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

[amberwolf]

So...I picked up the bolts and nuts, drilled the holes, and put it together, while waiting for the excitement to die down out in the apartment parking lots from the stabbings that I guess happened shortly after I got back from yesterday's outings. (see my house fire updates post from today for details of that).

Road testing had to wait till my ride to work this morning, and the results were better than I expected. It's actually improved how it feels to hit bigger bumps, or taking the wide speedbumps at >15MPH, and even smaller potholes. (I don't want to test it on a bigger pothole on purpose; the wheel doesn't need any abuse it doens't *have* to take). Just two little bars of tubing, and four bolts and nuts....I'd thought about doing htis for ages, and never got around to it. Now I wish I had done it when I built the bike.


It'll probably be even better once I can triangulate stuff, or add an X brace across the back of the boxes themselves. There is almost a 1" difference between the two for how far they stick out the back, or I would have just done that already. When i do add the rear X brace, if I still am not able to do the welding, I will add one brace on the outside rear faces of the pods, and the other brace will go on the inside rear faces, thru a hole I'll have to drill and file in the inner faces of each pod. That way it'll be easy to run a single bolt thru the center of the X shape to stiffen the structure by making it into two fixed triangles.


But first I have some work I need to do on keeping the frame from twisting, so I'm trying to think of an easy way to make bolt-on triangulators for the battery section of the frame between the seat and the pedals. So far, every idea I've come up with requires some welding either on the bike or on the add-on tubing, to make it stiff enough to make a difference.


Pics of the new braces, and then some of the lighting when it's not running, so you can actually see it. :lol: First is a couple pics of the brace screwed badly into place:


View attachment 21


Next a couple pics of the corectly installed braces:
View attachment 20





Next the lighting:










Next up, I also fixed an issue with the trailer hitch and mount. Under heavy loads, like the other night's dogfood, when the trailer hits big bumps or potholes it tries to drag it's hitch off the mount tube on the bike--you can see how far it went in the 10-mile trip, despite repeatedly stopping and tightening the clamp, by the torn reflective tape:

View attachment 14

So since I have these pins with retaining ball bearing (spring loaded) from a quick-assemble jogging stroller originally acquired to become a trailer from a few years ago (never happened, naturally), I drilled a hole thru the clamp and the ex-handlebar mounting tube on the bike, just big enough for hte pin to go thru easily, but small enough that the ball will keep it from vibrating out. Then i screwed the metal "cable" on the ring in the pin to the trailer so I won't lose it when it's not being used.

View attachment 13







The other problem is hte torn elastic in the "pivot" spring. I already use a steel "dog tie out" cable as a backup to keep the trailer attached to the bike should hte hitch fail, but it's got lots of slack cuz I used to run it to hte right side of the bike while it's hitched on the left. So I redid it to make it just long enough to work as a support for the spring/pivot to help prevent the sag it's got under heavy loads, until i can come up with a new pivot and hitch (actually, until I can mount the automotive ball hitch I bought for the purpose on the day of hte house fire...once I find it and hte ball I had found on the roadside months ago....).


Before:



After:










I also bought some el-cheapo cargo strapdowns for $5 each at ACE while I was there for the bolts, cuz someitmes these would just be better/easier than the recycled pallet straps I normally use:





Finally, it was back to Tiny, who was very bored with all this bike stuff, and took over my spot on the bed since I wasnt' using it.




Then we went out for walkies, where this pretty sky awaited us just after sunset, though Tiny wasn't interested in it at all, and preferred to watch the police and stuff:
View attachment 1




.

 

[amberwolf]

Was greeted with this on the bike path completely blocking it (had to go around off the path on the narrow gravel strip); thankfully the path is very well lit, instead of the completely unlitness typical of canal bike paths, or it's possible that I might not have seen it until I was too close to completely avoid it.

I'm just glad I wasn't there when it actually fell down (it's a pretty massive tree section, broken off from the still-standing tree in the last pic that you can barely see in the darkness). I hope no one else was there either, cuz it woulda hurt.

 

[amberwolf]

No problems yet with the pod rail mods, and it definitely improves the ride--teh whole bike feels a lot stiffer than before, turns are better, etc. Even just parking hte bike is better, because the pod doesn't move the bottom end around when I lean the bike on it (no kickstand).

Lights are all still working ok. Still gotta do something about the back-glare from the downlights in front, though. Not sure when i'll ahve time and materials yet.

Had some other thought to post but I've forgotten in the several minutes it took to load the reply page cuz of slow wifi, and I didn't do my usual typing up in notepad first, then copypaste.

 

[amberwolf]

Remember those PAR-type LED spotlights Texaspyro sent me, which I'd experimented with a little bit as on-bike lighting? This post is about some details of those, and thoughts on using them on the bike.








After some digressions, of course, because it wouldn't be an Amberwolf post without lots of digressions and ramblings.


Well, I had brought the one small one that didn't melt in the fire, and the two big ones (one of which has a smoke-stained lens that dims it considerably, but is otherwise fine), to the apartment with me, to use as lighting in the apartment if I needed to (but I ended up not having a lamp to put them in, cuz the ones I meant to fetch from the house were stolen by looters before I did so).

Anyway, I'd forgotten I'd brought them, until yesterday when on walkies with Tiny, I found a 3-bulb lamp tossed on top of the trash in the dumpster I was about to drop her poopy bag into. It still had two CFLs in it, but one was cracked open. I broke the rest of the glass off of that one and left the electronics in there, as I may be able to use parts from them for something later...along with the ones I've broken on the bike's old CFL taillight, before I swapped it out for the LED motorcycle taillight. Took the rest of the lamp home with me, and set it up and verified it works, just that it's tipsy and bent, cuz it's very crappily made, with the threads that join it's sections together being different between the tubes and the joint inserts. So it won't actually screw together--so i squished the sections together with vise-grips and then taped around the sections so they can't slip apart if I lift the lamp for some reason.





Anyway (again), I needed more bulbs for it, so I dug in my boxes in the closet and found a couple CFLs, but also those LED spots. I put one of hte PAR35s in there, and set it's holder at the angle to make it a spot shining where I can work on the bike with it. Should be lots better than holding a little flashlight in my mouth when my hands are full of parts and tools. The two CFLs I pointed to the walls to give diffuse lighting for the room itself. I tried to put the lamp where it's unlikely that Tiny will knock it over, and plugged it into the switched outlet so that even if she does, it'll be turned off at the outlet itself except when I'm actually using it, making it much less likely for her to hurt herself with it in the unlikely event of her knocking it over. (she does sometimes play and romp in the room when I am not home...that's evident by her toys scattered all over, and her blanket/bed often mushed up against a wall or under the table, etc., where she's divebombed it and skidded across the floor on it). Here's the lamp shining on Tiny next to the bike:








I decided to open up the one wiht the smoked lens, first just taking hte lens off and seeing what the lighting pattern is like. I couldn't get a pic of it cuz the camera sees it about all the same, as it autoadjusts to light levels poorly but in no way I can find a control for that is of any use. But basically pointed across the room at the opposite wall, normally it makes a spot a couple feet across, that's pretty bright, with a dimmer lighting scattered around that for basically the rest of the wall and the ones to the sides. Without the lens, the main spot covers the whole area evenly but more dimly than the main spot did.


So...what I am considering is using it without hte lens, on the bike, below my regular headlight, with a hood to redirect light downward so that it shields oncoming traffic from it's light as much as possible while giving me as much of a broad cone of light as I can get in front of me for a short distance, to let me see cracks and potholes better on streets that are partly but poorly lit, especially when I have oncoming traffic that makes my pupils contract and less able to see the light already there.


The PAR15 or 25 (can't remember which) that is much smaller and much much dimmer will run fine on my bike's traction pack at 14s, even down to LVC, but these larger PAR35s will not. So...I'd forgotten what voltage the LED chip itself would run at, and didn't have wifi access to this thread from the apartment (this thread is the only place most of my data exists now, since probably all of my paper notes about things were destroyed in the house fire or the subsequent "help" I had trying to save things before the clean up crew began trashing stuff). So I clipped leads to the two LED supply wires where they solder to the LED chip, and screwed the bulb into a socket, turned it on, and measured the voltage:

38.5VDC. I don't know what current, but probably less than an amp, if it's supposed to be 35W, which is what I think I recall from the base markings.


Anyway, I don't presently have any good way of making that voltage at a limited current with stuff I have here. But I can probably figure something out, and then find the right parts to do it with. It's too high a voltage to use the LM317 as a current limiter, at least nto directly from my main battery pack, which is higher htan the 40V the LM317 can take. I'm sure there's some other basic transistor circuit I can make to do it; I have plenty of various kinds of power transistors and MOSFETs, and heatsinks (assuming they haven't been stolen yet).


What'd be really nifty is if I can find an automotive HID light assembly, even without the HID light itself, and use the LED chip from this (or from two of them, perhaps) to make a good focused headlight beam with sidelighting, that doesn't point up to blind oncoming traffic. (unlike a lot of car headlights, which seem to be good at blinding people facing them).




Also, I guess that if I use these lamps that way, I can use their bases as current-limited 38.5VDC power supplies. (I just have to measure what that current actually is, which I have to do anyway).

 

[amberwolf]

Sunday (yesteday) morning on my way to work, it decided to be pouring rain...from well before I left (right after Tiny and I came in from walkies, actually) until past midday. So there were nice deep puddles to ride thru, as well as the middling to heavy rain, for the whole ten miles.

One of hte first deep puddles, in the industrial area I use to bypass having to travel on Indian School road, was deep enough to cover the BB (completely submerging the 12FET controller in the process, as it is below and behind the BB). I was surprised that this caused no problems either at the time or later (yet), even though I don't really have the connectors on it well-enough waterproofed for submersion, only for light rain of short duration, for those connectors that are near it's casing, all of which are of course down under water in that puddle. (and you can't go around the puddle cuz it's across the entire lowlying part of the street, and quite wide; there is no sidewalk either, just muddy gravel on the ohter side of the curb, and all that was under water too--only way around it is to take a different street entirely, which pretty much means Indian School Road).

I went thru the puddle at only about 7 or 8 MPH, trying to reduce the roostertail of water from the wheels to soak me and the rest of the bike a little less. Even with my feet up on the pedals level with each other, both were still immersed enough to fill my shoes. Thankfully I'd assumed I'd have wet shoes and wore my junk shoes and carried my work shoes and a spare pair of dry socks in a cargo pod, inside a plastic bag, along with my work shirt. I did not, however, brign a spare pair of pants, and should have.


My firefighter pants seem to need a new coat of waterproofing, cuz they ain't even really water resistant anymore: my legs were soaked in the jeans worn under the FF pants within the first mile. At least the FF pants kept me a lot warmer than I would've been without them.

The really thin orange raincoat did a reasonable job (not perfect) of keeping water off the top half of me, though it leaks a couple places right down the zipper, slightly. I really wish I still had my good leather jacket (that burned in the housefire) cuz that would've kept me dry and warm. Haven't found another one that is anything like it yet (at least, not for less than several hundred dollars, which it is not worth to me for as little time as I normally need it each year).

I do still need new gloves (mine were in that jacket...and so are also gone), still looking for some good ones. Goodwill has their halloween costume stuff out already, but I haven't found anything in it I can use yet (that's where I got my FF pants and the other jacket, gloves, etc., AFAICR).


Anyway, the rest of the ride itself was uninteresting, except that a few times toward the end of the ride, starting just before Dunlap, the 6FET began to cease responding to throttle. It'd start to work, then just fade out, as if power to it had died. I cycled it's power connector to no avail, then cycled it's power switch in it's casing, and THAT did work, for a minute or less each time. So I was basically running on just the 12FET for most of the last couple of miles to work. (normally I use mostly the 6FET, adding 12FET power during accelration only, or other high-power-demand situations).

Once, very early in the ride, the throttle of the 12FET began to have it's "always partly on" symptom, but then that went away, after the first giant puddle. Not sure why it would, though--I'd expect it to just get worse. Was glad, though.


Almost zero traffic on my route to work, so not really any traffic conflicts or incidents.


Coming home that night was another matter entirely. It had gotten sunny and warm by late afternoon and stayed that way thru dark. On my ride home, especially after I passed Glendale going south and then Bethany Home, there were quite a few pedestrians just milling about in the street, some in large groups, some individually. Some kids were playing out in the road (really little kids, completely unsupervised, and way too young to be left alone like that--some of them looked like they were barely at walking age!), and cars were honking at htem and then roaring their engines and screeching around them, instead of stopping and waiting for htem to move safely out of the road, or for their parents to come get them (or at least, their older siblings).

Drivers were doing really insane and stupid things. Several were backing out of their driveways with no lights on at all (other than brake lights for some, and reverse lights), backing out the WRONG DIRECTION on the road, pointing the wrong way (towards me) on the median-divided 31st Ave between Bethany Home and where it turns into the bike path). Not all at the same time or in the same place, and not all backed out the wrong way, but several did. Seems odd that so many were backing out around the same time, too, especially just as I was going down that stretch of road, but stranger things have happened. One was backing out the wrong way while another was backing out the right way from the driveway next to him, and I thought they were going to rear end each other. They missed, however.

Another stupid thing that happened twice was that a driver would follow me IN THE BIKE LANE, right up within a foot or two of the back of my bike. Neither had any reason to be in (astride, actually) the bike lane, as they had their own perfectly empty car lane to the left. the first one actually had the whole road to the left as there's no median in that stretch, and wasn't any opposing traffic either. One had no lights on, in a black truck, and I could only see them because of the reflections of my bright taillight on their glossy grillework and front end. The other had lights, but nobody was home behind the wheel.

The first, with no lights, suddenly realized their mistake when I swerved around the extra-wide trailer that's almost always parked in that stretch of road, and he (she? couldn't see them) nearly plowed right into it. Like usual I'd given my left turn signal that I was about to change lanes, for a couple seconds beforehand, then moved over into the car lane to go around the trailer. They didn't notice that I guess, and without their lights they couldn't even see the trailer except by my own bright lighting. They almost drove right up into it, as they didnt' follow me into the car lane but kept going on the bike lane untl the last second, when they jerked leftward, screeching brakes. then they gunned their engine and roared past me just as I was signalling and moving bakc into the bike lane...then they ran the red light at Bethany Home at an ungodly speed, thankfully between batches of cross traffic. They never turned their lights on the whole time I could see them going down the road.


The second car was following me just as closely, but with their lights on at least, then almost plowed into me when i stopped prior to crossing the street to go the bike path 31st Ave turns into halfway between BH and Camelback. I typically coast down from nearly 20MPH down to around 10MPH and then regen brake from there down to the last few feet before the stop signs/traffic lights, rather than doing what most cars do and stopping suddenly once reaching the stop point. If I did what they do that car would've run me over. Since I coast down, engaging my brake light while doing so, they had time to realize I was slowing, though at first they dind't seem to so I flashed the brake light and toggled my turn signals left then right then off, so they'd get a nice bright reminder they were behind someone. They slowed dramatically, stopping a car length behind me, but still as if they were following me, which was creepy, weird, and actually pretty scary after the first one earlier.

Then, when cross traffic cleared and I rode across into the bike path, THEY FOLLOWED ME up to the sidewalk edge! I dunno what they were on, but I don't want anything to do with it. :/ They slammed on their brakes at that last second, and just sat there in the middle of the street, as if they didn't even know where they were, for as long as I could see them in my rearview mirror as I rode down the path the first 1/4 mile. I could hear honking of cross traffic cars as they went around behind them, I don't know how long it went on as I stopped looking after that.


Some people really definitely don't belong behind the wheel.





Today, I had to work several hours earlier (be there at 6am. ) so I got there before the rain started this time. And like yesterday, the rain stopped after midday sometime, htough it ran later than yesterday it was still in time for me to ride home in the sunshine (hot and humid, but at least not soaking wet with stupid people on the road around me).

I stopped for food and caffeine partway home, so there could still be stupid people just like last night...but being late afternoon instead of night, it's less likely. I hope.

 

[amberwolf]

I dont' remember if I mentioned it or not, but a week or two ago I replaced the failing old computer case lock on the cargo pod with a real cabinet lock, tossed out practically unused from one of the store remodels along with it's key. I have 3 more matching ones at the house somewhere, but have only run across that one so far. Need to put on on the other cargo pod when I find them. Also need to pack some petroleum jelly into it's keyhole, since it faces up and is on the top of the pod where all the crap from the rear wheel lands and splatters when riding thru rainy streets and puddles.



I think I mentioned the re-insulation of the cargo pod (just the right side one for now, have to get more styrofoam from work whne the next fish shipment comes in to do the ohter one. The foam is cut to a slightly larger size than needed, then forced into place so it stays in place better. Then I cover it with clear packing tape so it doesn't disintegrate into little bits as stuff rubs on it while transporting it, and to hold the separate pieces together. But the bottom edges aren't taped at the joints, so water can run out if it gets in there during rain, or from condensation on cold things.

Then i tested it for insulation capacity by filling it up with the cubes from six ice trays,




riding a few miles up to the new Goodwill at Camelback and 17th Ave, then up to the McDonalds in the Fry's parking lot a bit north and west of there, leaving it parked in the direct hot afternoon sun on the hot asphalt in a regular car space (where I can see it from inside), and sitting down for wifi and food for a couple of hours. Then I went to Fry's, shopped for about half an hour or so, waited in line for at least 10 minutes, then went out to put all the groceries on the bike, (including some ice cream, which I very rarely get partly cuz it's hard to transport very far without a chilled and well-insulated cooler, but also cuz it costs a lot for what little you get), and some hamburger and frozen veggies. Just enough to completely pack that pod full, on top of the ice, and still be able to strap it closed tight.

There was some water under the bike when i came out to do that, but not a lot, as not much ice had melted. I'd bought a thermometer at goodwill but not put it in that pod until after I got home, so I don't know the temperature--cold enough, though.

When I got home, a little more ice had melted, but not a lot.




I took the groceries out and put the thermometer in there for a few minutes with the pod closed, and it was ~55F in there,




which is pretty good for only a few minutes to re-chill the thermometer and the air inside the pod with no circulation, from the ~75F temperature the thermometer started out at.







Tiny had to investigate while I was unpacking the groceries, and I managed to just get a pic--she was actually trying to get to the large amount of ice cubes still left at the bottom, because she loves them almost as much as Loki did, but she couldn't quite get down to them, so I handed her some instead. (no pic of that, sorry).



Except for what Tiny ate, this is the remainder of the ice after several hours of riding and sitting in the sun, inside that cargo pod's new insulation.

View attachment 2

 

[amberwolf]

I forgot to mention that in the rain the other day, (sunday?) I found a new pothole in the middle of the road, hidden by a big unavoidable puddle.

I've now seen it without water and it doesn't seem that deep (couple of inches), but it was obviously deep enough at the time--it flattened the rear rim severely and loosened spokes because of the rim deformation.

View attachment 9


Yesterday (first day off since then) I was able to do some bike maintenance, including tightening the loose spokes on there (mostly the ones around the flat spot). A couple of the radial spokes were loose because they were pulled partway thru the rim, cracking it, when I hit the pothole most likely.


View attachment 7







So this rim is trashed, and I'll have to lace the motor in a different one (probably one of the pair from Ypedal) once I can get spokes/nipples for it. I might be able to reuse the spokes from this lacing (I know I shouldn't, but...) however I will *have* to get new nipples, as these are trashed from trying to tension the wheel with my crappy non-fitting spoke wrench. Also need to get the matching spoke wrench at the same time I get the nipples.

I may have nipples that will work, in some stuff that Bikefanatic sent me, if I can pry them and the spokes out of the melted plastic box they are still in, over at the house (the box was in my bedroom, where the main fire was).



I also loctited the screws on the leftside cover of the rear motor. Well, all but one screw, as that one is missing entirely. :? none of the others was loose, nor was the cover, as the superglue under teh heads was keeping them secured, except for the missing one, apparently. I had been checking htem everytime I had to stop at traffic controls long enough to be able to get off teh bike and look at the rear wheel, and never saw any getting loose, so it must've come loose quite rapidly, within a couple of miles. I don't have any matching screws at the apartment, so will have to dig thru stuff at the house at some point to see if I have any replacements.





I also went thru and used petroleum jelly to fill up the fronts and backs of most of the electrical connectors, in hopes that this will help prevent water from getting in there and corroding things. I need to also take the throttles apart and do the same thing around the hall sensor, but I didn't get that far yet, or finish with the rest of the connectors. Only thing I don't like about this method is that if I leave the bike out in the sun on a hot day (which means most of them this time of year), it's possible the petroleum jelly will run out of the connector and just make a mess. Still, it will coat the exposed electrical stuff, and help keep water off of it, without compromising the actual electrical connection.



The last thing I did was to get some 3M Scotchguard waterproofing spray and coat my firefighter pants with it, so they'll be more likely to keep me dry in the next heavy rain, whenever that is. (hot and sunny yesterday and today). I also dug out the combat boots Bill gave me, and will be riding with those next rain. Bill said he has an old leather jacket he doesn't use anymore that I can pick up; I'll probably go get that after work tonight since I don't work as late as usual and am off the next day.



Night before last, I also hauled home another refill of litter for Tiny. I had wanted to test this hauling method, and it does work, and pretty easily, too, but it probably didn't help the wheel any since I had not yet fixed the loose spokes (but the screw was already missing before then).




I used one of the new cargo straps to simply wrap around the top of the pods and the litter pail, which is actually doing the supporting. The tape is just to ensure the lid doesn't pop off during the ride, since it doesn't really stay on very well evne just sitting there on the floor with an empty pail, much less jouncing around with a full one. :/


There's only about a cm of clearance between the tire and bottom edge of the pail, and hitting a big enough bump would almost certainly cause interaction of the two. If I do this in future I need to add a stiff "fender" between those two red cross-supports to prevent that--and over teh whole top of the wheel while I'm at it, probably.

 

[amberwolf]

Today as I crossed a really bumpy intersection (Bethany Home, I think) the chain began rubbing on the frame again, after I'd fixed that a while back by bending out of the way the extra stiffening tube I'd previously added. Sometimes during the ride it would evne feel like it was about to derail off the freewheel in back, or clatter against the side of the battery box.


This implies the bike frame itself is somehow bent, or even broken, but I cna't find anything wrong anywhere, even with the bike on it's side. I will do a more detailed examination on my day off tomorrow, with the seat removed, and the cargo pods taken off, etc., and hopefully will be able to fix whatever is causing this.

I have to hope that nothing will actually come apart on the way home, though, as I am still at Peoria and still have my entire 10-mile trip home to do (had to stop for food/etc before heading home, as lunch didn't stay down and I was shaking from low blood sugar; have been feeling terrible the last few days, as have a couple other people at work; we probably all have the same bug, whatever it is). Am mostly now waiting for the traffic to die down a little; it's almost 7pm (I got off at 4pm but traffic was horrible already and I couldn't have dealt with it in the shape I'm in right now).

Plus, people here in McD's have been talking to each other about major accidents all around the area, though I don't know directly how much they might affect my route. I'd rather give time for them to be cleared, and traffic to re-route back to where it should be instead of the backstreets filling up from it as often happens.



Also, the lock on the cargo pod broke on my ride home yesterday. I hit a few small but very noticeable bumps in a row, and I heard a snap and a thunk, so I immediately pulled over to check things. I found the center part of the lock is apparently not actually brass, but is only colored-on-the-outside die-cast metal, which while not surprising is disappointing. I have three more of these cabinet locks at the house somewhere (assuming no looters took them yet), but this one hasn't even lasted anywhere near a month yet, I think, so I don't see much point.

I will begin looking around for Masterlock brand cabinet locks; perhaps they will work better. Or else, perhaps I will use a regular hasp and padlock (I don't like that cuz it'll probably rattle around and I don't like the noise; used to do that on DayGlo Avenger's old cat-litter-tub cargo pods). Advantage to the latter is that I already *have* the locks and hasps, though I have to find the hasps (pretty sure I know where my two big fat masterlocks are...again assuming looters haven't taken them...can you tell I'm upset and maybe a little depressed about the looters?)




On the good news front, we did finally get our new person hired at work, and she's in training, so once she's trained I might be able to get my "vacation" to begin repairing/rebuilding the bike as a whole, which it really needs done ASAP. I also seriously need a vacation for *me*, to catch up with myself; I'm beginning to feel a little "punch-drunk" from one-little-thing-after-another, and I am getting a little snippy with some people even when i try my very best to not let that happen. That includes here on ES, and I apologize to everyone for it (though I guess most of those I've been snippy with aren't reading this thread...)


But any possible vacation is still possibly a month away.





EDIT (added): Oh, also, after that big rim-bending pothole in the rain several days back, my rear tire has begun losing pressure slowly. I suspect a partial pinchflat type damage, but have to wait till tomorrow at earliest to look at it, as I have to take either the wheel or the pods off to do it; I'm just not physically capable of dealing with it any other way right now. For now I just keep re-airing it up every few days (twice so far since the impact).

Also, the spokes around the cracked rim areas are looser, so this wheel is doomed. Gonna have to see about those nipples real soon, and try to rebuild this wheel around that Zero rim from Ypedal.

 

[amberwolf]

Well, the "broken frame" turned out to simply be the 7.62mm ammocase pack having shifted from that humongous pothole hit, so that despite the clamps holding i tdown it had moved over to the right enough to push the chain out of alignment a lot. I fixed it with part of a kid's kickscooter handle (found the whole kickscooter, little Razor type) on top of the trash on one of Tiny's walkies a month or so ago).


I had been having a little problem that's been getting worse, and I couldn't figure out how the heck it could, but when turning the handlebars leftward to the max, the steering tie rod at the front end would cross the frame to the right, cuasing the front wheel to be placed sideways 90 degrees to the bike.

It would never happen while riding becuase I never need to turn the wheel that far to make a turn on the street, but it happens a lot moving around the aisles at work to park it in the back or get it out front after work, and is a PITA.

But because it *could* happen while riding, if the need ot turn hard left ever came up, I had to fix it. So I took the front "fork" of the kickscooter and stuck it upside-down in the unused 1" headtube behind hte 1.25" headtube my fork is actually in, so that the tie-rod mounting bar/pivot point could not cross the center line of the bike. It's a jury-rig fix, and isn't ideal but it does work.


However, in the process of installing it I found the real reason for hte problme, and why it gets worse: the front stem that the tierod pivot is welded to is not clamping tight enough on the fork tube--why? I don't know. But I tightened it down almost three full turns of the allenhead screws in the clamp, and now it stays fine. I also added loctite to the screw threads, but since I don't know if it's tube or clamp deformation that's doing it, or screw loosening, I dunno if it will make a difference or not.




The biggest problem I have right now though is that last night I hit yet another unseen pothole, and this time it broke one of hte "bent" spokes that form the 1x side of the rear wheel. At the bend, of course, as that's the weakest spot--at least now I have confirmation that this is a bad way to build the wheel.

I don't think it would have broken (at least, not this soon, after only a few hundred miles) if it werent' for the severe rim deformation and resulting eccentricity of the wheel, from that big rim-bending impact under the puddle in the rain a couple weeks ago or so.


Anyhow, I've dug out the rest of the radial spokes Grin Tech sent me, and the rim from Ypedal. I also have 8 more 13g nipples I can use off the Fusin replacement spokes, IIRC, which I have at the apt. already. But I still have to find or get about 10 more of them, cuz I don't think any of the ones on the wheel itself are re-usable. I hope I still have some of them at the house.

I was going to look today, or go to a bike shop and buy some new ones, but by the time I went around all the construction detours and traffic jams and other road messes just trying to go get groceries and stuff, I was so hot and exhausted that I am past being able to also go to the house today. I work early tomorrow, so *maybe* I will also get off early and still have energy (and daylight) enough to go by the house and dig out that melted box of spokes and nipples, but since I have no real idea where it is, I haven't got high hopes for that.

Next Thursday is my next day off, so that's probably when I will rebuild the wheel, and I'll just keep riding it for now and see how it holds up until then. Personally I think it will last ok, since this wheel has taken abuse that would've completely disintegrated the original Chinese spokes that were in it (they didn't need much help as it was, before they did it). But I'll carry my spare plain-bike-wheel to put the motorized wheel's tube and tire on just in case, though.




I have an idea for some halloween lighting, including using a plasma ball (see my plasma ball wizard's staff Instructable for details on it) powered off an ac-adapter hooked up to the traction pack as a dc-dc, sticking up out of my fork's steering tube, and some fast-cycling multicolor LEDs in kid's play wizard staffs (staves?) tied along the stiffening tubes on the middle frame, with a switch so I can turn it all on when I stop and off when I am moving (to prevent problems with police about flashing lights on non-emergency vehicles).

Since the headlight sticks up so high that the plasma ball would be hidden by it from the front, and I wanted a lower headlight anyway to make better shadows on stuff for me to see it easier, I turned the headlight mount upside down and now the headlight is directly in front of the bottom bearing cup of the headset, at least 10" lower than it had been before. It makes the bike feel a lot shorter (front to back) than it idd with it up higher--but of course there's no length difference. It's just illusion when riding it cuz there's nothing blocking my view of the road up high now. (which is another reason I wanted to move it down).


Now it will also be a little easier to make that cowling over the top of the front frame to block the light from the downlighting from my eyes, preserving my night vision a little better (which hardly matters most of the time due to cars' really bright headlights, since a lot of them seem to like to turn their brights on *and* foglights down in the bumper, whenever they're on side streets, blinding all oncoming traffic and forcing THEM to turn their brights on too).


I seriously need to find an HID kit I can use on this bike.



Sorry no pics yet; I forgot to upload them to the laptop at the apt, and I didn't bring the cable to hook the phone up to it.

 

[amberwolf]

Sorry for the delays, been sick from something going around at work, and exhausted from that and the returned nightmares of the fire and Tiny's siezure, etc. Pics now posted here.


Headlight works notably better at the lower position, vs the height my eyes are at, can much more easily see the road "imperfections" and how bad they might be, at least when not being blinded by car headlights. I guess it is a "cold war" of lighting these days. Some cars get brighter lights designed into them, so then the next year's model of other brands has to have even brighter ones in order to allow them to still see over the brightness of the oncoming traffic of those other cars, and so on and so on.

Eventually everyone on the road will end up with little miniature stars shining forward, with wide tank treads for tires because the asphalt road surfaces will be melting from the light intensity.

(really, though, I am gonna *have* to get a brighter light, which considering I'm already running an incandescent car headlight, is saying a lot for a bicycle. I can see fine when there's no oncoming traffic, but their headlight source points are often so bright nowadays that they just wash everything out, and I can't see the light from my own headlight anymore. With older cars it's not a real problem, but with almost all of the newer ones, or anything retrofitted with HID lighting, it is.)


Anyway, pics of stuff from the last few posts:

Broken spoke, at the bend (people with those funky Crown motors from Crystalyte, keep this in mind!):




View attachment 25

View attachment 24




Then, a new frame issue. Easily fixed with a welder...someday. This is a nick in the frame tube I must've made with the angle grinder a long time ago, though I don't remmeber when it was or what I was doing when it happened. Could be years by now. Anyway, it's got cracks radiating from it's ends now, though I guess you cna't see them in the pic very well. At least it's in the top stay, under compression, so if it does fail I can just stick something inside or over the tube and clamp it together until I can weld it or replace it, whereas if it was the bottom stay i'd be short a bike until it could be welded.







The broken cabinet lock:
View attachment 21







The new headlight position:


View attachment 18





I also took two of those "ballcap bill" type clip-on lights, one of which I'd had on the handlebars before, and put them as "LED accent" lights to either side of the headlight. Normally I use these on bike paths instead of the car headlight, as long as they are well enough lit to not require the headlight (unlike the Arizona Canal path, which is pretty much completely unlit for it's entire length, except inside some of the under-road tunnels).

Too bad my headlight is nowhere near as bright as it looks in these pics.





View attachment 14





These LED lights are just double-sided-taped on to the headlight housing, with the foam type tape. (ther'es also some clear tape on the outside just so vibration can't loosen the casings and make them fall apart). Main reason for that is their switches are on the side that had to go toward the housing (because of it's curve), and with the foam tape I can just push on the outisde of the housing and turn htem on. They can also blink, but the blink rates are very differnet between the two, so they are never in sync, so I don't use them in blink mode. they are powered by 2 CR2032 cells in series, so they may run evne on just 5V. If so, I cna use the same power adapter/DC-DC as the halloween lighting will use, and pull the batteries to save for some other use. If I do run them off the DC-DC, then I will probably also move the switches up to the handlebars, so I don't have ot get off the bike to turn them on.






The actual headlight mounting point:







These turn signals I'd like ot move to eithe rside of the headlight, on a mounting bar:









Then the first part of teh halloween lighting, which isnt' actually installed yet, just mounted for testing it that day:










And the 5V 2A DC-DC I found for a buck at Goodwill that will run off my 48V (58-59V full) pack:






So far the wheel hasn't disintegrated or broken any more spokes. Yet. Have not yet had time or energy when I did have time to go dig thru the stuff at teh house for either fairing plastic or nipples.








.

 

[mattrb]

I might get a Globe and a mask and set up something for my bike. I have a USB port on my handlebars and I will get a USB plasma Globe. Such a great idea!

 

[amberwolf]

It might be, assuming I don't crash from exhaustion again and break it, once I've got it installed.


Yesterday morning, after having worked the afternoon/evening (just shy of closing) shift, I worked the opening shift, and since the past month or more I have had almost all of my bad nightmares back I am not getting enough sleep by far. It's not quite as bad as right after the fire, or even any time before I got Tiny, but it is bad enough, and I am thouroiughly exhausted. My decision making is not the best, or my planning, much less my physical state of being and capabillity of action.

That night I slept almost not at all, until nearly time to get up for Tiny's walk...at which point I was so exhausted I was completely sound asleep and even Tiny's pawing (which I assume she did, as she always does when she wants me up for something), didn't wake me, nor did my first alarm. Thankfully I set a second alarm for when it's time to leave for work (wiht a few minutes to spare, just in case) or I would probably have been very late to work.

As it was, I turned out ot be lucky to have made it to work at all, or even to survive the ride. If i had spaced out / dozed off / whatever it was that happened in a place with traffic, I might've been hit or run over.

Because I know how tired I am I have not been riding with the cruise control 6FET, but rather with the jerky-accel/coast/accel/coast of the 12FET, because at least that random acceleration it gives jerks me awake if I start to phase out. But it didn't help this time, I guess, and only my also limiting myself to a max of about 12MPH (whcih means my ride to work takes about two hours now, instead of one, taking about four hours out of my day just for work commute, when I am this tired).

Hmm...my battery is running out so I will have to post hte pics and stuff next time, but basically I am uninjured except for some nearly invisible scratches on my arm, and the bike is mostly ok except minor things I can fix easy enough.

More later....

 

[amberwolf]

See this post
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=49550&p=803937#p803937
for more details, but I didn't get to finish the above post then or even yesterday as planned, for a number of reasons. More whining in this thread, too.

Anyhow, all the damage I could fix has been fixed, or at least worked around. Ther'es some inslulation damage on the axle-end wire bundle in front, but it isn't down to the conductors so I left it alone for now.

Taillight I bolted into a different hole so it is now out ot th e side and down a little from previous position, and i moved the rightside to match it.

Pedal only has scrapes. I bent the pod door back as flat as I could, but I have ot use a bungee cord to hold it shut now or it rattles around while riding. Maybe if I find a better cabinet lock it'll hold it shut. No big deal for now anyway, unless someone steals the bungee cords while I'm in a store or something where I can't see the bike. Normally people dont mess with it at all, so we'll just hope that continues.


But...I can't get a pic good enough to show it, but there is damage I didn't see to the leftside frame stiffener in teh center "triangle": it's broken off at the BB end now, lik eth one on ht eright side already was. I'd hoseclamped the two together to fix the previous porblem, until I can get vacation time to take this mess to the house, setup welder and get that working, etc., and redo all this stuff in a more permanent fashion and/or finish the other frame and move everything over to it. But that will take days, so until I get vacation time I cna't do it. Theoretically tha'ts week after next, getting 5 days in a row, but I may be so exhausted by then that I won't have energy to do anything and have to sleep to catch up with myself, that I wont' have time to actually do the work until it's too late to get it all done. Have to hope for the best, though.

For now, the hose clamps are tightned more, pressing both the braces against each other at the BB end to keep them pinned agianst hte BB itself, though they are not relaly doing a lot of stiffening anymore.

That means the pedal chain comes off at one end or the other at every little flex or bump (meaning, every few dozen feet or less), or whenever I turn and pedal at the same time, so I stopped even bothering to put the chain back on the rear freewheel, and am not even trying to pedal anymore. Just using them as footpegs until I can fix everything.



I found a place I can get osme new spokes and nipples locally, though I have to go in and talk to their wheel guy today, over at Landis Cyclery up on Indian School and 7th Ave. I think that I am also going to see if there is a local place to buy that Pirelli 17" moped tire talked about in another thread, in the 2.5" or wider width, and a tube to match it if the one I have isn't big enough, to give even more bump absorption ability to my unsuspended rear wheel. Not certain it will fit iwthin my frame, though, so it might only be usable on the new bike if I ever get to build it.


Anyway, more pics:
Grr. bandwidth too low, pics won't upload.

 

[amberwolf]

Still not enough bandwidth for pics to ever finish uploading (times out), so those have to wait till I find better wifi--neither DD nor McD are working very well right now I guess, at least the ones close to my apartment (even from inside the building at McD).

Went back to Landis Cyclery today as instructed by the person I'd talked to on Thursday, so I could talk to their "wheel guy" about them digging out the 13g nipples I need, and see how much it would be for the spokes and such. Turns out they don't have any 13g nipples, and can't cut spokes of any gauge for me, only the one out on the east side of town can do that, and I'd have to physically go there to get it done--this location can't (or won't) have the other location do it and send them to them, etc. Seems an odd thing to not have any kind of integration between branches of a business, to me, especially when they can't all provide the same stuff directly.

Anyway, they suggested I go to Dave's Kart and Cycle over on 22nd St and Indian School Road, but they didn't know his hours, except that they were "wierd", and apparently didn't have a phone number for him. Well, I was already out and about, and only about 4 miles or so away, with almost a full battery, so I just decided to head on over there and see. I ended up getting there 11 minutes after his 2pm closing time, according to the sign at the shop front. Is open Thursday (my next day off) from 10am to 4pm, though, so I guess I'll be trying them then, though I will be looking up the number to call first instead of riding all the way over, since there's nothing else in the area of interest.




Not as many red light runners and sudden lane-changers (left turns from right lane, right turns from left lane, etc) at intersections today, but still a few, which is typical of Phoenix/valley traffic. Nobody tried to run me over, which is good, and only one honked at me as they went past--stupid since they were not even in my lane to start with, and had no one else to be honking at. I think they do it just to try to scare cyclists into crashing, because some of them do it to every cyclist or pedestrian they pass. It's illegal (because people could get hurt or killed from the results), and I wish the police were willing to enforce that law, but they aren't. They don't see the safety issue in it, and don't care.



Anyway, I did get a new spoke wrench (sunlite multi-size) at Landis, and it is a MUCH better wrench than the cheap junky one I've had for a while. It actually fits perfectly on all the non-Chinese nipples I have with me at the moment, which are all 15G, and it even has a 15G"e" separate wrench slot on it, presumably for "european" or "english" 15G, as it is a little larger than the 15G that fits the Sapim nipples from Grin, or the unknown brand that's on the BMX wheel I have here as a spare.

However, it does not fit at all for any of the Chinese nipples, either the "12" or "13" g ones on the front 9c 26", nor on the "13"g ones from Fusin, sent as spares after some broke during tensioning of the improperly-factory-built-wheel in their kit. It's way too loose on the next size up, and won't even go on there with the size that should fit (or too loose on the size that should fit and wont' go on the size below). So if I want to be able to tension those spokes, I'll have to either use the crappy Chinese wrench that doesnt' fit them right either, or replace them all with known good non-Chinese nipples. (in which case I should do the spokes, too, and if I'm doing them I should do the rim...so if I do that I would be better off just seeing if the BionX rim and good spokes/nipples and MXUS rotor are still at the house (and not stolen by looters), and see if they'll fit the stator and covers for this front 9C. Not a project I'd really want to get into if I don't have to, but that 9C wheel needs re-truing/tensioning.



I forgot if I said already, but the NordLocks ordered from e-beach arrived (after he graciously re-mailed them at no extra charge after he got them back because I gave him an incomplete address ), and so did the freewheels ordered from Nicobie. Now I just have to actually get the bike built that they are to go on....and/or fix this one up enough to use them on.


Also, I split this out to a different thread cuz I think it may go on for a while, and I'll need hlep with it:
Converting AC PSU to DC-DC for 12V lighting

 

[amberwolf]

Haven't gotten anywhere on that PSU yet, still gotta get good enough pics and upload them.

However, I did get a bunch of plastic signage from work that was gonna be tossed out, so now I can make my "fairing", such as it will be. Probably just gonna tape it together for now, maybe pop rivet or zip tie some parts of it. Dunno when I'll get any of it actually done...maybe thursday or saturday?


Here's the rest of the crash damage pics. My bruises are much better; none of them really show on the outside but they ache inside. Scratches on my arm are almost invisible now.

 

[amberwolf]

And while pic uploading is working, here's the "look aorund the corner" mirror I'll be putting on the front of the bike once I do get a "fairing" on it.

The LED module in it will come out and go on the bakc end some where since it's red. :

 

[amberwolf]

And...I forgot also to post these, the nordlocks and the freewheels, and hte Sunlite spoke wrench:

 

[e-beach]

I forgot if I said already, but the NordLocks ordered from e-beach arrived (after he graciously re-mailed them at no extra charge after he got them back because I gave him an incomplete address

Thanks for the mention! Just happy you got them.

 

[amberwolf]

So am I!

I forgot to take pics before I left for work today, but last night on walkies with Tiny I found a foot-thick stack of UNUSED coroplast political campaign signs on top of the stuff in the dumpster I was dropping her potty-bag in. Had to wait until after we'd done with walkies and taken her back to the apartment before I could come back to get them, cuz the stack was too much to deal with while also keeping Tiny on watch on leash, with all the little noises and distractions and such.

The signs are only about 14x20", I think, maybe a little more, but that's plenty big enough to use to make things like fenders and side panels, etc., and are a much better (more durable) material to use than the thin (1/16") polystyrene sheeting those signs from work are made from. I may well still use the signs for parts of the "fairing", but I think most of it will be made from the coroplast.


The one disadvantage to the ex-campaign signage is that it is printed on both sides, so there's no blank side to use as the "outside" of my fairing--I'll have ot paint them, most likely, to cover all that, and most of the paint I've had in the past doesn't stick very well to whatever these are made from. The other option is to sand the printing off the "outside", after i put them together, and I may just do that even though it's more work it is less stuff to come off later, and it also means I don't have to buy anything for the purpose. (assuming my sandpaper and stuff is also still present at the house, and not taken by looters...no, I'm not upset about the looters at all, can't you tell? )



I am going to try to get some of the fairing work done tomorrow on my day off. Some of the work I won't do yet cuz it would just have to be redone after next week when i finally get vacation time and hopefully will get to do some of the welding repairs on the frame, which will alter it's shape somewhat here and there in the middle and rear (but probably not in front, so I'll start there).


Yesterday on the way home from work I brought home the BionX rim that's laced to the MXUS rotor/ring, and the white Suntour fork. I also explored the house repairs a little, and found they've almost finished the electrical wiring (no switches/outlets/etc yet though), most of the A/C ductwork, and done a lot of the plumbing, but it still hasn't got a watermain back to the house yet (I sitll odn't understand why the water main was even removed, as it had nothing to do with the fire/damage and was new as of a few years ago when the city redid all those in our area). No other interior work has been done past the stuff from a couple months ago, no paneling/wallboard/insulation/etc, no cielings, etc. Back room is still a slab with wall studs and rafters, same as for the last week or two.

Still looting going on. I found a bag that might once have been mine (goodwill tag still on it's inside tag, even); not sure, with some stuff that I'm pretty sure wasnt' mine, sitting open and not dirty yet (but full of ants eating some new-looking "trail mix" that was in there, that definitely wasnt' mine), over by some of my other stuff that I can't put in the sheds yet, and some of which was obviously being gone thru by someone that got interrupted recently (probably not by my arrival, but possibly). I put the bag and the stuff that they were probably preparing to steal into one of the sheds I unlocked while I was there, and made sure I re-locked it afterward. I considered calling the police to submit the bag to them as "evidence" in case they might get DNA or fingerprints off it, but since they've never even bothered with anything from that first looter that they got such evidence from, I figured there was no point, and I didn't want to be standing around waiting for them to arrive even if they would bother to come at all for it (it would probably take hours, and it was getting dark, and I was already emotionally strained and didn't think I could handle being there alone that long).



So...anyway, if I have time tomorrow, before I do the fairing stuff, I may try swapping out the old steel suntour fork for the white alloy suntour fork from Mdd0127 that I never have gotten around to trying out, and want to. Since i do most of my acceleration with the rear wheel anyway, and have no front regen, then my wrench torque arms :lol: ought to be sufficient for the little 9C / 6FET / 20A controller on the front, even with alloy fork, if I also use the NordLocks from E-beach on there to help ensure no nut slippage/rotation occurs.

While I have the motor wheel off, I may also see if the 9C stator/covers will fit the MXUS rotor. I suspect not, simply becuase it's the old bell-style 9C, and the newer flat-sided MXUS. But it's worth a look, if I have the time, becuase I am pretty sure it's a better rim and spokes than what's on the 9C, and I would rather not unlace and relace a wheel just to swap them--I'd rather just do a straight swap of the whole "wheel" part.

 

[amberwolf]

Note: bandwidth is veyr low today, so i will have to post the rest of the pics next time i am online.

I did not get anywhere near what I wanted to done yesterday; both then and today I have had shaky hands and tired brains, and had a terrible time trying to draw or even cut a straight line with a ruler (edge of another piece of coroplast). I didn't slice any fingers off which is good....

This is the pile of stuff I started with:
View attachment 13

and this is basically how it is now, self-lit (little sunlight leaking htru the shades on the window):
View attachment 3






With the room lights on:
View attachment 1


the rear fender was easy, just folded over and slightly trimmed a whole sign sheet of coroplast. Didn't tie it down, as it fits snugly down in there and makes it easy enough to remove for access to wheel or chain if i need it.


View attachment 7




Tiny was bored stiff at several points, though she would come over and explore my work whenever I got up to take pics or get different pieces, etc., sometimes she walked off with little bits of cut-off coroplast and hid them under the bed covers.






The covering doesn't look anything like what I *wanted* to do, but I kept mis-cutting stuff and being unable to get it to fold the way I wanted, etc., so I gave up on my plan of a cool-looking top cover and headlight fairing, and a Kingfish-inspired handlebar fairing/dashboard, and went with just the crappy version you see there.


The "dashboard" is just a single 1/3 of one of those coropolast signs, cut to fit aorund the handlebars at the front, and folded at it's rear (facing me) edge so that it is stiffer, then ziptied to the handlebars. There's a small H-cut just under the Cycle Analyst, so that it's square base pokes thru it, with the flaps of the H (what would be the top and bottom of an H) to the sides, and a hole in each one of them that the bolt tha tnormally holds the CA to the handlebar clamp mount instead running thru the coroplast to secure it. The cables run either side of the stem under the dashboard, and the bottom of the CA rests on the stem and the dashboard.

It's a very differnet viewing angle, but it is still just as readable as it was when facing me directly when it was on the left bar, and now it can't slowly roll downward from the vibration like it did before, requireing adjustmentn every few miles. (not the fault of hte CA clamp, just that my bars are I guess thinner than it was made for, so it doesn't adjust down that far, and even with added rubber inside it the vibrations of the potholes is just too much for it).

The headlight switch is now mounted thru the dash too, instead of on the bars. Less easy to reach with a thumb, but I normally wouldn't need to access it except when starting out or parking, anyway. Also in this oriientation it should be a lot harder for a bad pothole to flip the toggle to a different position, which has happened more than once when it was on the bars.




About the only thing I did manage to do that I have planned for forever was to move the main circuit breaker off the top tube and down next to the packs themselves--in this case, clamped to the 10Ah RC LiPo ammocan pack's handlemount. It's reachable by a fingerhole in the side of the main body "fairing" to turn it on and off. That fairing won't keep splash rain from hitting it, but it will keep direct rain from getting into it's top, which is what happened that killed the bike while riding in the heavy-ish rain that one time a few weeks back. Since there's probably more rain coming as it gets cooler now, being October, I'd like to prepare for it as best I can.


Did not get to either the fork or the wheel, but here's pics of them so you know which ones I'm talking about. Also, note the new fork is taller (can absorb deeper shock hits) than the present fork...but it also will change the bike's geometry, and I will have to check it for the death-wobble that I had trouble with using that other fork when it changed the geometry in the same fashion. If it has that problem, I will have to swap the other fork back in, cuz I don't presently have any other way to fix such a thing.

View attachment 12






Also, since the fork doesn't have rim brake bosses or a way to add them, I'd added the whole U-frame off an old crappy fork to it by clamping/bolting. No idea if it will actually work this way or not; I suspect I'll need to modify the added U-frame for extra stiffness on it's onw before it will actually function like it should, cuz it's too soft a steel I think. But that would have to be done by welding, which has to wait until my vacation at earliest.

 

[amberwolf]

Finally off work, forgot lunch so stopped at mcd for food before i head home since my kidneys already have bites out of them from my hungry growling tummy, and i can't wait another hour or two before eating (ride home, then walking Tiny, etc).

So now the rest of the pics:

Dashboard, such as it is:
View attachment 8

from the front:


View attachment 5

Headlight switch (normal, off, highbeam)


Rider POV:



New position for circuit breaker:






Something I forgot to post about this morning: when I flipped the headlight moutning upside down to lower the headlight's position for various reasons, I forgot to actually flip the headlight itself inside the mounting, so the light was not shining on the road in the correct pattern, causing part of my problem seeing with it as well as I had expected to. I only noticed this when I was putting the fairing stuff on, when I saw the molded-in writing was upside down.

So I pulled the bulb and flipped it, but in the process of doing so I found the epoxy used at the factory to seal the front glass lens to the reflector housing has disintegrated in the almost 30 years since the headlight was made, and so the lens is now a separate part from the reflector.

For me, this is actually a good thing, becuase it means I can much more easily replace the halogen bulb in there with something better, or add something else to it, within the same housing, to create a better or brighter beam of light, wihtout having to replace the whole housing/mounting setup I'm using.

Previously I'd pondered cutting the glass at the rear where the leads for the halogen bulb go thru the glass reflector housing, but my previous experiences at doin stuff like that usually resulted in shattered glass, so I had not ever gotten around to trying that. Now I don't have to.


Anyhow, this is the housing/mounting part, a steel shell that in the Ford LTD it came from allowed one to adjust where the headlight pointed. (that doenst work in my setup cuz it's not mounted by those points).
View attachment 1


This is the headlight itself:




.

 

[ohzee]

hey Amber wanted to post in this thread & not tie up the pics one.
You need a better dc to dc converter ? I have a good amount of spare lcd monitor power supplies which are 110v and 12-18v depending on what your looking for.
be happy to send you one if it would at no cost to you. Just tell me what voltage you are looking for and what you plan to run it at so I can test before sending
to make sure it works fine at that voltage.

Glad to see you are doing pretty good all things considered. The world and the man is always out to get us all we can do is our best.

if your interested just pm me your addy that i can mail it and when I get back on the 10th ill get it in the mail.

Tell Tiny I said hello. Glad you guys have each other.

 

[amberwolf]

You need a better dc to dc converter ? I have a good amount of spare lcd monitor power supplies which are 110v and 12-18v depending on what your looking for.
be happy to send you one if it would at no cost to you. Just tell me what voltage you are looking for and what you plan to run it at so I can test before sending
to make sure it works fine at that voltage.

Well, the ideal output voltage would be the "automotive 12V" which is closer to 13.6-14V, but it would have to be at least 8A output to run my headlight (on highbeam, at least) and other stuff properly. (and naturally I'm always thinking of adding more lighting...:lol

I can live with just actual 12.00V, as long as the current is high enough so there's no sag, which should be the case if I can get that ex-Xbox PSU working, as it is only 12.0V nominal output.

The pack voltage is "48V" 14s NMC range, so down to about 48V minimum pack voltage (49V actually, I think--I forget right now and I'm across the street from the apartment where the bike is), and up to a max of about 58V, presently. Eventually I want to put it up to 18s but that's gonna be a long while, probably, cuz it requires a lot of other changes. Will be on a new bike more likely.

Glad to see you are doing pretty good all things considered. The world and the man is always out to get us all we can do is our best.

It does feel that way...but I can see that I have a lot of friends and acquaintances that care, more than I would have imagined before the fire (though I've been surprised at some of those "friends" (usually long-time friends) that didn't care or responded in unkind ways).

if your interested just pm me your addy that i can mail it and when I get back on the 10th ill get it in the mail.

Sure, I would definitely appreciate it, if one turns up that has the power levels needed--but I don't know of any LCD PSUs that run nearly that high a current. I have a handful around the stuff at the house, assuming they weren't in the burned room during the fire (still no idea about most of that sort of stuff), and none were higher than 3A or so, most less than that.

Tell Tiny I said hello. Glad you guys have each other.

So are we, for however long it lasts! She says "whuffle" backatcha.

 

[amberwolf]

While working on the new Kennel Trailer for Tiny, I also moved hte turn signals in front to a bar over the headlight. I'd rather have them more down to the sides, but this will do for now and only took about 20 minutes or so.

 

[amberwolf]

Today I finally got the kennel trailer for Tiny finished up, and got her to enter it on her own (almost...but I don't have ot push her in, just encourage her and be there by her side). So that meant I could actualy go to the house, and work on the repairs to the bike.

Previous days this week I have been so very tired from worse nightmares than usual that I not only couldn't have gone anyway, I didn't even WANT to--I felt discouraged, afraid, and actually revolted by the idea of going to my own house, mostly because of the looters. I was really afraid that I'd go there and find all my stuff missing that I needed to use for the repairs--thankfully nothing essential was missing, and nothing seemed to have changed from Tuesday morning.


First order of business was to get the bike into the yard, and get Tiny out of hte trailer so I could disconnect it and unload the bike, to make it lighter by a little bit to make it easier to get around the twisty path to the only power outlets (2 110V and 1 220V) at the house (until it's finished with repairs). I didn't get a pic of unloaded, but here it is as I arrived (with Tiny still in the trailer).








Then I walked with Tiny around the yard to see what she'd do, trying to get pics of her investigating it all, but the camera on hte phone is SO SLOW to take pics that it almost never captured her in the image at all, and when it did almost every one was just a fuzzy blob of motion. I really really miss that Canon DSLR from GMUseless. I got a few pics when she was mostly sitting still, over in this post:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=49550&start=500#p809851


Next was to lay out some old masonite from retail shelving setups, over the loose dirt from the new back room slab work, or I'd never get the bike over it--it'd just sink in. I didn't get a pic of that, though.


third was to install the new plug/cord for the welder, to match the twistlock type of 220V outlet that's on the house for now. That was quick and easy, since I'd bought waterproof wirenuts for hte purpose, and already premarked all my wires for what they needed to be hooked to, and had already installed the new plug on the cord I brought with me.

However...I got NOTHING when i hooked it up--the fan should have come on in the welder, but nothing. I checked with a meter, and found there's NO voltage at any of the four slots of the outlet itself, relative to each other or to the working 110V outlets on the other side of it. There's no breaker for it, at least not that I have access to (it's all sealed with SRP stickers). I verified no shorts or miswires on my welder or cord or outlet.

So there's no 220V power, and I can't use the welder...leaving me basically with a wasted trip, and a wasted week of vacation (except for I guess the extra time with TIny, and the extra rest I have managed to get). But...I'm not the type to just give up.

Not giving up, I dug around in the stuff not yet in the sheds, and found the main chassis of the old 110V piece of crap welder I started out with (that I built this bike with, basically), and verified it still powers on when plugged in, and gives a spark. I didn't have any wire in it, cuz the feed is messed up to the point of uselessness.

Fortunately, both the POS 110V welder and the less-POS 220V welder share a lot of the feed/grip stuff, and I was able to swap over (after about an hour and a half or more of fiddling) enough parts to make the 110V welder capable of feeding wire smoothly enough to make at least birdshit welds, though it won't feed well enough to do clean welds at all, and still sticks and jams to need pulling wire thru it fairly frequently. Extremely frustrating.

Damned tempting to just go BUY another crappy 110V welder just so I can do passable welding until I have 220V available again. But this at least let me do today's work, though it ate up so much time I couldn't do anywhere near all of what I had planned.


Having gotten the welder to work, I cut off the yellow-striped round tubing that's broken off at the BB, still connected up at the front end of the cargo rails, that was meant to stiffen the bike laterally, but stopped working some months ago when my temporary crappy welds began disintegrating (they weren't supposed to have to last this long, and were going to be fixed permanently the week of the housefire if the fire hadn't happened).

Then I cut and shaped the ends of some 1/2" square tubing that used to be sign holders at our store before the remodel, and made some new triangulations that should work much better, and make it much stiffer, and still leave the center area of the bike more open for putting batteries in there or whatever. In theory, anyway.

This is how they turned out, almost to plan:







This also let me move the smaller ammocan battery to the left to completely clear the chainline.


View attachment 2




Then there's the seat. The frame has been broken in two places for a while, from my using the back of it to push against to get it up over steps, aorund corners, etc, when I am walking beside it rather than riding it. I've just had things stuffed into the tubing for now, but it isn't the best fix by anymeans. So I cut some chainstays off an old bike from Randall (a local friend) I'd meant to use for something else a long time ago, but I dunno even what it was now..so... They fit almost perfectly inside the tubing of the seat, so I hammered them into the seat's frame tubes and then welded thru. I had to cut some bent up parts fo tubing off the seat frame first, but it still worked.

The hardest bit was unlacing the whole seat cover off the frame and putting it back afterwards...I will probably have to redo the lacing part again later--it isn't quite right and probalby won't stay, but I was in a big hurry so I could finish before dark (no lights at the ouse, and not enough current avialable to run lights *and* power tools).










I also wanted to fix the lower rails of the pods, replacing the thin metal rackmount rails with 1" square tubing like the top railes are, welding htem to the bike, but after all the mess with the welder and other things I didn't have time--I'd've had to strip off the whole back end of the bike to do it, and didn't have time to do that and put it back before dark. As it was, I had not been able to take the wireing and stuff off the bike when welding near it, so had had to use bits of wood to insulate the wire from welding heat.....

View attachment 9


I did fix (weld over) the crack in the rear "seat stay" of the rear triangle:
View attachment 3


also wleded over parts of the headlight mount to stiffen it


and did the smae over the rear steering tie rod mount point cuz i didn't have time to make a new one yet. that's gonna have to be a nother day.

.