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

[amberwolf]

That's one weird looking flat. hope those tires work out well for you. I prob put 30 miles on em. I did like them , but just having a big bouncy tire is much better for my commute especially since I have a hard tail.

Yeah, CB2 is hardtail too, but since it is such a long bike it actually flexes some so feels like very minimal suspension to me as a rider. However, to the wheel itself, it odesn't make much difference, so I have many more wheel problems than evena regular hardtail bike. It's aired up just above it's minimum right now, at 55PSI. Seems like whenever I go higher than that I blow the stems on the tubes, and I am tempted to run lower but the bike feels yucky when I do.

I test rode it just now for some laps around the block, and it worked fine, and had better grip on the wet street than the knobby. I only stopped when the sprinkling was just about to turn into pouring rain (though that only lasted a few minutes after I came in, and now it's back to sprinkling again.

that's awesome also the new controller is working so good for you. I cant wait to use my 18 fet one day.

Although I need to either beef up my motor phase wires a LOT, or turn down the phase current, becuase I can always smell the wires when I stop if there's no wind. The windings still look pristine, so I guess I'm not getting them all that hot, even though I can't touch them. Hotter than I'd like. I guess I should do both--phase wires *and* turn down the phase current, assuming this one is even programmable. In theory I'd also like to build gate drive circuits for each FET, rather than one for each phase leg like it has now, but I definitely don't have time to do that.

You'd hate to see my electric bill - I am jealous of even your big one. if I lived out there id probably build myself a
man cave in the ground to just use natural cooling. the temps you have to deal with are just crazy. hope your
keeping cool.

[/quote]
Usually, it's a dry heat, and that isn't nearly as bad when you're out in it. But right now it's humid and hot, which makes me feel like I'm back in Texas where it gets sweltering meltering. I do wish I could just dump dirt and rock over the house, and make the lot into a hill instead. Would probably make it so I didn't NEED to heat or cool the house. I'd only need power for charging stuff and lighting, pretty much. And cooking. If this was my house and land, I would be sorely tempted to dig the north portion of the backyard out like a sand pit, and put the resulting stuff over and around the house. I would probably need to reinforce the roof, though. Oh, and I recently found out this house was probably built in 1948, about 20 years older than I thought it was!

I have worked pretty hard to cut the bill down this far, mostly by skimping on power usage wherever it was possible to do so, and still practical. Always turning off lights I'm not using, keeping all the "vampiric" power drains to a minimum by turning off power strips that connect chargers and ac adapters and such, even things like the microwave with its little clock and stuff. Anything at all that eats power, even a trickle, adds up. Back when I started looking for them, I found nearly half a KW of vampiric drains, in dozens of places around the house. Half a KW means 12KWh a day! That is a LOT. Almost half of my current daily usage the past two days.

Hard to believe it could be that much, now, but at the time there were several computers (set to sleep or even hibernate automaticallly), routers/wifi/cablemodem, various "nightlights", clocks, appliances, chargers and ac adapters for things that werent' often used but still always plugged in and drawing power, etc. If it had a wall-wart, it was drawing at least a little power all teh time, in use or not.

You might want to look around for such things you can nuke out of your power usage.


BTW, if you look around, you can find the old X10 stuff from RadioShack at Goodwill and the like, and somteims a bunch of them will be in the little bagged items on the wall, for like two bucks. Iv'e never gotten one that didnt' work, either. Wherever you have a concentration of ac adapters or chargers that arent' in use when you aren't there, just plug a power strip into an X10-controlled outlet unit. Put the master controller unit by your front door. When you leave or go to sleep or whenever you aren't using all those things, press the All Off button and it will automatically turn off all your vampire drains hooked up like this. Then press the All On button when you get back or need to use them. Can save a lot of power (and money).

A less-lazy and slightly more power-efficient way to do this is to just use the power strips without the X10, and go around turning off all the power strips when you leave or aren't using them. But this takes time and more effort, so it usually doens't happen or if people do start doing it, they eventually stop because they feel it isn't worht the effort.

 

[amberwolf]

I decided to ride CB2 instead of the Fusin Test bike to work today, partly because I had a split shift with a two-hour break between them, and partly because it was windy and looked like severe thunderstorms would hit either before my second shift started, or be still going on when I went home afterwards. CB2 rides much better in such conditions than a regular bicycle, and even if I did crash on it it would probably hurt me less than on an upright.


No wheel or tire (or other) rpoblems, thankfully, so far, in the 11 miles or so I rode today.

I am still having trouble getting used to having so much power on tap, though. If it had been a normal bike, I would have wheelied it at one point; even as heavy and long as this one is, I still had some skittery steering as I hit the throttle, when accelerating to cross a good break in traffic for a left turn across Dunlap on my way home. As soon as I let off the throttle steering went normal again.

I'm not sure if it woudl be fun or terrifying to wheelie CrazyBIke2. :lol:

 

[Alan B]

...

I'm not sure if it woudl be fun or terrifying to wheelie CrazyBIke2. :lol:

Undoubtedly both.

 

[texaspyro]

I'm not sure if it woudl be fun or terrifying to wheelie CrazyBIke2. :lol:

There's one way to find out... and remember, we like videos...

 

[amberwolf]

Gonna be a little while before I try a wheelie, cuz I dun broke it.
View attachment 12



I mean, I REALLY broke it.


This is the toptube of the center frame section, here:


A view without the seat in teh way:





Theoretically it's easy to fix, but it reveals a problem I hadn't (but should have) expected. The point at which it broke is where the cargo pod rails join side to side, with a square tube that runs under and is welded onto that toptube. This means that every time I hit a pothole or bump, especially with heavy cargo, that whole cargo section is leveraged against that point, upward or downward. I can see from the color of the edges that it had already had a small crack in it for a while, down at the bottom, where it is dark. Perhaps 1/4 of the whole circumference?


The actual failure today was caused by a *sideways* force, as I laid down the bike in a skid. I was approaching a red light at Cheryl and Metro Parkway East, when a cyclist with a phone to his ear and only one hand on hte bars, oblivious to everyhting except whoever he was talking to, riding on the wrong side of the road (coming toward me in my lane!) went thru that red light and was narrowly avoided by a car going thru crossways on the green. The car screeched to a stop, very loudly, but the cyclist didn't react at all. He just continued thru the red light and crossed the intersecton , then went around me to my right as if he was the only person on the road.

I however was watching him to see where the heck he was going to go, in case he was going to not go around me so I could go around him, and I couldn't just change lanes because a vehicle (I forget what--it was white) was coming up quickly behind me on my left, and I was watching *him* also, in my left rearview mirror, to be sure he wasn't going to change lanes into mine and rear-end me.

So I began braking very very late, and had to squeeze hard on both front rim and disc brake, as I don't yet have regen braking for the rear yet. This caused me to skid, and I lost steering control as I crossed onto the very slick area right before the crosswalk lines, and slid sideways and onto the left side of the bike, fishtailing the rear to the right.

I have no idea what the car that stopped for the cyclist or the truck on my left did, as they weren't there next time I looked, after I got going less than a minute later (maybe 20 seconds?)

I wasnt' hurt at all except a little scrape on my left knee by the fabric of my work pants, which themselves don't seem to be damaged. But I pulled the bike upright and sat down, and it didn't feel right, and as I tried to accellerate away from the now-green light the bike wiggled a lot and I realized also that the entire steering column and front frame appeared to be bent to the left. At first I thought it was just the seat tilted to the right, as that would easily be possible from such a crash/skid, but the seat was straight.

I rode rigth up onto the sidewalk on the other side of the intersection, on the ramp to the right of the light pole, and looked at the bike, and saw the problem pretty quickly. Fortunately due to the design of the bike and happenstance, the damage left the bike perfectly rideable once I pushed the frame back into alighnment so the tube halves locked into each other sort of, with the seat acting as lever to hold them together. Teh bike was a little wobbly in the steering, but not really a problem--it was FAR worse in the Deathrace where I managed to handle it for quite a ways in those torturous turns, so this was easy; I was only worried that the frame might slip the tubes apart and cause it to collapse under me if I hit any big holes or bumps, so i took it real easy on any kind of those.

It held together perfectly the other mile or so to work, and then the two and a half or so back home after work. I hope to have time to repair it tomorrow before work, but if not I will just ride the Fusin Test bike.



While at work I found this stainless-steel-braided hose in the parking lot, as I went to look for missing carts, and the two shipping straps came from our incoming load today:




and when I came home, I found these 7" open-reel tapes sitting on my porch, along with this Tasco telescope. I don't know who left them, as there is no note.
View attachment 6







View attachment 2


And just before I left for work a package arrived from Kin, with more needs-repair RC LiPo packs and a 3PDT relay:


and the how-to on an origami wolf:

I might perhaps use that basic idea to make one from plastic sheet as a "hood ornament" on the front of the bike, if I ever find time. I have lots of plastic sheet saved from various old ad signs at work, from very thin to nearly 1/4" thick. Most of it has been saved to try to make a fairing from at some point.



.

 

[amberwolf]

I started the repair process today, although it's not as straightforward as I had hoped. In order to insert the new piece of reinforcement tubing, I had to cut out a section that was dented in during construction, to provide a place for the seat's crossbar to embed into at the time (it's not used that way now).
(Pic later)


I measured the diameter as well as possible, using a pair of pliers to hold the tube and a ruler across the far end of the pliers' handles, then measured the various bike frames I have, and settled on the seattube from an already-chopped-up Mongoose as the best fit to go just inside the toptube but still be friction fit, requiring a hammer to install it. But when I cut it and test fit it, it was LARGER than the toptube! How does this happen?

I dunno, but anyway I then used that tube to compare for other tubing, and found some EMT conduit that would easily slip inside the Mongoose tube, and thus ought to fit inside the other--and it almost did, but not quite. So I had to slit it, and I couldn't get the tube to stay in the vise to cut it with the hacksaw, so I had to use the angle grinder to do it. Of course, I could not find the cutoff wheels, or any of the wheels for it, and only had the well-used gridning wheel on there, which cut a WAY too wide slot thru the tube lengthwise, but at least it was done.

Well, almost done. About halfway thru, my hands did their "thing" and I couldn't hold onto either the tube or the grinder, and hit the inside of my forearm with the grinder, taking the skin off a few square inches of it.


Didn't hurt a bit when I did it, but I knew it would as soon as I touched it with anything... So first thing I did was go cut off a couple of Aloe Vera leaves, and slit them in half lengthwise along the flats, to expose a broad surface of the gel inside. Then I scraped that gel until it was all gooey liquid, and smeared that on the raw area, which hurt like a @)(&#&@#%#@&%(_@#&%)(@#)#%R()@ and I cried but it was done.

Three of the dogs were all around me worried at my noises which were probably scary, because Loki wasn't anywhere to be seen. Fred and Nana were looking like they might not be happy with each other so I had to put Fred up in teh bedroom, whcih she had somehow gotten out of not long before. :? Here's Hachi and Nana after settling down finally:


Anyhow, I then cut an old worn-out sock for the elastic top part, and used that to secure another Aloe Vera leaf, also split in half, gel-side onto my raw arm, to let it help heal it. I've found that fresh real live AV does WONDERS for raw skin wounds, burns, etc. Much much better than any of the first aid treatments or antibiotic ointments, etc. So I keep a bunch of them growing in both front and backyards. Real handy to have, as clumsy as *I* am.


Finally I was all bandaged up, but the throbbing was too much, so I decided to wait on going back to cutting the slot. I had not had a chance to really play with that telescope left on my porch the other night by some nice person, so I dug out an old big heavy videocamera tripod (the kind used for those old 3/4" cameras that probably weighed 50 pounds and were bigger than my dogs), and some zip ties (wanted to use hose clamps but can't find them), and put the TS on the tripod, took it out back, and set it up to stargaze.
View attachment 6

It was just getting past full dark after sunset. About the time I finsihed setting it up, and was trying to focus on some points of light, they got blurry and vanished.

My first thought was GREAT NOW I'M GOING BLIND, TOO! but no, it was just clouds. Clouds everywhere, probably forming as the humidity condensed as the air cooled rapidly up there after sunset. So much for relaxing stargazing.

By this time it was time to feed the dogs, whcih nowadays also means coaxing Hachi to eat, as she no longer inhales her food like she used to, and I have to stay with her to talk to her while she eats, or she just leaves. She still has a heck of an appetite, just doesn't want to eat without me there, I guess. I dunno what the deal is.



Finally, once that was all done, I just said heckwithit and cut the slot, and then I could squeeze the tube to get it into the toptube. But fitting it in there was not as easy as all that. First I had to lift up the whole center and front of the bike, and bend down the front end to give me space to insert the new tubing inside the front part of the toptube, and then lower it down into the rear part of the toptube.

I had hoped to do it by taking out the toptube and steering from the seattube at the front frame, but there was no way I could insert the very long seatpost that's part of teh steering frametube down into the seattube once the reinforcement tubing was installed--the only choice was to bend the entire front frame downward at the former chainstay points at the front BB, then back upward to put it back together with reinforcement tube already in the front toptube, pushing it (with a sledgehammer on the front of the seattube/steertube assembly, inline with the toptube) into the rear stub of toptube still present on the rear half of the frame.


This worked, and so now the reinforcement tube is in place. But since I had to split the tube to get it in there, it's not as strong as it originally was, even after I weld it into place (which might happen tomorrow, I'm too wiped out to do it tonight).




Oh, and in the process of retightening the seattube/seatpost/steering clamp bolt,


I managed to whack my eyebrow area with the end of the ratchet when it slipped off the nut. Took about ten minutes to stop dripping blood; was worried I'd have to superglue it to fix it.


So some extra reinforcing triangulation bars are going to be added--these black tubes, formerly off the old futon daybed frame I think I have pictured in the new Full Suspension Cargo Bike thread, will go from the front ends of the square tubing used for the cargo pod rails, down to the chainstay meetup points with the front BB. That should effectively triangulate this area in 3 dimensions, and help prevent a future failure of the same type.








I'd also like to add triangulation from the same rear points up to the point the toptube joins the steering point/seattube, but I can't find the rest of the pile of those black tubes. Gotta be here somewhere, but I still have huge piles of stuff scattered all over that isn't yet in it's new place, after moving the bedroom into what used to be the bike workshop, and all those parts are everywhere in the house until I rearrange the backroom to be the new bike workshop.


Anyhow, I can't weld it until I wheel it out the front door, around the side and thru the backyard to the only 220V outlet I currently have for the welder. Theoretically I could run the cord for the welder thru the bathroom window and then the hall and into the front room, but it won't reach out the front door, and it would be bad for a number of reasons to be welding inside the house like that. :lol: For now, it sits like this, without the seat on it:



I passed by the frame for hte full suspension new bike a few times in all this, and kept considering just finishing it up as a hardtail, instead, without the NuVinci, or some other variation of rear suspension using just a regular biek triangle and BB as pivot, etc., instead of fixing CrazyBike2 up. But there is so much work left to do on that frame, and I don't yet even know if it will turn out rideable with it's current geometry. So...I left it where it sits for now. If I had another week's vacation I coudl take right now, I would consider doing so just to build it up as a CB2 replacement witout all the fancy stuff I envision for it, and build another one to do all that instead. But I don't, and coudln't take it right now even if I did. So...hopefully tomorrow I can weld up CB2 and see how it rides again.

In the meantime, I've injured myself much more today FIXING the bike than I did when I CRASHED it. All I got then was thils tiny scrape, which is already half-healed with the scab peeling off.

 

[amberwolf]

Today the skinless area was swollen a little, am working with vitamin C and garlic and topical antibiotics to see about fixing that.

Before work I managed to partly weld the new section of tubing into place, as well as basically tacking the reinforcement triangulation tubes. One issue I found AFTER tacking is that the chain rubs on the rightside tube, but I don't remember this being a problem when I was test fitting it all, so either something moved (I don't see how) or I totally missed the interference when doing the test fits, even though I specifically checked for that. Probably it's just me, especialy since missing-skin-pain is pretty distracting.


I did not get to re-tie-down the wiring so it hasnt' been test ridden. Probably I will finish the welding, after I redo the rightside tube to miss the chain (have to ponder that one), and then maybe do that rewiring I've talked about before, replacing the spaghetti on here with something easier to troubleshoot on those rare occasions something goes wrong.

Sorry no pics yet, probably have to wait for tomorrow.

 

[Solcar]

Telescope-cool.

For skin sores, I have discovered that a type of massage therapy speeds up healing by boosting circulation. It clears out infections, for one thing. It involves pounding on a spot somewhere usually pretty close to the sore. For the knee, you might try somewhere on the thigh, for example, maybe on the lower inside part. It is trial and error to find a spot that works, and I find the effect usually feels good when it is working.

I have bad feet skin from diabetes damage and I find that pounding on the ankle front, toward the forward side of the joint bones, helps with healing sores or stress of having to be on them. I use the heel of the hand palm (the part near the wrist) to pound there to get rather a resonance going. I used to have infections on the inside of my ankle, but since using the pounding massage therapy, haven't had much of anything, especially ones that have needed a lot of antibiotics like in pre-therapy times.

On the feet, an alternate pounding location is the heel. It is a fairly safe place to try it since the skin there is tough. Then you would use the bottom of the fist. But the effort for good effect seems much greater.

If you get a paper cut on a finger, try pounding the finger on something solid to double, or so, healing time and keep infection away.

My dad had diabetes and did a form of the pounding therapy unknowingly. He used to bounce his foot up and down on the floor. That is the original pounding therapy I thought of too, and I later recalled that he did it prior to me. Later I figured out the passive method that I talk about above, using the hand, that requires much less effort than bouncing the foot on something solid.

 

[Sancho's Horse]

Attack of the tools!! I know people who never get hu,rt or even dirty while working with tools. For me, this is where I draw the line for hobbyist. Unless there is blood, sweat and/or tears, you are a hobbyist (although sometimes I suspect they might just be smarter than me...perish the thought). I have a grinder scar across my wrist, looks like an attempted suicide with a grinder. I also have a cut across my palm which required 14 hours of surgery (at least that is what they say, I was out...incidentally the gown started with the opening in the back before surgery and ended up in the front...weird, but not a problem until I put on the demonstration of post-surgery walking prowess...well, hello nurse).

I would put some serious gussett on that thing. Even if you triangulate, I would gussett it up. It looks like catastrophic failure just waiting to happen.

 

[amberwolf]

I might, but it survived over 3500 miles including lots of abuse with heavy loads on bad roads, before this happened. I still have to inspect the whole frame out in the sunlight to see what else might be crackin' though. Really, at this point, anything I do on this bike is just to hold it over till I can complete the next one, so any work I do on it is work I could have done on the next instead, including pondering time. It's still good as a testbed, to find faults like this toptube failure, which upon hindsight looks extremely predictable but I definitely never expected it to fail that way.

If I gussy this one up I will have less reason to buidl the next one; if I know that this one has more failures awaitin' I have more incentive to hurry up on it's successor. :lol:

But this has at least taught me one thing not to do, and that's to put a lever arm with cargo pods hanging off of it pushing up on the toptube like this. The new bike is already designed not to do that, so that should help.



re: telescope: I did finally get to try it out just before dawn on Jupiter, Aldebaran, and Venus. It's good enough to easily see the Galilean moons as bright dots, and just barely make out that Jupiter is striped. But it has a color-blurriness to it, even at the center, from something akin to chromatic abberation. I suspect there are deposits inside on the backs of the lenses, and I'd have to take it apart to clean those out. Not enough time to spend on it for something I am not regularly using (even though I'd love to, it would waste many hours a week if I did, getting lost in the sky).


Re: wounds and such: I can't pound on anything with my hands, it hurts way too much. Sometimes they hurt like I slammed them in a car door even just in day to day living, so anything that abuses them is out of the question. Same thing with most other joints, though except for my knees, none are quite as bad as my hands.

The principle seems sound, however, to force bloodflow to increase. What might be better is a pneumatic blood pressure cuff, using it to repeatedly squeeze and release an area of limb to force blood in and out of it and adjacent areas.

ATM my forearm seems to be healing, as the redness has gone to pinkness, and it isnt' hot anymore. I have been applying the "triple antibiotic cream" as an extremely thin layer over the entire inner forearm, where skin is thinner anyway, and rubbing it in to help force absorption of the active ingredients. Plus munching on garlic cloves, which taste terrible but raw potatoes and some canned stewed tomatoes eaten at the same time help a lot to wash the bitterness down, and keep my stomach from rejecting it later. Vitamin C I take a 500mg tablets every few hours, which is overal some several-dozen-plus times what my body actually needs, so I pee a lot of bright yellow when it dumps the excess. But it is helping as it constantly has as much as it needs to help rebuild things, instead of just a single dose once a day that mostly is gone as soon as it hits the bloodstream, either by usage or filtration by kidneys.

 

[amberwolf]

Some pics of my welding; it's pretty bad partly cuz it was so hot yesterday I couldn't see well with the sweat running into my eyes, and partly cuz I had troulbe holding things and welding; bad day for my hands I guess. Also because I was in a hurry and did not clean off paint or rust or anything, and just welded right over it. I still need to finish the welding and fix the chainline/tube interference, but it is 104F out there right now, and I dont' feel well enough to be out in it doing hot welding and tool manipulation just now. It's actually only 80F in the cooled bedroom right now, and 93F in the rest of the house, increasing slowly.










On the topic of energy savings from moving the bedroom, you can clearly see the changeover point:

The two-day spike is the time I ran both rooms' window AC units, during the actual changeover moving stuff from room to room.


According to SRP's estimator, my bill next month will only be $110, instead of the usual $200+ it has been. Makes me wish I had done this move before summer, as I would then probably have an "extra" $100 or so already saved in cooling costs between late May, June, and early July. At least it will be cheaper from now on, even when they raise the electricity prices.

If I could rebuild the food refrigerators to be better-insulated, and more effective at moving the hot air away from them during their chill cycles, I could probably cut another few percent off the bill. But until I can get a third unit to experiment with, I can't afford to lose the storage space for the food I already have, should I do something wrong and break one unfixably.

I really would like a deep freezer, and I could make a smallish one if I had another full-size refrigerator. I'd just insulate it much better, and remove the separators between compartments, so that it can reach the same low temperature everywhere inside. Then I can modify it's thermostat to run longer if necessary, and add better circulation fans to the heat-exchanger coils on both inside and out. I'd also probably take out the defroster coils, and I can add insulation on the *outside* of it as well as inside, so I dont' have to make the interior compartment quite as small as otherwise with the added insulation thickness. I'd also be laying it on it's back instead of upright, to keep the cold air inside it when opeingin the door.

 

[texaspyro]

For the wounds, just douse 'em with 91%+ isopropyl alcohol and table salt. It won't hurt a bit. I promise...

 

[bigmoose]

I'd also be laying it on it's back instead of upright, to keep the cold air inside it when opeingin the door.

Amber that would not be a good idea for longevity. As I understand the freon system, the oil has to be able to return down the suction line if it drops out of solution. If you lay it flat, it will disturb that function and the normal oil circulation in the compressor. If a freon system is designed for vertical, it should stay vertical; horizontal, keep it horizontal. Great savings with the A/C!

 

[amberwolf]

As I understand the freon system, the oil has to be able to return down the suction line if it drops out of solution. If you lay it flat, it will disturb that function and the normal oil circulation in the compressor. If a freon system is designed for vertical, it should stay vertical; horizontal, keep it horizontal. Great savings with the A/C!

I didnt' actually say it, but I would also be moving the compressor, at least correcting it to remain in it's own vertical axis, as well as anything else that needed to be shifted, as long as I can do so by simply carefully bending the existing coolant lines. Often on older ones (which I am more likely to run across as discards), most of the system is on the bottom and in the back, and thus shoudl be easy to access/alter as needed. I almost snagged one a few weeks ago that only had a bad cooling fan, but they chose someone else as the recipient.

I do appreciate the advice, though--there was a time when I didn't know that and would have probalby killed the compressor.

The A/C savings is better than I expected, especially since this is even with the temperature in the room kept quite a bit lower than in the other room.

Weather today just after 4pm just changed suddenly from lightly cloudy at 105F and a little breeze, to intense sandstorm with winds high enough to pick up my lawn chairs and yard-clipping buckets and toss them about, and scare the dogs into going inside (except for Hachi, who would probabloy stick by my side in an earthquake during a hurricane). Sand and dust was so intense I could look at the sun directly, only a little brighter than a full moon! After the dust passed, temperature dropped almsot 20 degrees for a few minutes, and with the wind not quite as bad, maybe only 20MPH with gusts higher than that, I mowed the grass with the weedeater, and some poopy-raking too. Never did get to raining, though, not evena sprinkle, despite black clouds to the north and west, and some to southeast. Maybe later tonight we'll get some. At least it's only 89F out there right now, and cooling, with wind still going a little.

 

[ohzee]

Man sure glad that wreck was not any worse then it was and that you are ok.

I sure hate people who are oblivious to everything around them while moving at a fast rate of speed.

You runnin those tires they working ok for ya ? Also how's your lipo looks like with some work you should
have some decent ah to move you around hopefully when U got time to repair.

hope you heal up ok Amber nice to get a good update.

 

[amberwolf]

Yeah, well, my crash was my own damn fault, due to my own inattention to my personal situation of the moment, even if that inattention was caused by distraction by the other cyclist.


I've got one of those tires on the rear of CB2 and the other on the rear of the Fusin Test Bike; maybe if I had had both of them on CB2 instead of the Kenda Kross half-slick half-knobby in front, I might've had enough traction not to skid. :lol:

Should have plenty of Wh once I get all the packs rebuilt and checked out.

Here's hopin' on the healin'.

 

[Solcar]

Indeed, the pounding massage therapy needs the recipient to have good joints (I suppose, but maybe not!) and I wish you weren't limited that way. The blood pressure cuff thing is something I didn't think of however I did think of a heavy duty cell phone-type vibrator going about 3 cycles per second. I'm glad that the healing process is proceeding.

 

[amberwolf]

It's finally scabbed over, though arm is still quite tender and I keep tearing the scab on things; it's just in the absolute wrong place.


Remember taht telescope? Tonight while the dogs were doing their thing outside after I got home, I tested a theory with the camera against the output of the eyepiece, just holding it in place, and the first quarter moon during a little break in the clouds. I tried a few different camera settings, and these are the three best pics--keep in mind I'm holding the camera up to it, and can't really see if it's focused, just that it's got an image on screen, so if I ever have time to make an adapter tube and a mount for hte camera, I could probably take some snazzy pictures with it.






Work is hectic this week, so probably not gonna get to finish the welding on CB2 till Thursday or Saturday at earliest.

 

[amberwolf]

So far the electricity usage is looking good, compared to similar time frame last year, with similar weather and only slightly lower average temperatures:

7/23/2011 43KWh 94F
7/22/2011 42KWh 96F
7/21/2011 43KWh 96F
7/20/2011 56KWh 98F

7/22/2012 21KWh 90F
7/21/2012 26KWh 91F
7/20/2012 25KWh 95F
7/19/2012 26KWh 95F

The "smart" meter wasn't installed and operating until 7-19-11, so I don't have full comparison data for last summer.

 

[Solcar]

Cool picture of the moon.

 

[amberwolf]

Pics of the difference between the old room and the new one, on the front of the house. Old room has lots of exposed wall for sun to hit most of the day, and new room is shaded very well. Plus a pic from the same point as looking out the window would be, if I didn't have th window casement filled with insulation.





new room







Storm rolling in today as I was watering and doing yard work:








Loki was not happy about the storm rolling in,



But he thought the cool breeze prior to the sandstorm was nice
View attachment 7


Fred just ran around sniffing things like usual.
View attachment 6


Nana and Hachi pretty much just chilled out in the breeze
View attachment 5

until the sprinkling started, and then they followed me around brushing my legs trying to get me to go inside. When it actually started raining they went in and stared at me from the doorway (but I dind't want the camera wet so I didn't try to take a pic).






Just as the sprinkles started, right before the main storm hit. PIcs look a LOT lighter than it actually was--was very dark by then, with almost black skies where the clouds are.
View attachment 2






.

 

[amberwolf]

I seem to have misplaced my camera after trying to get more moon pics last night (partly successfully), so no new pics for this post.

I got the welding as finished as I can on CB2 for now. I think i will need to make gussets to make it any better, for up at teh BB on the black stiffener tubes.

I did not fix the chainline issue yet, but I was able to pedal-assist a bit on the test ride without issue other than hearing the chain rub on the tubing (which it would probably cut thru eventually if I kept that up long enough).


I also welded up a replacement bar on a dog crate for our rescue adoption partner up at work, http://www.AZFurryFriends.org as I guess one of the previous occupants of the crate didnt' want to be, and severely damaged one of the vertical bars on the door, to the point where a smaller animal like a kitten could probalby just walk right thru.

So I took a bar off an old retail fixture I'd saved for other parts, and spot welded it in place of the old one, and ground all the welds smooth so kitties and puppies won't hurt their widdle paws on dem.

I will deliver the crate back tomorrow (was supposed to be tonight but there's no way--I'm jsut totally wiped out), using CrazyBike2 this time. I brought it home with the Fusin Test Bike:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=617754#p617754

but since CB2 is mostly fixed, I would like to be riding it for a while.


I did run into a MAJOR problem, though: I noticed something wierd when I was wheeling the bike back out front to do the test ride--I couldn't steer it very far left without the linkage bar being forced *rightward* past the toptube at it's front link with the actual fork's steerer tube. This is bizarre, as it did not happen before the failure and fix, and nothing has changed in any of that linkage or geometry or even that section of the frame. :?

So a closer look reveals the rear one of the old welded-closed eyebolts I used for rod-ends has bent badly on the threaded section, about a little more than 1/4" from the end of the threaded part. I tried to gently bend it back, but it snapped off there.

I took the whole tie rod off, worked out the broken-off threaded rod from the back end, and threaded the rod onto the stub there. Fortunately, these are very long, so there was enough threaded rod on the front one to still make the right length linkage. This fixed the problem for now, but I am worried now that the linkage is going to come apart again.

If it does, it will happen on the road in-use, probably during a hard left turn as that is when it is stressed by the tie rod striking the frame itself. I don't normaly need to do that, so it woudl only happen in a situation that is already bad. For now, I will simply try to avoid any possible situation taht could lead up to that...but that's the thing with emergency turns and such-you can't really predict if it is going to happen--you can only try to lessen your chances of encountering the need for one.


The two-mile test ride was successful, with no linkage or frame problems I could detect, and the ride is different a little--the frame is definitely stiffer with these new black tubes in there re-triangulating the center frame. I guess it's a good thing, but it does make the bumps on the rear wheel a little harder than before, and even just noticeable on the front.

I went to the Safeway shopping mall a mile or so from the house for the ride, and picked up enough groceries from there and surrounding stores to fill both pods up to around 55lbs of stuff, and another 5lbs in the center frame between those new stiffeners (which do make ok tie-bars to secure grocery bags to, for the small stuff you can fit between them). I could definitely feel the stiffness of the frame with all that stuff in there; usually the bike wiggles around with that in there, and now it doesn't quite so much (still has side-to-side wiggle caused by the pods jiggling around at the bottom, but no up/down wiggle like before).


Anyhow, I will need to make a new steering linkage soon, but the rest of the bike seems to be behaving. For now.

 

[amberwolf]

Camera was still sitting on the chair outside; glaid it didn't rain.

Broken eyebolt piece, below the remainder now threaded into the tie rod:
View attachment 11


Comparison to unbroken one in front, showing amount of thread still remaining inside tie rod on front:


Problem found with CA buttons:



Other than the bike not failing, today has not been a particularyly good day; started off with ruining my chili I made last night,
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=619034#p619034
or really before that where something I ate before I made the chili gave me mild food poisoning, and I had the runs all night and morning; thought they stopped but after I got to work midday, they restarted, and I got worse and worse thru the day, finally toward 6pm I started having chills, and finally got to go home shortly after that (haivng wished I could go home right after I arrived).

I made it home, after a few stops due to dizziness and cramps. I found the front screen/security door closed and locked, but the inside door was wide open--I am SURE I closed it wehn i left, but I guess I diddn't pull it ocmpletely shut. So it was 99F inside (except for the bedroom with the window AC and blankets across the door, so teh dogs can stay cool).

I let the dogs out back, and opened up the windows and left the back door open, so that the slight breeze would help cool the house back down after it got a little cooler outside as the sun set...but while opening the back room's windows, I got dizzy again and fell against the window, breaking it and cutting my hand slightly:

Of course, it had to be the big pane in the middle, rather than the ons on the sides that I might actually have glass salvaged from something else to replace with. I *think* the last glass pane off the add-on back screen door might be cuttable to replace it; not sure. Have to measure when I am feeling well enough to not break it, too.

The window normally looks like this one (on opposite end of same room):

but now it's like this:
View attachment 6


After treating my hand, I fed the dogs, "fixed" the chili as noted in the link above, answered a call from a friend and talked a short time, then went to bed, where I napped a little and woke and so on, like usual; here i am nearly midnight and I feel a little better, but I still feel like laying here for the next year.



I leave you wit the moon pics I was trying to take, with the best one first, then the other attempts.

 

[texaspyro]

For Amberwolf, a day without blood loss is like a day without sunshine... (but that is probably a good thing where he lives)

 

[amberwolf]

Yes, to both. :lol:

All worthy projects require blood sacrifices, anyway.