2WD Semi-Recumbent Recycled-Parts Cargo eBike: "CrazyBike2"

Alan B said:
The scale (pictured earlier) is marked 4 inches to the mile, and the scale appears to be divided in thousands and hundreds of feet, so if you find 5280 on the scale it might be about four inches... :)

There are lots of engineering scales that are not inches or metric. K&E was a major manufacturer of Engineering scales and slide rules...

So I found.... :/ I think at one time I even knew this was not a normal ruler, but it was in the most convenient place at the time, and so it was used, unfortunately causing me grief. Oh, well, live and learn.

I do a lot of that.... :|


I'm going to go poke at the blown CA with a meter and see what I can find.
 
Didnt' find much on the CA yet. Been working (and hurting with the weather changes, rain, sun, wind, rain, cold, sun, cold, wind, rain....) so not enough time, but tomorrow I should get a chance to sit down and poke at it (and Miguerillart's controller) some more.


Lunches at work plus some discarded holiday signage equals silly-looking bike:

IMG_6608.JPG


I'm still working on some other signage bits to actually label the bike as what it is: "CrazyBike2". :) I thought they were on sticker paper but it turns out they aren't--teh backing is brown and slick like that stuff usually is, but it won't peel away. They were supposed to be, and are probably why we tossed them, since if they don't stick we can't use them on our fixtures. I suspect that the manufacturer of the "sticker paper" screwed up and put the "waxed" side of the backing paper out and the "unwaxed" side onto the sticky paper, making it impossible to remove the backing. :roll: I guess the printing company didn't bother to ever check any of their product before shipping.



And one of my pair of "wolf-in-winter" coverlets makes for a warmer seat when riding--normally the open mesh of the seat cools me during the overly-warm temperatures we typically have, but now with the colder temperatures and the windchill and such, that's not helpful. Putting the coverlet on there, which reflects heat back to my body, keeps my back, bottom, and thighs a lot warmer than with the mesh. Plus it looks lots better than my usual amalgam of mesh, tubing, and padding. :)
IMG_6609.JPG


Regarding the temperatures right now, I could see my breath just leaving work at 920PM, and it was several degrees colder (by feeling) a couple miles south where I live (this is usually true, as in the Metro area there's lots of concrete and asphalt that soaks up heat in daytime and dumps it at night). I think it might actually be below freezing out there right now; my temperature monitoring system's display died a few weeks ago so I don't know. Right now, 2:40am, it is already cold enough in the house that I have my longjohns and undershirt on with pants and a "flocked" hoodie on, under the blankets, and the dogs all piled up around me on the bed, and it still feels like somebody set the A/C below 60F. :(

The ceiling fan helps, set to pull the cold air up in the center and push the warmer air back across the cieling and down the walls, but it only works in med or high modes--in low mode it just stalls after spinning down, and the motor gets hot. I suspect the start/run cap, and once I find the one I used to test the aquarium pump motor a few months back, I'll see if that fixes the problem. It'd be nice, because ther'es too much of a breeze with it on medium, and low would be about perfect just to keep the warmer air from collecting at the cieling.
 
Thanks to Justin, I find that I didn't completely destroy the CA (yet):
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=679054#p679054
so I will just run it from 12V for now, until I can find a replacement FET (and resistor) in my salvaged parts (I'm sure I ahve something that will work).

So after I rest a while and my hands work again, I am going to add a 12V anderson tap to hook up to my 12V lighting pack, to run both the CA and the Thun sensor. The controller-CA connector wil still have the batteyr voltage on it to monitor that, and the shunt/etc.

I am looking for my thermal sensors off my now-defunct house-wide monitoring system that failed a little while back. I can't remmeber what kind they are, but if they are the right kind of sensor, I can use them with the CA.

If they're not, well, I have a lot of old motherboards that probably have those chip-sensors (LM35?)
 
In between involuntary naps (been having a problme wit h htat all day) I made up the wiring stuff for the CA, and added them to it. I dunno about testing it yet.

I've also been re-reading the long CA v3 thread yet again, and found another bit I'd missed before:

justin_le said:
All of my testing so far has been done with the THUN X-Cell sensor, for the most part it is pretty good but there are a few slight shortcomings that came up:

1) Magnetic Field Sensitivity: My demo bench was welded up from steel frame bike parts and a lot of the tools in my garage are slightly magnetized, and as a result the test jig has some residual magnetism too. It turns out that the sensing technology is extremely sensitive to external fields, so on my demo setup even with no torque on the bottom bracket, I would see a variation in about +- 10Nm in the signal output just by changing the spindle angle. When I touched my slightly magnetized wrench to the THUN spindle to remove the crank say, then the signal would jump off the scale. On an alloy frame bike this is all of minimal consequence, but I can envision situations with steel frames that have had magnets stuck on them in the past where a degaussing of the bottom bracket area might be necessary.

That might turn out to ber a problem, because I used to keep my bundle of old harddisk magnets to theoretically help with traffic light road-sensor-loop
activation down on hte BB shell. I guess we'll see if the potential issue noted above actually comes up in practice.
 
I meant to post all the above over in the CA repair thread, so continuing this there.
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=679107#p679107
 
been a while witout updates cuz i'm not feeling well,b ut ca is working well enough for now, though thun sensor not working yet and still fiddling with shunt calibration.


nothng really new to report yet, except something i forgot to post friday. i went for groceries at frys' and on the way there i tipped over at a 4-way stop, and took me 20 minutes to get the bike back upright and rest enough to get back riding again. :(

problem is that even with the low-to-the-ground crazybike2 where i can put my feet flat while staying seated, i can't always move my legs down to ground fast enouhg to keep from tipping. most of the time the cargo pods stop me from actually falling over. but sometimes i sort of panic and flail if i can't control my reaction to falling sensation, and end up leaning in the same direction i'm tipping, and that cna make me tip farther. it's worse on the left side cuz the pod is slightly higher on that side.

this time i had nothing in cargo pods at all just toosl in black box on left side so id have more room for groceries. so when i stopped at the stop sign, it startd to tip to the left, especially with my bad left knee, i could't do anything fst enough to keep the pod from hitting the ground. i was still moving forward just a teeny bit so the pod dug in at it's front corner and the bike started to pivot leftward a bit, and i swiveled handlebars rigthward (opposite of what i should've done) and that pushed my weight leftward and dumped me off the seat as the bike tipped over further, then me holding it dragged it all the way over on it's side as i hti the ground. :(


nobody else on the roads, so no problem, and i wasn't injured (just my pride) but none of the pedestrians walking by or the several cars that came thru even tried to help me in the maybe 10 minutes (more?) it took me to get the bike upright again, or in the next 10 where i just sat on a cargo pods lid sideways catching my breath and gathering strenght and will again, deciding if i wanted to still go for groceries. (cuz i had stuff at home just wanted some beef and stuff for chili..which i didn't even get to make until yesterday).


anyway, this just proves to me that i def need to bulid that trike, the delta tripper, so i have something "safe" to ride on such bad days. can fancy it up later.
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=681469#p681469
 
That is why my wife and I went to trikes. It is quite a pleasure to ride and not worry about balance, and drivers seem to give us a wider path with our weird looking trikes. Definitely an easier way to avoid the ER.
otherDoc
 
Yep AW, glad you only hurt your pride, but a trike might be the best thing you could do. I've never had great balance and having a recumbent bike for a few years really improved my abilities, but, it always took a lot of concentration and effort. I fell down several times, always when stopped or going very slow, and never hurt myself. But in traffic could definitely be a different story.

Now, with a trike, every ride is pure joy. :D
 
for now the trike will just be a slowerspeed trike, 10-15mph, but that will cause problems in traffic, with people honking and generally being stupid, just like bcka whne i was only pedalling a regular bike. so it will have to be a leaning-front-half trike as soon as i can manage it. meaning, the rear trike part won't tilt, but hte part with the mass up high (me) will be ablet to lean into turns just like a bike, and ought to enable me to ride almost like a wide bike.

best would be a tilting tadpole but i can't imagine i'll be able to build that for a long while, as i have had ideas and intentions to do that for 3-4 years now. i could probably buld one just for me to ride relatively quikcly but it wouldn't be usable for cargo so i'd end up pulling the trailer with it all the time, and that isn't practical. better to build it to handle cargo in the first place, so i mignt just end up turning loooooooongbike idea into loooooooongtrike instead, with a tilting tadpole front end and extensible bed.

i am actuallly pondering using a copuole of by-chance-identical junk yframe fs bikes to make a suspensionish delta trike, that might also be able to lean a little in turns by pushing down on the inside wheel's suspension and lifting up on the other one but i'm not sure how to force that to happen, and by nature the opposite would happen. if they were airshocks i could make some sort of forced-pressure-transfer system but they're junk elastomer/coilover spirng types.


here's an idea that is probably stupider than i think it is, but i thought i saw somethng like it on another titling tadpole design:
i have a pair of car (truck?) shocks but i think they're just the dampeners. but also a pair of cmplete mx shocks with what seem like strong springs. wondering if putting thme in an x-shape across the rear end would do what i want and still let them be suspension too? meaning, have indpenendent swingarms for eahc rear wheel, but instead of having the shock go from the left swingar to the left frame, hav e it go from left swingarm to right frame and vice-versa? i dunno...it doesn't sound like it would react any differently...but maybe...if the trike is tilted to the right, then the shock from right frame to left wheel will compress, forcing the left wheel downward, pushing up more on the left side, helping to tilt the trike in the turn's direction instead of fighting it. at the same time the shcok from the left frame to the right wheel will be decompressed, allowing the right wheel to go upward and also helping to tilt the trike in the direction of the turn.


dang now my brain is in pondering mode and i will have to try to draw this up to work it out. wish i could get my tablet to work (if i even knew where it whas) to draw it into something cadlike and animate it, but it'll have to be pencil/paper for now.
 
I dunno if I have the energy to do anything with them right now, but Mr.Electric's spoke gift showed up today. These are thankfully teh same length as the ones on my 20" wheel, htough they are at least a gauge or two thicker. hopefully that won't caue aproblem tesniongn the wheel, but it's still better than having four missing spokes.
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You can see the difference below--the one on the bottom with no head came off my wheel, and the onase obave it aer the "new" ones.
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He also included one of Spinningmagnets' "bumpre stickers"--it'll robably end up on teh back fo the Delta Tripper.
 
it has been really friggin cold the last few days. I am not getting anything done, really, makes my ahnds and the rest of me hurt. am typing with ,eyboard and trackball under the blankets since i can't type wearing gloves and it's too cold in here.

yesterday was pretty cold, belwo 20f by dawn, and was only in the high 50s in teh bedroom when i left for work today at miday.

Much colder today. didnt' even get to *45F* for a high today!

Was just below freezing on my ride home after 930pm, not counting windchill. Got hom about 10pm, 31F at my front porch (which was warmed by sun during the day so it's probably eally colder outside than that). By the time I finished typing this at midnight, it is 28F and dropping, on the porch, and the backyard is already at 26F.


Cold enough when I ride that even yesterday (sunday) leaving the house at 1pm by the time i got to work 10 minutes later, at only 20mph max and probabaly 15mph avg, with some sitting at lights, my hands were numb from the cold. I forget what the temp was but I think it was low 50s. Felt colder. Riding home tonight at almost 730pm I couldn't feel my hands just a couople of minutes into the ride, even with my gloves on, and by a couple minutes later they wer just hurting so bad i coudlnt' work teh turn signal siwthc and had troulbe with braking. They doo a good cjob keepign rain off, but suck at keeping heat in with windchill--they're fine as long as air's not flowing over them, so I think i need to make some handlebar wind deflectors, similar to the brush deflectors some dirtbikes ahve on them. Probalby out of a copule old 2liter soda bottles or something, since i have a bunch to keep water in.

Was a lot colder on the wy to work today, adn on the way hom. i couldn't even pull the gloves off nomrally, had to trap my hands between my knees to ge t them off cuz I doulcn't feel or move my fingers. i had to nearly coast to a stop most o the time on the way home buceas e I couldn't squeeze the brake lever hard enogh. So i rode slowly, 15mph or so, most of the way, instead of 20. much easeir to stopthat way.

def need those wind deflectors.


when i got home today it ws 45F in the fornt room, 38F in the back room and 47F in the kitchen. 56F in the bedroom (though that's going up now that me and the dogs are in here, has gone up to 58F already in the 45 minutes or so we've been layng here). rest of the house has probably dropped a cople degrees by now but i ain't gettin up to check. :lol:

I forgot yesterday to turn on all the outside water taps, so tonight i did that just after I got home. The one out by the shed was already frozen but not burst, I had to thaw it with my brazing torch. :lol: Now I have it dripping just a tad, hoepfuly enough to stay unfrozen.

Same for the kitchen tap on hot, and the bath tap on cold, to keep those flowing since they're overhead int eh roof crawlspace and basically uninsulated.


Its at least a four-dog-night, and I'd make room up here for six or seven if I had 'em.
 
Much warmer today, supposed tos tay that way. Workign on the Delta Tripper now but if I can i gotta also fix the spokes in the wheel while i can, and then also get onto Migueriillarts controlelr that's been on hold till my hands are workign again, whcih tey almost are. weather holds, then they will be good enough.
 
No other fixes yet, but almost had a fire while trying to charge it up!

Charger cord is defective, doesn't seat properly against the input plug, IEC type. Took a bit of poking to find the problem, but when I did it was slightly dramatic.

I've had one other time, many months ago, that I couldnt' get the charger to start charging, just went from yellow to green as soon as the fan started and current began to flow, but unplugging and replugging both ends fixed it so I thought no more about it, figuring it simply hadn't been plugged in all the way at the AC cord input.

Similar thing happened this time, but it did charge up almost half an Ah before it stopped; I didnt' notice because the Accucel6 RC charger was still running (with it's super-loud fan) on the 12V lighting pack. Normally that one takes longer htan the main pack because of the Accucel charging rate (it says 5A but it doesn't actually seem to stay at that rate very long, dips down to 1A or less then back up to 5A, and back and forth--probably due to charger heating internally as I doubt that fan really moves much air), so until I got up to get the dogs to go out for a break again after all of us dozed a while, and I saw the CA volts and Ah readings, I didn't know it hadn'ta lready finished.

Since it stopped, but was green, I just power cycled the charger, which then did just like it had before, almsot right to green, so I unplugged/replugged the AC and DC ends, to no effect. Left it unplugged for a while, plugged in, no change. Verified that if connected to the pack when turned on, it would indeed output 66.2V like it should if I disconnected it, but when connected it only output whatever the pack was at (61.1V in this case). Strange. Then I also noticed a smell like an overheated LED (a plasticky-burning smell, not quite like that of any other plastics or electronics), but the LEDs didn't seem even warm.

I opened it up, checked it all for heat, nothing seemed warm that shouldnt' be. No smoke, no smell on any part of the PCB that shouldn't be there. While still open I hooked it back up, and when switched on it began smoking from the AC input, around the plug/socket interface itself! I yanked the plug from the wall socket first.

This told me it was almost certainly arcing somewhere in there, and sure enough, when I pulled the plug out, I could see a darker contact and hole, though it's hard to see in the pictures exactly how much darker that one is than the others. The problem is on the L (line) contact.


I pulled another AC cord out of a box, and first verified continuity/0-ohms across the connection on each wire (from the wall-end of the AC plug to the back of the socket in the charger), then plugged it all in and powered it on, whereupon it resumed charging normally, even when trying to wiggle the plug (it is very firmly in place, and doesn't actualy wiggle, where the other one could, very slightly).

Disconnected from wall and pack, then reassembled charger, replugged in, and is now charging normally.


But if it had happened to start that arcing while I was dozing, it could've easily started burning the plastic bits of the charger and then some of the linoleum tile floor under it, which may or may not have spread to the rubber mat the bike is parked on, or the rest of the floor, or bike, or wall nearby, before the smell woould've wakened me and/or the dogs. (and since I doze without warning sometimes when home and sittng there doing stuff, cuz I'm always really tired, I can't guarantee I'll be able to stay awake to keep an eye on any process like battery charging, even though I'd like to).



So, beware--if anything AC-powered seems to be misbehaving, and reseating the AC input cord fixes it, you really should check the fit and connection before anything else.
 

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While I was replying to a PM, I also was apparently trying to burn the house down.

My mind loses track of stuff sometimes, always has, sometimes trivial stuff, sometimes really really important stuff, and somtiems I remember it and somtimes I completley forget forever, evne though other people don't understand how that could be possible. But that's just how my brain (doesn't) works.

My biggest problem is I keep forgetting stuff I'm doing when I go off doing something else (because I have to severely multitask to accomplish enough of the things I need to do, not even including things I *want* to do).

Tonight (while typing up the PM, including doing some researching and searching) I forgot I was boiling tea on the stove. Hachi TRIED SO HARD to tell me I left it on, by coming back to me over and over and then leaving and sitting by the door to the kitchen, isntead of laying at my side like usual. But i ignored her cuz i was thinking and writing and searching, until I smelled something like hot metal, which suddenly made my brain tell me OHHHH FUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!


I keep doorways curtained off so if I could smell the smoke in here, it went thru both my bedroom/frontroom curtain and the frontroom/kitchen curtain. That must be a LOT of smoke...so...I held my breath and went from bedroom to frontroom, and it was vaguely misty, which is a fair bit of smoke. My heart began to race as I imagined possible flames in the kitchen, grabbed a fire extinguisher, and peeked behind the blanket over the doorway--almost totally dark (I leave lights off in rooms I'm not in) so no fire...but the pan on teh stove is glowing a little on the bottom (aluminum pot) and looks like I'm seeing it thru fog. Possible that the glow was just the electric burner glow diffused in fog, but I'm fairly sure it was actually the bottom fo the pan itself. Flipped on light and could barely see thru the smoke, which was beginning to burn my eyes. Turned off burner, moved pan off of it, and the lid shattered (tempered glass lid with stainless rim and some sort of dense plastic knob for the top that had no sign of melting). :(

Couldn't hold my breath any longer so I pulled down the curtain/blanket between kitchen/backroom, opened the back door, and went outside for air. Back inside, got a boxfan and set it up in the doorway of kitchen, reset the blanket so it covers the doorway except for the boxfan, and set it to high, blowing out to the backroom. Back into front room pulling blanket up from floor a bit there, and opening front door and window, then my bedroom window too, so fresh air can be pulled in from outside (cold or not, it's better than breathing the fumes.


It's been a while now, an hour or so, and I can still smell the hot metal smell, evne in teh bedroom, so I'm still letting it air out, even though it's cold outside and I woudl rather not lose all the heat--it might be sunny tomorrow and I can get some of it back then. Just ahve to bundle up tonight.


The real problem at this minute, though, is that the pad of my pointer and middle finger must've touched a too-hot part of the plastic handle of the pan when I moved it off the burner, and while I dind't notice then, it's begun to throb, and there is a blister under the skin on the pointer finger, and a red area around that, and a small red area on the middle finger's side of pad towards pointer finger. It's not bad enough to keep me from typing cuz it's not right on the areas I press keys with, but I"m nto fast at it, and it does hurt. I put aloevera on it but it hasnt' helped yet. Probably need to just make a "finger glove" out of a leaf section and see if that helps. (it has before).


The pan used to be that "kitchen yellow"; you'd never know that now. :roll: Long ago the teflon coating wore off the bottom of it, and some of the sides, so it's been bare aluminum for years. I used to have a better pan for my tea, but my crazy sister disappeared it along with a bunch of other kitchen stuff a few years ago, and this is the only other one I had that holds just the right amount of water and fits on teh burner and has (had) a good-fitting lid with a relief hole for steam pressure.

Now I don't have a good lid for it or any other the right size, so I will need to go hunting for one at the thrift stores. I will also have to thoroughly scrub out the pan, and re-"stain" it with junk tea that I won't be drinking (because bare aluminum makes for horrible tea; it has to be "seasoned" with old teastain first). I do still have an old thin aluminum lid, but I can't see thru that, so it has to be pulled off to check the state of the water/tea/etc., and makes it more likley I will accidentally burn myself with steam by forgetting to tilt it the correct way. (because I never truly learn...even though I know better.)


The pan is even pretty distorted from the heat--it's no longer round as you can see in the bottom pic (it already hd some dents here and there, but nothing like this). And I didn't notice until I took the pic, but when I moved it off the burner and to the middle of the stove, I must've set it on the plastic spoon I had been going to use for putting sugar in, because the spoon is missing and there's melted plastic all over the bottom and the side/bottomedge. :roll:

IMG_6770.JPG

 
That pan's a dog food bowl now! Every time I've completely upheaved my life and needed new cookware, I've been able to find nice stainless stuff at the thrift store for just a few bucks. In fact, the pans I have right now were purchased at a thrift store near you. Stay away from the aluminum and teflon stuff as both supposedly have negative health effects.
http://news.consumerreports.org/home/2009/09/best-nonstick-cookware-pfoa-health-risks-swiss-diamond-reinforced-cookware-earth-pan-with-sand-flow.html

Glad you didn't have a bigger fire to deal with! If you add something with vitamin e to your burn salve, it will really speed up the healing time. Most lotions have it in it.
 
I'm old and my memory is not what it used to be, not that it was ever great. I set a little electronic cooking timer every time I put something on the stove. It gets to be 2nd nature and has saved my house a few times. Hope your fingers heal quickly.
otherDoc
 
I may have to do the timer thing...as long as I can remember to use it. :roll: :oops:


I probably will look for a stainless pot for this. But there are rarely any at the thrift stores, at least of the right size/type, that don't have teflon coatings (usually already damaged). I suppose I could use my wire brush on the variable-speed angle-polisher/grinder to remove the teflon.


Full story posted here first:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=697311#p697311
I have had a wierd intermittent problem with teh 18FET on CrazyBike2 since installing it, which seems to only happen when the pack is closer to full charge--the lower the voltage gets, the less often it happens.

WOThrottle voltage can be up to 4.2something volts, out of my thumb throttle. Never a problem on the other controllers so far, but on this one, at full pack voltage, it causes complete cutout, just as if I engaged an ebrake (which I don't have wired up on this one). This would not usually be a big deal, but I naturally hit WOT trying to accelerate away from a stop sign or traffic light, or when certain traffic conditions suddenly happen that I have to acclerate thru or away from. Having power cut out right then is pretty unhelpful, and it's not instinctive to roll throttle back to get more power. :(


Anyway, I hadn't done anything about it because it was easy to deal with, but tonight one of those traffic situations came up with an idiot deciding to try to pull out of a side street jsut as I was about to pass in front of him, and my only option was to go faster really quick to get out of the wya---braking would've just caused me to skid and crash, at that speed with those conditons (sandy road edge), and traffic in the lane next to me so I couldn't just swerve left out of the way.

So after easily getting out of the way (but with an instant's panic when power cut out because of the problem), I continued to a parking lot and pulled into a space, and went to the first "left" screen on the CA, with the awvst limits indicator, and the throttle voltages. I tilted the bike on the right pod up so the wheel was off-ground, watching the Throttle in and out voltages, and goosed it WOT. As soon as it reached 4.10V out, the motor cut out. 4.09V it was fine.

I entered setup, throttle output section, and set max out to 4.09V. Retested, and no problems since. Way easy fix, and took almost as little time as just rolling back the throttle to recover! (which I won't have to do now. :))

So, another thanks to Justin's hard work, I had a simple quick solution to a problem I'd put off dealing with because I didn't wnat to have to design and build something to re-scale the throttle voltage just for this.
 
Today I got a bunch of lumber at work when our new kitty litter station came in, in a big crate. Only the frame was wood, mostly 1"x4"s of various lengths and three 2"x4"s; rest was just cardboard. Was VERY awkward to ride with, worse than my load of red square tubing a couple of years back; even tied down securely it wobbled the back end a lot over the bumpy/wavy roads.

At most intersections the ripples in the pavement caused the back end to go up and down so much that the pods would wiggle and the wood would wiggle, and then oscillate left-right, causing the whole bike to wiggle and esesntially start a death-wobble on the steering. :( But by the time I got home I had just about learned to ride with the wobblies. :)

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Some of this is going to go to repair the fence that Fred
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has decided was in her way to get to the neighbor's yard. :( I guess the local stray cats have made a home there, and Fred wants to meet them? Fortunately none of the others have an interest.
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Before the rain a couple days back, I put some old gates with wood frames and wire/fence "fill" down on the ground where she'd been digging the holes (which I'd filled back in and wet down since she doesnt' like to dig in wet dirt; it did help until she dug in a different spot a few feet over), then put some old car batteries on top of them so she couldn't move them (being only 30-35lbs, smallest of the four dogs). I also put some bricks and other stuff out past the ends of where the old gates stopped covering the ground, but the fencing where she'd been digging was damaged and needs some cross-reinforcement, and that's where some of this stuff is going to be used as soon as I get my next day off. Thursday, probably, assuming it isn't raining or too cold for me to manipulate things.


Enough rambling (lies, there is never enough), gonna nap I think. (never enough of that either)
 
Just an update to my OT post here:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=697923#p697923
I think I found a gear that will work for the telescope; gotta actually compare it to the one inside the mechanism though. Probably will turn out to be one tooth off or something. :lol: I tried counting teeth but I keep losing track.


Still not fixed, though, but I used it tonight to test some lenses I ran across in a box of assorted lens and mirror stuff (which also happened to have this gear in there, too, on
a motor assembly probably from a scanner based on the rubberized mounting plate) while moving some stuff to see if I could make room for the future aquaponics tank
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=700895#p700895
file.php

in the back room (but I ran out of energy, time, and willpower, and started hurting too much in all the usual places).

I dunno where the lens came from originally, but the 14x one in the box of stuff was way way better than the 2x barlow the 'scope had with it when I got it. It has a much much wider viewing angle, so it doesnt' feel like I'm looking down a mile-long train tunnel at a dot of light, but rather fills the field of view. It does have some chromatic abberation even at it's center, but I can live with that, given my options. ;)

I tried to take some pics, but the best of them is pretty awful--I can't hold the camera steady, or get the focus right. It's wierd--the light from the scope directly to my eye is very bright, nearly eyesquinting for the 1/3-full moon, but thru the DSLR camera's viewfinder it appears barely visible, and the same is true of the resulting pics. Since it's so dim, it cant' autofocus on it, and I can't see it well enough to focus either, especially while trying to hold the camera and not bang it into the scope screwing up the aim (whcih I did a lot of), all while having the shaky hands that happens way too often these days. Oh, and also while constantly having to reposition the scope cuz it only takes a minute or less for the moon to fully transit the viewer of the scope.

CRW_6816.jpg

I guess if I can get the motor stuff working, I'll at least not have to worry about tracking. Then if Ic an make a mount for the camera to strap tot he scope, and figue out a good focusing method for the camera, I can get useful pics by using the "bulb" setting and leave the lens open a lot longer than normal.

Only issue I foresee is vibration--the scope vibrates a lot just sitting there doing nothing, probalby from my shaky hands, but it is significant with 14x magnification. :(

But the stars are SO PRETTY and there are SO MANY MANY OF THEM! The Plieades.. O M G, it's FULL OF STARS. ;) And I could actually see some shape to the Orion Nebula, isntead of just the fuzzy patch it is in the other scope. I managed also once to use the 2x barlow in series with teh 14x, and could see even more but I kept losing the nebula, as it moves so fast across the much much narrowr field of view, so I gave up trying after a few minutes--it ws just too frustrating. :( Still, even without the motorized tracking, it is worth looking up at the sky with this. (but it makes me wish for an even bigger one, of course! :oops:)
 
amberwolf said:
I think I found a gear that will work for the telescope; gotta actually compare it to the one inside the mechanism though. Probably will turn out to be one tooth off or something. :lol: I tried counting teeth but I keep losing track.

That happens to me also... :oops: Since I know I can count to 10 without getting sidetracked I usually just mark the first tooth and then every tenth tooth. Easy to pick the count back up once I get sidetracked.

I tried to take some pics, but the best of them is pretty awful--I can't hold the camera steady, or get the focus right.

That is hard to do hand held. Need to get or build a mount and then the telescope has to be heavy enough to stay solid through any shuttering motion so doesn't shake. Another way is to put the dslr on a tripod to keep it still that way.

Looking forward to some nice pictures this year.

:D
 
emiyata said:
AW does that scope use 1.25" eyepieces?
That sounds right; accordng to the online manual (Meade DS2000 I think) it is.
http://www.meade.com/manuals/TelescopeManuals/Reflectors/DS2000%20manual.pdf
http://www.meade.com/starterscopes/ds_series.html
Other than the 2x barlow adapter that was with it (no actual eyepiece) none of the eyepieces I have are "exactly" right; some are way too smalla nd some just a little bit (fixed with electrical tape wrapped around it for the 14x, which is the only really usable one for my purposes due to field of view.

Do you now how to star test?
If this:
https://www.willbell.com/tm/tm5.htm
When focusing an instrument you probably roll the eyepiece back and forth a couple times before settling on the sharpest position. If the telescope is well figured, collimated properly, and the air is steady, best focus lies midway between two identical out-of-focus disks. Without even thinking about it, you just know that appearance means good optics.
is what you mean by "star test", then I guess I already do it (and then I lock down the focus screw, though it still has enough play to screw up the focus if I forget and grab the knob). Though presently I have some trouble getting a "perfect" focus; probably my shakiness.


I also realized just this instant that if I really want to take pics of the stuff, I should make an adapter that doesnt' use the camera's lens assembly at all, and connects directly to the body of the Canon. (assuming that it will operate without the lens attached; I haven't checked that yet) Having thought ouf that, I checked and they make one:
http://store.meade.com/meade-basic-camera-adapter-1-25.html
which I should be able to "copy" the idea of, once I get time.
 
The scope takes 1.25" std eyepieces and has a 24mm that comes with it. I assume you don't have that eyepiece.

Star test you defocus on a star until you have rings and the rings should be round. If not the scope needs alignment.
 
Ah--I'll have to check that then.


Tonight I tested the cargo capacity of the trailer heavily again, overloading it just "a little", with about 200lbs of dog food
IMG_6820.JPG


--an unplanned purchase, and one I didn't really have the budget for but which I couldn't afford to NOT buy--we're remodelling the store I work at, and a bunch of stuff was suddenly on clearance for ridiculously low prices, like a tenth of normal retail. Even less than I can usually get good deals for on sales like this, and that's usually on kinda crappy dog food (relatively). Since I can mix this stuff with the other food I already have for them, to give them better (tasting and nutrition) meals, and stretching it out, too.
IMG_6821.JPG



I did a lot better job strapping this batch down, vs most of the others; I tried a new tactic of a box for the lower part of each stack to prevent wheel rub; it works lots better than anything else, and is simple since we almost always ahve big boxes beign trashed at work. Then I used the packing straps off the pallets of shelving shipped to our store for the remodel to tie it all down (they aren't intended to be reusable, but the clips are--I use both steel and plastic ones over and over again for stuff like this). Way better than bungee cords and velcro straps.
IMG_6823.JPG


Still, 3/4 fo the way home, on a speed bump (the wide kind, usually easier on my bike than the narrow bumps) the load shifted a little bit, and I got a deathwobble in the trailer, shimmying back and forth side to side, and I had an interesting time slowing down frmo the ~ 16MPH I was at to a stop to check things and re-tighten it all.


I haven't unpacked the trailer yet, but have to do it before work tomorrow. Am still resting after the long stressful day at work, and have already had a few long naps (and some short ones, including a couple typing this up) but don't feel rested at all. :( Nana was guarding it earlier, sitting in the chair curled up, not wanting to come into the bedroom to sleep (which is unusal; she sticks by me most of the time); had to get her to come in here to lay down, so she wouldnt' start any trouble over it.


Several of the people doing the remodel at night have been very interested in the CrazyBike2; at least one of them wants to build his own! I've recommended they all come here to ES to see more about it and other electric bikes, but I dunno fi they will. (most poeple I talk to about or ebikes in general apparently have no real interest in them, but seem to just be mildly interested in CB2 itself).
 
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