2008 CRF250R - QS138v3 70H - ANT - Sanyo UR18650-RX 20s20p - Votol EM260

[jkrienert]

I might have missed something ... What's the light tan material you've (?) heat formed over the frame? Whatever it is, it looks like a fun experiment and possibly novel solution.

Speaking of in place molding... you can make fantastically (almost too much) detailed molds with 100% silicone mixed ~20:1 (highly variable ratio) with acrilic paint. Clear silicone and bright color paint helps you know it's mixed. The paint is the catalyst and it will cure in about an hour. You might have to make a mother mold to support the part you'll be casting after the cure if its big in order to maintain geo. Hard part is getting the material to stick to the part once mixed. I found lightly soapy (generic blue dish soap surfactant) water 1:10 over the part to be molded breaks surface tension, and then using the same soapy water mix on your hand as a lubricant to press the loose silicone mixture like loose clay onto the part and into crevasses is important. Using a liberal amounts of silicone (cross sections thickness) helps resist my biggest encountered negative of the method, shrinking post cure.

Honestly though, I've not used this method on anything greater than a couple hundred sqr cm. It might not work as well for larger parts, but your last post gave me a convergent sense of sharing like means. It's like RTV mold making, without the benefits of pourability, yet with the benefit of being able to get the materials needed easily (my local rural dollar store sells 100% silicone for windows/bath and acrilic craft paint).

Much smaller scale and totally different application, yet some context on the results with the method. Chocolate trilobites

EDIT: hopefully this reference of the method isn't too far off topic. If so please let me know and I'll modify.

 

[amberwolf]

Speaking of in place molding... you can make fantastically (almost too much) detailed molds with 100% silicone mixed ~20:1 (highly variable ratio) with acrilic paint.

Do you mean RTV type silicone, like GE Type I acetic-acid-cure? (the water in the acrylic would help the silicone cure faster).

Or is it like GE Type II? (which I think is ammonia-methanol-cure; I don't think the water would help curing this type and might inhibit it?)

Or do you mean just using one part of a two-part platinum-cure type (platsil, like the stuff I use from Reynolds) with the acrylic providing the other part? (if so, i'm curious how that would work)

You might have to make a mother mold to support the part you'll be casting after the cure if its big in order to maintain geo.

Plaster works well for that. You can use plastic strips cut from milk jugs or shampoo bottles (HDPE) as dividers between the sections of plaster to make them easier to separate. A couple layers of paper or one of thin corrugated cardboard works too but it will bond to the plaster and make the edges messier to separate.

Hard part is getting the material to stick to the part once mixed. I found lightly soapy (generic blue dish soap surfactant) water 1:10 over the part to be molded breaks surface tension, and then using the same soapy water mix on your hand as a lubricant to press the loose silicone mixture like loose clay onto the part and into crevasses is important.

Just make sure whatever you use doesn't have any sulfur compounds in it, as that can inhibit silicone cure (definitely does for platsil, and can even for acetic-cure).

I recommend using silicone cooking spatulas like these

for application and spreading; it's usually possible to peel the cured silicone off of it and you don't have to use release agents on the spatulas (which then get mixed in to the silicone and can cause curing problems on and near the surface or anywhere else they end up).

 

[bananu7]

I might have missed something ... What's the light tan material you've (?) heat formed over the frame? Whatever it is, it looks like a fun experiment and possibly novel solution.

Calibrated sheet wax.: High Temperature Sheet Wax for Moulding - Easy Composites Not really novel at all, it's used to form a barrier but also create a consistent offset over the part. EC has presented this over 4 years ago, and I used their method:

I've made a mistake over the subframe bolt and didn't heat the wax enough, which caused it to crack. I've fixed it a bit with filleting wax, but it still caused a wavy surface. The mold is now off and fully cured, so I can try sanding it off even; i put a thick gelcoat layer so i should have plenty of thickness to work with.

 

[jkrienert]

acetic-acid-cure? (the water in the acrylic would help the silicone cure faster).

That's the type and desired reaction!

Plaster works well for that. You can use plastic strips cut from milk jugs or shampoo bottles (HDPE) as dividers between the sections of plaster to make them easier to separate.

Nice elaboration of my terse recommendation, and cleverly suggested material. You can layup burlap (or any saturated natural cloth) strips in the wet plaster for strengthening the mold.

Not really novel ...

New to me I suppose. I'd not heard of that material method before. It looks really useful, and great hearing it's already served you success. I'll definitely look into using that method on future projects.

Hope I didn't distract the thread too much.

Nice progress @bananu7 !

 

[bananu7]

Hope I didn't distract the thread too much.

No worries; I chose to go down the path of making all of those parts after the initial success of the battery box, and have been binging educational materials and soaking up all of the knowledge i can since. I have also procured a sizeable collection of mould-making and part-making supplies, so hopefully we'll soon see real carbon fiber on the CRF. So all in all I welcome all composite-related discussions here; after all, the thread from the other side of the Baltic Sea is fairly similar

So, here's the proof the bike survived:


And the mould after rough cleaning:


I really like the green gelcoat. It definitely feels like a premium product, even though it's a tooling solution. It cured into a satin (from the wax), rock-hard finish, which is very stable on its own. I want my protector to be mirror-finished, so will be polishing it to gloss anyway.

I've also been working on the oven in the meantime, as it still doesn't have a door. I've designed a hinge for it which my colleague has helpfully drawn:



It's going to be a parallelogram construction with a large hinge set made of wood. I have already cut up the material, just need to machine a set of 8 brass bushings that the hinges will slide on.

 

[jkrienert]

parallelogram

Like the type used in some astronomy mounts?

 

[bananu7]

Like the type used in some astronomy mounts?

Four-bar linkage - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[jkrienert]

@bananu7 good gosh - knowledge drop. Thanks for sharing this engineering method.

I was pondering this design with similar geometries, though the function is outright different.

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/666240-diy-parallelogram-mount-designs/

 

[bananu7]

I don't have too many pics, but it's been a week with no updates, so in the order of importance...

The oven door is mounted:



I'll hope to put it into use soon. A controller is in the making, but to start with i can use a simple ready one I have.

The bike is sitting idle as I took the leaking suspension to the shop, and we discovered all kinds of horrors inside:




I bought another fork (for about 200 eur) and the plan is to put the two back together into a one working unit, with my new seals and springs. Fingers crossed.

In the meantime I've finally sealed the battery, so no more blue tape. I've used a polymer sealer, not silicone, as the earlier experiments indicated that the cover stays on without much holding force, so the sealer will act as a primary closing method. It's strong enough to keep the lid in place but still soft enough to be opened if absolutely necessary. I didn't end up adding a valve to pump it to positive pressure, but i think it's overall decently protected from the elements.

I'm continuing the work on the body panels, but I think I'll need to modify the stock plastics more than I wanted to. To that end, I bought a 600x400mm polycarbonate sheet, and will build a quick and easy sanding booth. Last time my entire workshop got covered in dust. I'm still pondering whether I should get those rubber gloves that you slip your hands in, or whether just some seals will be fine.

 

[jkrienert]

didn't end up adding a valve to pump it to positive pressure, but i think it's overall decently protected from the elements.

I didn't realize you were planning that. Though it didn't yet get implemented, it's a cool idea!

Nice location for the oven so it's not really obstructing the workspace. Door design looks like it turned out great.

Anything I can do within reason to mitigate dust is worth it. Says my lungs... Though not sure what sort of dexterity is needed and if the gloves compromise that. Maybe you could do the positive pressure there, have a duct intake to pull dust away?

 

[bananu7]

I didn't realize you were planning that. Though it didn't yet get implemented, it's a cool idea!

Yeah, i had that in mind to prevent any air venting and introducing humidity, but i think I'm not going to bother. This battery really isn't very much to my liking. I've never posted that, but I made a comparative analysis:



It really wouldn't be hard to make a better one.

Nice location for the oven so it's not really obstructing the workspace. Door design looks like it turned out great.

It's a bit wobbly still, but I think I can improve it by adding some furniture backing to the door to make it more rigid. The most important part is that you can close it well, even with just two rubber springs the door is held firmly pressed against the opening. Once i add a seal around it, it should have minimal heat losses.

Anything I can do within reason to mitigate dust is worth it. Says my lungs... Though not sure what sort of dexterity is needed and if the gloves compromise that. Maybe you could do the positive pressure there, have a duct intake to pull dust away?

Yeah, I always use a mask - I have two sets of filters now, one for dust and one for chemicals, and swap between them. I mostly plan to use it with my random orbital sander, which technically comes with a dust collector but that does help with maybe 20% of what it kicks up. I might hook my shop vac to the box through some filter, but even just enclosing it should help a lot. The alternative plan in lieu of rubber gloves is to cut two sleeves from an old hoodie and staple them to the outer wall, so that my hands pass through them.

 

[jkrienert]

cut two sleeves from an old hoodie and staple them to the outer wall, so that my hands pass through them.

Resourcefulness!

 

[bananu7]

I'm still waiting for my suspension, so I decided to work on the display a bit and finally put it on the bike. I've printed the prototype enclosure and cut the dark polycarbonate for it - i hope that you agree that it looks pretty great. I was surprised how nice it looks in person, and you can't really notice the PC thickness at all - the screen just has great contrast. The enclosure is much bigger than necessary but i think that's fine for a prototype.

I still need to print a bit a few internal supports that will hold the screen and the board in place, but they will be very small and easy, and I'll prolly just glue them in. I also need to, well, assemble the actual board, which i was putting off as I don't really enjoy building on a protoboard. I guess i should've ordered a PCB while waiting...

 

[amberwolf]

The image didn't attach to your post, even as a link, just the word "Image", so if it's an image linked from another site instead of directly attached, you might want to copy it from that page and paste it into your post (just right click the image, choose to copy image, then right click and paste it (or select and Ctrl-C then Ctrl-V).

 

[bananu7]

@amberwolf that should do it. thanks!

I think I dragged the image from Discord, and instead of copying and thus uploading, it only linked to it, and it's not a publicly available link.

 

[jkrienert]

That contrast is great. What all does this monitor and display?

 

[amberwolf]

That contrast is great. What all does this monitor and display?

I think that subproject starts over here 2008 CRF250R - QS138v3 70H - ANT - Sanyo UR18650-RX 20s20p - Votol EM260 in this thread.

 

[bananu7]

That contrast is great. What all does this monitor and display?

Right now I have made the "instantaneous" modes - current, voltage, power, rpm, speed, motor/controller temp, as well as showing controller errors textually. The bar at the bottom is always there showing battery charge (based off voltage for now) and it shows the current ride mode (1/2/3/S/R) on the right.

This is a feature set that's already useful, but the next step would probably be trip computer functionality - so distance traveled, Ah/Wh consumed, avg/max speed etc.

I did mention that before, but of course all the software for it is open, and I can release CAD files for the enclosure upon request - though again, that's really just a prototype for now, and it's quite bulky and hardly optimized yet.

 

[bananu7]

The weather hasn't been great lately, but i managed to catch just a bit of sun to do full sunlight tests. That reminded me that I have actually turned the LEDs down to 0 brightness (there's 16 levels) and that's what you were looking at in the previous photo. It appears very bright because it was in my dark office.

In comparison, here's the 0xF level (maximum) brightness in the left 8x8 square, compared to barely visible minimum on the other squares, in direct sunlight hitting the screen. That's probably more representative of real-world conditions. I think it would be ideal to put a small shade cover on a final product, but it nevertheless looks quite usable.

(The artifacts, like dots cut in half, are a result of PWM and phone camera interaction and aren't visible by naked the human eye)

 

[bananu7]

I picked up my fork back from the shop:



Look how pretty! It got assembled as a mix of parts from both forks i had (the original and the spare set). It got the 4N/mm springs and a much softer, plusher settings for the slower speed, technical riding this bike will be doing. Can't wait to try it out!

Because I got the parts from the old shocks, I decided to weigh them:



Obviously you need to add ~492g of oil to get the final 4.5kg per side.

Not sure how interesting it is, but I personally am very intrigued by how much various parts of the motorbike weigh, in the endless pursuit of a superlight e-moto.

 

[bananu7]

Did some riding with the new front suspension. I started with 10 clicks open on compression, and got back home with 120mm travel left. I adjusted to 15, and today i had about 90mm left, which leaves plenty of space for jumps.

The bigger issue is that the rear feels meh in comparison now, lol. I adjusted it to HSC 1.5 and LSC 5, as well as 100mm sag (which gave 24mm static sag), and it's still kicking me a lot. I'm going to try HSC 1.0 or even 0.5 and see if it helps - I think it will need a new spring, though, as the bike still visibly compresses more on the rear when pushed in the middle of the seat.

As far as drivetrain, I still haven't sorted out the major items, life's in the way, I just spend every free moment riding, not tinkering. That being said, I really want to try out 15T or 16T up front, to get more speed and range. My average ride is about 30km, and I'm back home with 20% battery left. I think I can stretch it out a bit with a bigger sprocket, and compensate with more power.



Here's how it looks now. It's dirty and unfinished, but most importantly, it's ridden and making me (and everyone who sits on it) happy!

 

[Balgaroth]

What type of riding do you do ? Fast enduro or tech slow enduro ? Average speed on the 30km spin ?

 

[bananu7]

What type of riding do you do ? Fast enduro or tech slow enduro ? Average speed on the 30km spin ?

I do both, but whenever I'm counting kms and not hours, it's fast. Average riding speed would likely be around 40km/h (as typically it takes around an hour total including stops), but it's not on flats, it's as much up/downhill as we can fit. If you want to do more fast stuff definitely get a bigger battery, for technical riding you can spend 2 hours and spend like 10% so it's much less of an issue.

 

[bananu7]

I did more suspension tuning, as I'm still not 100% happy with it. My current settings are:
Rear:
- rebound 20
- LSC 5
- HSC 0.5

Front
- comp 20
- reb 15

As you can see I'm running both ends pretty open/quick, with the exception of stiff compression on the rear. Those changes were enacted after I did a back-to-back comparison with my KTM. I thought the CRF was feeling soft and quick until I compared it to the WP setup which was night-and-day in terms of how much it moved.

The bigger issue is that I have issues properly weighing the front on the CRF. The rear seems to constantly sit too low, slackening the front, pushing me back when standing and overall not feeling great. The KTM has adjustable bars and I have them mounted as far front as possible (no risers, just to the front) giving me a very stable, roomy, relaxed position I use for rally racing. On the CRF, it feels cramped and it pushes me into a unnatural, vertical position:



My current ideas to try, in order:
- raise the rear with more preload
- turn the handlebar to the front a bit
- lower the fork in the TC a bit
- put a new shock that I've bought in (once it arrives)
- buy a stiffer shock spring and do a service

 

[j bjork]

It sounds like you have too soft rear spring with that 24mm static sag, do you know how much preload?
But the shock likely needs a rebuild too
I think I have changed springs 4 times, and it is still too soft..