solar powerd off road trike build log

whatever said:
have you experienced a roll over yet or gone close??
I have a very similar trike in terms of wheel size ( 26" I assume all round?) and dimensions. I found that roads with a large camber angle were hard to
drive on, the back wheel having a tendancy to slip sideways and having to correct via steering, can be quite scary.
I did roll over twice, both times involving a roadside ditch, fortunately at slow speed so no large damage, happened whilst pulling to the side of the road
and it was pretty dark without good lights ( I have full fairing, no solar panels....yet).
Another issue is wheels bending on tight corners at decent speeds, you can tie the spokes together where they cross will help, but even with wide rims there
is a possibility of a rim collapsing on a tight bend at speed.
Solution to these problems on my trike is going to small diameter wheels ( without spokes) which I haven't done yet but I will at some stage.
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I havent come close yet, it would be pritty catesrophic for the pannels, I think that the large amont of farly low weaght keeps me down foarly well. roadside cambers are a bit crap, but I havvent hade a sliding problem with any of the bikes. because of the lean created by the pannels I avoid cornering at mutch speed witch will hopefully save my wheel, but I have beeen worryd about it a few times.
John in CR said:
That's one of the big reasons I want to do a leaner when I build a trike, alway ride upright with wheels vertical despite camber in the road.

Solarshift, do you have regen, so In a worst case scenario you could pedal for a while and get your lights back for some camping?
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no I had to disable regen witch seriously sucked, the chain setup just dident cope. it was sad to see it go but I told myself that australia was farly flat :( I do have a head torch with spare batterys charged of the bike meaning that Ive got a good 40 hours of being able to see, but still no good for being seen.
 
can you tell us what motor your using, voltage and amps of controller, how many ahr batteries and what type?
Are you using mppt? whats your top speed on flat road? how about hill climbing abilities, sorry if this info is in your blog,
what sort of speed would you hold on a fairly steep hill?
thinking i might be able to get my trike out of mothballs and if you go via newcastle do some riding with ya
 
motor is a minimonstor, 48v (16sLiFePO4 60ah) controller is stock 80a but on roads it dosent seem to peak above 30, top speed is about 31kph, it climbs hills like a beast, on the road its never dropped below 20, going hard.
 
60ahr of batts thats quite a bit, are you using a123 20ahr or other type?
 
Geared that low it would require an incredibly steep road to force the Mini to draw full current from your controller. Have you had any occasions to use low, or do you just leave it in high all the time? That reminds me of one thing I don't know if I ever mentioned. If it ever won't go, the first thing to check is the shifter. I bumped mine a couple of times when chaining the bike up, or maybe inquisitive hands touched it while in the store, and it took me a while to remember to check that the shifting arm put it in the engaged position. The first time I was on the phone calling for road service when I remembered to check it. The symptom is a just a dead motor, since the phase wires aren't terminated when not fully engaged.

BTW, what are the tooth counts on your chain sprockets?

John
 
following your blog: 130km to 150km per day sounds like great progress, hope you have a comfy seat,
 
John in CR said:
Geared that low it would require an incredibly steep road to force the Mini to draw full current from your controller. Have you had any occasions to use low, or do you just leave it in high all the time? That reminds me of one thing I don't know if I ever mentioned. If it ever won't go, the first thing to check is the shifter. I bumped mine a couple of times when chaining the bike up, or maybe inquisitive hands touched it while in the store, and it took me a while to remember to check that the shifting arm put it in the engaged position. The first time I was on the phone calling for road service when I remembered to check it. The symptom is a just a dead motor, since the phase wires aren't terminated when not fully engaged.

BTW, what are the tooth counts on your chain sprockets?

John
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Hmm sounds like a good trick to keep people off the bike like when at work! Lol"
 
with your spoke breakages, dont use stainless steel, they are extremely brittle after a short time will break, if you can get a hold of thick normal steel spokes should solve the problem, I use 2.3mm dia with x5 motors, you can also tie the spokes together where they cross makes the wheel stronger and may help
stop breakages.
 
thanks for that, how mutch of an issue will it be having to drill oult the holes in the hub? being normal hub thatd be what Id have to do. any ideawhere to loock for thicker spokes?
 
whatever said:
with your spoke breakages, dont use stainless steel, they are extremely brittle after a short time will break, if you can get a hold of thick normal steel spokes should solve the problem, I use 2.3mm dia with x5 motors, you can also tie the spokes together where they cross makes the wheel stronger and may help
stop breakages.
Click to expand...

You have no idea what you're talking about. It sounds like you got a bad batch of cheap stainless spokes, or wheels that had been poorly built, and so you decided to throw out all proven customary wheelbuilding practices in response. Any spokes will break if they are made of flawed material, or if they have not been stress-relieved and properly tensioned.

I have built hundreds of reliable wheels, and serviced many thousands of others both good and bad. The best wheels during the twenty-five years I've been doing this have all used stainless steel spokes. Plain steel spokes corrode and stick to their nipples if there is any failure of lubrication. Spokes thicker than 2.0mm cause reliability problems (chiefly chronic loosening) in wheels using bicycle rims. Tying and soldering does nothing of value except to keep a broken spoke from flopping around, and it complicates repairs when they are necessary.

The proven recipe is simple: DT Swiss or Sapim spokes, 2.0mm straight gauge or 2.0/1.8mm double butted. If the hub flange holes are too big, use washers underneath the spoke heads. Lubricate the spoke threads and nipple seats with something. Tighten to 100kgf minimum on the tighter side of the wheel. Stress-relieve the spokes by squeezing or prying spoke pairs.

If you diverge from this recipe, you should fully understand why you are doing so!

Read Jobst Brandt's The Bicycle Wheel for comprehensive information. His practices and data reflect the use of thinner, more flexible rims than what many of us are using these days, but the general principles are the same.
 
what length spokes do you need? I have some thick ones ( 2.3mm dia) you do have to drill out the rim to suit the bigger nipples but pretty simple process,
cant tell you off the top of my head what dia hole you need.
to chalo: my comments on stainless steel spokes relate to using them with hub motors and from experience. The crystalyte hub motor company initially used stainless steel spokes ( everyone wanted them as they dont rust), but everyone was having problems with them breaking, they went to thicker spokes, same problem! I've been involved with ebikes for 15 years or so, its been documented over and over again on this forum and on the power assist forum ( which was the main ebike forum before es forum began), its not just my experience, many many many other people have had the same problem.
To say I have no idea what I'm talking about is a bit offensive, this is a problem that has been known about for a long long time.
 
It's a problem with lousy quality Chinese spokes, not a problem with stainless steel spokes.

My guess that you had gotten a bad batch of stainless spokes or else a poorly built wheel proves to have been correct on both counts. It's as if you bought some horrible item at Harbor Freight Tools and extrapolated your findings to cover all tools of any kind.

Sorry if my bluntness offends you. You saying things on a public forum that are patently and demonstrably wrong is offensive to my sensibilities, so we're even.
 
to chalo: this thread is for an amazing/brave trip by sam mitchell so keep it positive please,
I did some brief research on stainless spokes, chalo is correct sapim brand use 'fatigue resistant' high grade stainless,
but stainless spokes ( in general not talking about high end of the market spokes ) tend to break, the fact that sapim advertise their spokes as 'fatigue resistant' is basically acknowledging that there is a problem with stainless spokes ( common grades ), so it seems chalo is correct, some high end stainless spokes maybe ok.
 
DT Swiss, Sapim, Union, Wheelsmith, and Phil Wood all make fine spokes that are very reliable when built into wheels using best practices. None of them make plain steel spokes, as far as I am aware.

There are no reputable/recognized brands selling plain steel bicycle spokes into the USA market, to my knowledge.

I can get inexpensive but brand named stainless steel spokes starting at about $0.20 each, wholesale price. I can get plain zinc plated steel spokes starting at about $0.02 each, wholesale price.

EDIT:
For what it's worth, Dan's Competition sells Sapim 14ga stainless steel spokes cut to order for $0.25 each, and Sapim 12ga stainless steel spokes for $0.35 each. It'[s an unbeatable retail price for top quality spokes, especially if you need unusual lengths.
 
thanks for the usefull discussin about spokes, the ones Ive been replacing into the wheel are the more expensive swiss stainless spokes, that was what the bike shop had, how lickly am I to damage the hub by drilling it oult, 25g high grade stainless spokes would be aswome, espechelly at that kind of price.
as far as the trips been going, Ive got to ( or as good as to) byron bay, the moast easterly point. I have been breaking a few spokes, hills seem to stress them a bit more than the flat contery inland. the outher day I parsed 50% replaced spokes, but its only the original ones that have been breaking and the wheel had had a bit of prior stress.
 
I use 3.2mm dia mild steel spokes on x5 motors, have always had to drill out the wide aluminium rims I use, have never had any problems, will be interested to hear how the quality stainless spokes go.......your at byron bay already???????? amazing
 
im in byron for a couple of weeks, earning a bit of cash riding recshaws and Il do a bit of mantenence on ther bike
 
sounds good, dont forget to go to the beach!!!.....often........
 
back on the road, a bit north of the goald coast, the fatter tire on the back really makes a difrence to the speed and sand performence, its great.
 
hey if thers anyone in brysbane that wants to catch up, or has any idea about the best way to get threw on a wide thing send feel free to sling us a text 0419975934
 
heading inland from towomba now, I ve replaced all the remaining original spokes in my wheel with stainless dt spokes, none have been breaking but I have had had a bit of trouble with them loosnening, any ideas?
 
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