG cells but I haven't a BMS to ensure Raine won't overdischarge them, and the controller/LCD itself is actually designed/programmed around 16s LiFePO4 anyway.
 
This past weekend I got about half the tack welds converted to fully-welded joints.

I also swapped the dropbars for near-straight mountain bars, because there really just wasn't a way to make the controls, levers, etc all work on dropbars in a way that Raine can use them with good reaction time, etc.

Started work on prepping wiring harness, but haven't got very far on that, just basically gathering stuff up for it.

One whole side of the Fusin (wu xing, actually) headlight/powermeter/keyswitch unit's headlight portion died for no reason I can see. The LEDs all measure as shorts when power is on, so the whole voltage is across the dropping resistor (which gets pretty hot like that). They measure as opens with no current flow. :/

The other side is fine; they're two independent identical parallel LED strings.

Doesn't really matter as it'll get a "real" (car) headlight as soon as I can build a mount for it. Will be powered by a 4s lighting pack like my trike's lights unless I run across DC-DC converters that can handle the turn-on currents of the halogen. (or if Raine decides to buy a motorcycle LED headlight).

Then the LED bike lights will just be "accent" lights, and backup lighting in case of issues with the primary.

Not sure what to do for the turn signals, brake and taillgihts, etc., yet. Raine is looking for good deals that he can afford for motorcycle lighting and downlighting strips, but otherwise I'll be repurposing other lighting I already have here. I have some old car taillgihts for instnace, that just need bulbs and possibly mounts for them, that can be bolted to the frame. If I have enough LED stuff I can cram in there they'll be bright enough to use without car-type bulbs.


I still havent' got the mechanical design worked out for the pedal chainline yet; I have the idea in my head but still looking thru my stuff for parts to do it with. Mostly bearings that will fit tubes I have, or tubes that will fit the berings I have, etc., stuff to use for chain redirection. The chainline will go down parallel to the downtube from the cranks, then back along the keel to parallel with the rear axles. A transfer axle like SBC has at that point to take it to just under the left rear axle, then another chain up from there to the rear derailer and sprockets.


Also still digging thru my stuff for brake bosses and parts to build rear rim brakes for it. (and hopefully enough to use on SB Cruiser and on the Mk IV trailer, both of which also need them).
 
Slow progress. Most of the welds are now complete, and ground flat. I fixed the incorrect angle/spacing of that dropout noted but almost forgotten about some weeks back. Started cutting some of the wood for the seatbox, none is assembled yet.

It's mostly coming from the internal frame of what was once Tiny's feeding couch (since after her death I couldn't pass it and see it every day in the house, so it got moved outside, and between her drool and urine (she leaked sometimes) and the weather/etc., the outside and foam of the couch were pretty trashed. So once I got far enough past my grief, and got a doggie door installed into the new back door (to replace the doggie-window-door), I took it apart to eventually use the wood, and to use a lot less space for storage, and to not keep seeing it as Tiny's couch).

The wood itself is fairly flat and straight, but is full of staples (how the furniture is built, apparently), so I'll need to grind or sand those down (there are far too many to attempt to pull out), so the wood can be either stained or painted, depending on Raine's eventual decision about that.

Once the seatbox wood panels are assembled and installed, and the lid built, I can bolt the seat to the lid and connect it to hinges at the front edge like the SB Cruiser's.

I've got a pile of accessories to install, like brake studs (for the rear) and arms and cabling, etc., a derailer for the left rear wheel, sprockets and bearings/hubs to make chain guides from. I have a few old chains soaking in oil to free them up to make the pedal chain from.

Once I have a basic chainline to the rear, I can work on the transfer axle from the center of the trike to the left rear wheel itself.
 
Setup to cut wood today, but was very windy/gusty, kicking up clouds of dust so I couldn't breathe or see at inopportune moments, so I didnt' get anywhere with that.


So all I really got done was bending/shaping some tubing for the canopy "arches", that will hold the canopy and insulation up away from sagging toward the rider's head. And attaching a couple of them on the forward half of the canopy (riveted to the main canopy frame, which is thinwall aluminum tube from an old cot).

The tubing used today is very thinwall steel salvaged from an otherwise-cardboard dogfood display at work; there were three 4-foot-long tubes under each of the two shelves, holding up stacks of large dogfood bags. So they're overkill for the usage, but they're as light as the aluminum and easier to work.


Spent some time after it got dark working with Cvin on a battery from one of her ebikes; it's sort of like a silverfish /etc battery, but not quite the same shape/dock as any others we've seen. It's had some odd problems now and then, taht could've been a cell or connection issue, or a weird BMS problem.

Opening it up, the first thing we found was a capacitor (metal shell, printed rather than heatshrink-wrapped) rattling around loose inside the case. It's broken off the little USB power converter board inside, and there's at least one more cap that was already breaking off, which finally came off completely while manipulating stuff inside. So the USB board doesn't work--it might if the caps are replaced.

The next thing found was while unplugging the "automotive style" bullets used on the wires from the battery itself to the keylock, fuse, and charge port, some of the wires just pulled right out of the backs of the bullets--terrible crimps. :(

Recrimped those, and reassembled, verified the battery supports a load and that the charger port still works (as does the keyswitch, battery meter, etc), so now Cvin just has to retest it on the bike itself (which couldn't be brought over).
 
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