The SB Cruiser : Amberwolf's 2WD Heavy Cargo Trike & Dog Carrier

[amberwolf]

Funny you shoudl say that... :/

Tonight, I had the problem again, while just sitting at the traffic light waiting, the lights went off, then came bakc on, stayed a few seconds, went off, falshed on and off a few times, then went out and stayed out. I tapped and whatnot on various areas I coudl reach sitting there, no change.

WHen the light went green I rode across and partway across the lights came back on and stayed on. I turned into the first parking lot, and pulled into a space to check things out.

I found no problems with anything, and no matter what I did I coudln't make the lights go off, just like when I troulbeshot it at home the previous night.

ONe place I didn't check then was teh connections for teh DC-DC at the battery cutoff switch. I can't see those without taking the styrofoam insulation panels out of the cargo box but I can reach behind them and poke at things with my finger, so I did that. Might've made a better connection because I had no troubles at all on the way home after that.


But, flashlights.... I puled out the flashlight, turned it on, and some electrical tape to secure it to the front fork under the Kia headlight, and the flashligth started turning off and on; I set it down and it kept doing it.

So I opened up the flashlight, and found that rolling the AAA batteries in their holders would make it do this, so I pulled the springs out a little and put batteries back in, that seems to have fixed the flashlight. Finished securing it, left it on in case the lights went off again, but they stayed on the whole time.


I'm too worn out from work to take the cargo box innards apart to get to and check teh connections directly, So that will have to happen tomorrow after work or on my day off the next day.

 

[amberwolf]

No problems with the lights today or tonight either, so almost certainly it has to do with the source wires in the cargo box, at or near the battery cutoff. Have ot look at that tomorrow (too wiped out tonight).

 

[amberwolf]

I couldn't find anything wrong with any of the wiring or connections, and haven't had a lighting problem since the above.


But...I had a different problem today, trying to leave work: No throttle response at all. Even the CA saw zero volts on ThIn.

I forgot my multimeter at home, of course, and didn't want to rip wiring apart to check for broken stuff, etc., I just hooked the PAS stuff back up and reenabled it in the CA. It's even less controllable with it running both motors, but it does work, and it got me home, though with my fingers riding the ebrake lever to cut it off quickly while I was riding close to anyone or in close traffic.


ONce home, after an hour or so of dog-stuff (playtime, dinner, etc)., I found no signal at all out of the throttle at the CA input, but I did find it at throttle signal wire itself, once I peeled the heatshrink away from the cable splice point and poked into the insulation. Shortly after this, the signal wire came completley out of the heatshrink, which showed me the problem--the connection had simply broken off. :/

So I fixed it up, and now it works fine.


Don't want to be left without throttle ability, so while I was at it, I replaced the dead hall sensor in the left thorttle, and added a JST Y connection at the CA's ThIn, and added JSTs to the left throttle otuput and the input of the cable that goes back to be able to ahve the left motor on a separate throttle (which is run off the CA right now).

This lets me parallle the left and right throtltls on the CA, so I can run both mtors form either one. THat will also help with my hand-numbness on rides where I have to hold teh throttle in one position for more than a minute or two. Cant' use cruise control becuase I keep forgetting I have it enabled and then the motor doesn't cutout when I let go of the thorottle....have to use the ebrake to cut off and then that jersk the regen on. :/


Experimented a little with PAS modes, and found that in Basic PAS, not using the torque sensor part of the TDCM, I can get some contyrol over the systme but still have enough power to get started quickly...but can't find the settings that really allow it to be finely controlled with this power level. Maybe someday I'll figure that out.

 

[amberwolf]

First throttle, now ebrake failed.

Wire came off the switch inside, on my ride to work.

After work I pulled the switch out to see if it could be reconnected; it looked easy to J-bend the wires together and crimp them, but the switch disintegrated as I tried to do this just from my finger pressure.

Wanted ebrakes for the ride home, so dug out the couple feet of spare wire (2-conductor small gauge) I keep in the toolbag, and wired it to the ebrake connection point at one end, then stripped about 3 inches of the other. Twisted up each wire's strands into a figure 8 about a centimeter long. Taped over the front mechanical brake handle to insulate it, then taped one wire's exposed 8 to thefront edge of the lever. Taped two bits of styrofoam about 1/4" thick either side of that, then taped the other wire's 8 across the gap.

This works well enough as a temporary fix; I can use just the mechanical or both. Takes a little practice to pull the ebrake, but it'll do for now, till I have time to fix the ebrake lever itself (or make a permanent version of this).

For a permanent version, I actually have a stainless steel "switch" that's designed to work like this, two tabs mounted in a plastic spacer, with wires coming off them. But I have no idea where I last put it; one of those things I saved from something else long ago because I knew it would be useful someday....

I have several other things with spring-metal tabs that would do the same thing, but none of them are corrosion-resistant or "toughly built" like this is.

I could also use a microswitch with a long bendy lever; I even have a couple of those...somewhere.

I also have an HWBS (hidden wire brake switch) I could put on the cable...but that will engage *every* time I use the lever, not just when I want to use it. (which is why I originally used a whole separate lever).

Or of course the option of just fixing the other brake lever and not worrying about a secondary switch in parallel with it (for just this case, especially, where one of them fails).

 

[amberwolf]

My temporary fix is still working fine, thankfully, as there hasnt' been time to deal with the replacement lever or other fixes.


A new problem has cropped up, though: occasionally, the rightside controller "cuts out" just for an instant. Sometimes it happens repeatedly for a moment. It does not seem to correlate to vibration or bumps or other environmental conditions.

It's possible that the left controller is also cutting out, but it's silent sinewave, so I can't hear/feel it like I can the generic trapezoidal rightside controller.

The CA is continuously outputting throttle during these cutouts accordign to the diagnostic screen, so it's not that; and it's not the ebrake hack doing it (cuz that would cause CA throttle out to drop to 0.0v because of my present ebrake settings).

So it might be the throttle output wiring, anywhere between the CA and the controllers. I will have to check them, and I suppose if I don't find anything to fix, I'll have to run a voltmeter wire to each controller's throttle input, and put the meters on the handlebars where I can see if they cutout.

It's so short a cutout that a digital meter may not catch it...so I was thinking about an LED instead. If I'm riding at night I'll be able to see even a dim LED go out momentarily. Daytime, probably not.

It is possible that ti's just the controller itself, not the throttle input. Or even the motor or motor/controller connections.

The weather changes going on right now are making me hurt enough that after getting essential housechores done I couldn't go test any of the stuff above; been mostly laying here reading ES and dozing, except when one dog or another has come to find out if I'm ok or for attention. Tonight and tomorrow it's likely to rain; if there's some time tomorrow that it's not raining (or much, at least) and I'm better enough I can go work on this. Hopefully.


I also need to setup the SFOC5 controller with the new firmware and set it up on the leftside motor, so I can start testing it again, now that some of the issues I've had should be dealt with (and it now has regen braking, which I really need).

I'd like to test the ex-Stromer motor too, but I still have to get the covers apart to put the new wiring in, then lace it up. Don't think that's gonna happen this "weekend".

 

[amberwolf]

Been working extra shifts at work; no time or energy to do stuff. About all I can do is help out here on ES between dozing/waking off and on all night.

Did have to fix one thing, spent what little I had of a partial day off locating a wiring fault in the rear turn signals / tail / brake lights.

Turned out to be two separate problems--somehow the nuts/bolts holding one of the not-in-use 5-pin DIN connectors (in the old KVM switchbox I adapted to be a trailer/lighting connector box) had come off, letting the connector bounce around inside it and a wire break off, and presumably touch metal casing or other contacts inside.

Then the wires inside the cable (from a different connector) to the lights on the rear of the trike were shorting internally, intermittently.

The effect of the two was to make both turn signals (but ONLY in the rear! :? ), flash on and off intermittently, on the frequently-bumpy roads. Sometimes the tail/brake lights would also flash on at the same time, or at different times.

The fix was to rebolt the connector down, and to replace the connector and most of it's cable, for the rear lights.

All works fine now...but it took up all the time I'd planned to use for reinstalling the SFOC5, so that won't happen till next week earliest, now.

 

[amberwolf]

Another chance to install the SFOC5 and play with settings to determine motor parameters missed today.

Was sick yesterday and day before. Felt better today, needed to go to grocery store (been no time last couple weeks since above), so headed out before getting to the SFOC/etc stuff, stopped at goodwill less than a mile from the house (didn't find anything useful), came back out to the trike having a flat on the right side, where I still had the bicycle tube...the valve stem was completely ripped off.

I don't know how it could happen unless someone did it deliberately, unless it just suddenly failed to stay attached to the tube while just sitting there. :/

I didn't have a spare tube with me, so I had to ride home on the flat, very slowly. If it did fail on it's own, it's a good thing I didn't get to teh store and load up with stuff yet. If it was deliberate, then it wouldn't have even happeend if I had gone to the store first....

Got home safely, took a while at only a few mph, so had to eat first. Done with that, went out to change the tube, took a while getting the trike rolled over on it's side; back is a lot better than months ago but still hurts, especially when it's cold like today. Had great trouble getting the inboard axle out of the pinch clamp; the clamp wouldn't release like it should, had to pry it apart and that took quite a while to do, while pulling the axle out at the samet ime.

Changing the tube to one of the motorcycle tubes with steel valve stem only took a little more than an hour (hands keep going numb, hard to work with tools), then another long while getting the wheel back on, and the trike back upright.

I would guess it took 5 or 6 hours to do it all, with some breaks to let my hands recover now and then. By the time I was done, so wiped out I didn't make it back out to the store, or anthing else, just came back to bed to lay down and rest....


Well, I have the first week of the new year off, so maybe I'll get it done then, if I don't over Christmas eve and day (my next two days off).

If I can't, I might as well just send it back to Incememed so he can at least get it into someone's hands that *can* test it. (but I'd really like to check out the improvements, see if it's useful for my purposes yet--it's a nice controller! (even if it's setup and UI leave a lot to be desired)).

 

[amberwolf]

i should be able to get at least part of what i want to d done, especially if the sunny but kinda cold weather holds like it's supposed to.

i guess my list is something like this:

first to finish the wheel build of that ex-stromer ultramotor.

modify the righthand droouts to hold it, vs the mxus 450x on there now, with the modified thicker xle.

verify that all works with the xisting controllers.

reinstall the sfoc5 on one of the motors, and experiment with it to find the motor parameters, since i don't know what they are for either of the ones that will still be on the trike at this point, and do some testing with it, until i can save up enough money to be able to send it back to incememed.

i also need to decide if i'm going to get grin to fix the dead grinfineon, or return both of them and go for the next best one they have, the 40a grinfineons, which would cost me about twice as much as these did. don't really have the money for that after fixing my hand, so unlikely to be able to do it. will probably just get grin to fix the dead 35a one, since i've already spent that money last summer anyway and can't really get it back. but i also first have to save up for postage to send the controlelr back to grin, to get it repaired.

get those cob leds assembled onto heatsinks and mounted and wired up around the yard and sheds so i can do more work, since there's nowhere near as much daylight as i need right now, especially since i end up having to stop and rest for a while at least once during the day, which wastes daylight. also have to pull down the pole for the main yard light to install the big led panel and power supply in there, to get more light from it. i'll leave the orgiinal mv lamp in there too, since it still works but shuts itself off periodically, assuming i can fit the heatsink, psu, etc., all in tehre along with the original bulb. might not all fit.

need to weld up the shelf-barrier stuff that's along the alley fence area of the backyard, and paint it. pretty low priority, but would like to get it done.

have to do the usual yardwork too, been months since i was last able to trim anything, but not much has grown since it began cooling off and daylight reducing. so not nearly as much work as there would be in the summer or fall. might still take a whole day or two though.

lots of organizing stuff in house and sheds i'd like to do too, that i got started on last time but couldn't finish, and have been unable to do much with since then. some of it has to be done just so i can find all the parts for other stuff aboev that has to get done, or clear space to do it in.


i would also love to finish up the wiring and siwthces for the trike lighting so ic an turn stuff on or off individually, as well as making the electronics to change the way throttle and pas on the trike work, so that:

--either throttel can be used to control either motor, or both, or be disabled

--pas can be used to controll either or both, or be disabled

--pas uses torque to get started from a standstill, and then cadence to control power after it's moving. this is complete opposite of how the ca is designed to work so i hve to make exteranl op-amp and/or transistor stuff to do that, and i have yet to work out exactly what's involved.

--turning will cause the motor power to be distributed unevenly in a way that helps push harder on the outboard wheel, to help sharpen turns automatically; this can also be disabled with a switch.

--some other stuff i forget right now, will have to look up my older posts about this.


i would lvoe to hve been able to get the rear disc brakes installed too, but i have yet to get the design files for the new dropout / torque plates made, so that i can have them made for me since i really just can't make them myself as well as they need to be made. so maybe i'll at least get the design done so that in a couple of months when i can get my next week off work i can do all the trike mods necessary to use them (which is quite a lot of work and will take the whole week to do, most likely, can't relaly do it when i have to use the trike, as i have to cut off all the existing mounting and frameworke around the wheels and replace it with new parts built for the purpose).

 

[amberwolf]

peanutbutter unexpectedly died yesterday morning.

he'd had a knee problem similar to yogi's for the last month or so, and had been kept as inactive as possible (mostly he did that on his own, unlike yogi) to help it heal, but the vet had prescribed meds (meloxicam) to help with that, and found no other problems, just a coupld days before, on new year's eve. we had all thought that his not wanting to eat much, other than freshly cooked plain meats and other strongly-smelling foods and treats, was to do with the pain from that, as that's not uncommon, evne if it never stopped yogi cuz yogi is always hollow.

but it mustiv'e been something else that we haven't got a clue about.

he'd been fine around 7am when my brother saw them all going out for potties, but at 10am when yogi came to get me for breakfast because he was sure he was going to evaporate without it, as usual, i opened the back door to find peanutbutter laying on the porch obviously dead, but in his usual sleeping pose...so i guess he laid down for a nap and died in his sleep sometime before 10am. he was already pretty cold, between laying on the cold porch and the cold air temperatures and being in the shade, cuz temps were less than 40f the night before, and weren't more than 50f by that time.

while i was collapsed there with him crying, jelly tried to drag him up to play, like she usually would, which just made me feel worse about it.

over the next hours, i was too grieving to handle communicating but i let the rescue know what happened in a voicemail, and a message to one of my coworkers that had known him, just so she would know. my brother contacted her when she responded, while i was out digging his grave, and worked out her coming over to help, and my new boss also came to help with her partner, a while after that (i don't remember how long any of it took; it's kind of all blurred together).

i do remember first jelly and hten kirin sticking with me out there, laying behind me as i dug. i had moved peanutbutter over to where i was digging, between where teddybear, and fred, are buried, to be close to him while i could, not that it really mattered at that point, and jelly laid with her chin on peanutbutter's forehead and muzzle from behind him, and kept just touching his nose with her tongue, which just satrted me crying again.

i think jelly and yogi were taken inside by my brother because yogi wouldn't stop barking at them and jelly was overexcited/overstressed by yogi's constant barking and the new people and so she was getting in kirins face. after that kirin stayed where jelly had been, leaning up against me and peanutbutter with her head on his shoulder, mostly dozing there, not caring as i shoveled dirt to my left (they were behind and to the right of me) as dirt fell off the pile onto her butt and tail.

i don't recall most of the rest of the day and night after burying him and after my coworkers left, other than laying down in bed with the other three, yogi, kirin, and jelly, who stayd there for a while together, whcih is itself unusual. and i think i talked with my brother for a long while before going to bed but i don't remember anything we talked about.

after a long while i fitfully slept, until kirin woke me up barking that she really really had to go potty cuz i guess i'd closed the gate keeping them all inside probbly cuz jelly likes to dig and she was probably trying to find her brother, still being able to smell him under the dirt. i had a lot of nightmares about that sort of thing, including several where she was tring to get to him because he was still alive and trying to get out but couldn't. went back to bed again after that and after more hours of fitful "rest" was awakened as usual by yogi telling me he was hollow.

but i had troulbe even moving becausae i was afraid i would find another body, even though all three of them were right there with me, i still kept envisioning in those moments that id' get up and find each of them sprawled out dead in various places, even though obviously they weren't cuz they were all bouncing around trying to get me up for breakfast.

i haven't been outside yet today.

cant' really bring myself to get back up out of bed after laying down again. so i'm typing this. dunno what else i'm going to do yet. yogi is still next to me on the bed, with jelly flopping aorund as usual next to the bed, flailing legs to get attention, banging on me, etc., every so often. kirin sleeping on the floor at the end fo the bed after having been stepped on and whacked by jelly too many times (common occurence).

i feel hollow, and don't know what to do. i know it will get better, it always does. but i guess i'm still in shock.

 

[john61ct]

So sorry man. . .

 

[wturber]

I don't think I've ever felt grief as deeply as when we lost our Yorkie-poo, Sparkle, unexpectedly due to a coyote attack. I think it was the unexpectedness and helplessness that came with the loss that made it so bad. It still hurts to think back on it.

I'm so sorry that you lost your friend.

 

[amberwolf]

I don't think I've ever felt grief as deeply as when we lost our Yorkie-poo, Sparkle, unexpectedly due to a coyote attack. I think it was the unexpectedness and helplessness that came with the loss that made it so bad. It still hurts to think back on it.

I'm so sorry that you lost your friend.

thank you...im more sad for jelly that she lost her brother (and playtoy), tha ni am for myself. shes oftne just liek she always is, a queen me-me, all about her, but sometimes she goes lookng for him, and smells where he last lay, and lays there near his grave. at first she even tried to get in there to dig him up (and i have ahd uncountable nightmars aobut that for multiple raeasons), but shes stopped doing that.

but i stil feel lost and confused and angry and sad, and am having troulbe being motivated to get up and move and do anything at all, much lss the list of crap i typed up what turend out to be just hours beofre he died, becuas evyerthing i see reminds me of what just ahpepend, and i don't understand why it happened, though i am aware of a number of possiblities...a few of which i mightve been able to do something about if id thought of them or known what was really wrong, etc. and that spart of what really makes me feel the way id o.


he was the most dogliek of these four, actualy of most of the dogs ive had in hte last decades; most of my dogs are strange like me, odd personalities; his sister jelly is more liek schmoo than a dog, we call her our fuzzy alien. yogi is our eyore, and kirin...well, she's kirin. kinda have to meet her to understand her.

but peebs was a sweet giant puppy, liked to "sit" on the front of the couch, or "stand" on it, by laying on the ground but with his feet and/or butt on the front face of teh couch. or do his deer-carcass pose, like somebody tossed one in the bakc of a truck and left it there, limbs all akimbo, head twisted over here, body over there, etc. or sleeping on the couch with his head tucked under teh arm cushion to keep the world noises out. or playing, or a bunc of other things.

he was only just about two years old, barely not a puppy anymore, really just growing into his own definite personality. its not fair.

but life is never fair...i should know that by now after all the stuff i've seen and been thru.

 

[The fingers]

So sorry to hear of Peanutbutter passing. Our thoughts and prayers are for you AW.

 

[Sacker]

amberwolf, I came here because you mentioned your Trike while helping me in the other thread and what a great work. Your trike looks amazing and I enjoyed looking the evolution of the project, you're the man. Congratulations

but I read the last messages too... I'm very sorry for your loss. I send to you my condolences.

 

[amberwolf]

still not really feeling "better" about all this. today, mabye even yesterday (i keep losing track of time) i have several times seen jelly, in various situations both in the house and in the backyard, and thought "what is that dog doing here?", with only yogi and kirin being familiar. then after some period of time that varies, i think, "oh, its just jelly", sometiems also thinking "but where's peanutbutter?" but not always, and then quickly remembering the answer to that, when i do think that question.

the worst one was earlier when yogi was asleep snoring to the side of the bed with his head on the mattress next to my left hand, kirin was sleeping across my legs, and jelly was snuggled up to my right, sprawled halfway across my belly and chest, with my arm over her neck and shoulders. i was just laying there watching some astrophysics talk on the ri youtube channel, and jelly stretched a bit, and i looked down, and was actually repulsed by her and didn't recognize her, and started to push her away before i suddenly remembered, and pulled her close and cried.


it feels at the moment it happens as if i had no memory of her at all, as if neither she nor her brother had ever been here, when in fact they've been here for over a year and a quarter, and i've watched them grow from about 8 months old or so.

i've never ever felt like ths before, or had this experience.

it is extremely disturbing.


i've also had dozens of nightmares this past week where in reality i'm in the process of waking up in the state where muscles are unable to respond to commands yet, and for those seconds i have a flashnightmare that i am dead in one way or another, but don't know it, and keep trying to get people to stop putting dirt on me. sometimes i then realize i'm actually a dog, so of course they can't understand me even if i could move, and usually then i finish waking up for real, but still can't move yet, and a few times i've had a nested shell of these nightmares and when i'm relaly finally awake and *can* move, it's really diffciult to believe and i wonder for minutes what is going to happen next.

i can often hear someone yelling or screaiming while i'm having these nightmares, and bsed on the dogs' reactions i'ts probably me.

i haven't had them like this since a while after the fire..prbably been 4 or 5 years now, maybe more. i hpe they don't continue cuz it's next to impossible to go back to sleep again for hours after that.

tomorrow i go back to work. i'm glad that most of my work is by myself in the warehouse and that i should have the option of retreating there whenever i can't handle the way i'm feeling at the moment. we'll just have to see how it goes. i wish i could bring the three remaining dogs with me, but it's just not fair to them even if i could practically do it, since they'd all be basically leashed up back there the whole day, stuck in an unfamiliar place, with unfamiliar smells, sounds, etc., without me there for various amounts of time.

 

[Sacker]

Stay strong man! Maybe the return to work will be positive overall, the routine may help your head to catch up with everything, focus on other things/responsibilities and get over this situation bit by bit

 

[amberwolf]

i didn't disintegrate at work the last few days, at least, though i'm getting so little sleep i feel like a zombie while i'm there (feel like that at home too but i don't have to do much of antyihgn at home).

was so exhausted by yesterday i think i may have acutaly dozed off walking around now and then at work. i know i did so while at the grocery store afterward, but i had to pickup stuff, was out of nearly everything at this point. by the time i got home after shopping, i actually dozed off at the gate, with jelly going nuts waiting for me to come into the yard, it iddn't last long.

got inside and made dinner and fed the dogs and the grocriers put away, all kind of at the same time, only vaguley remember most of it, and then collapsed for sleep, mstly in bed, and after a fitful start on and off, and some browsing/etc of es between terrifying wakings from my "im dead" nightmares and starting to doze then waking to hear a dog whining as if thru heavy mufflings, but to find all the dogs in here and not making any noises like that...if've actually heard this over the last several days an dnights when no dogs were around, and when they were all right there and definitely not making any whinings, both when in the house and outside, and even a few times at work at odd moments, so i think it's a hallucination of my mind trying to hear peebs (though he never whined that i can recall) trying to get my attention to save him. don'tknow, just speculation....

anyway finally i got to sleep sleep, and while i had all sorts of nightmares i stayed asleep for a long enough time, rpobably several hours, that i felt partly recovered today when yogi camto wake me and let me know that he was wasting away to nothing again, and jelly to let me know she was very very bored and lonely. kirin as usual was just laying on my legs waiting for me to do something.

i still don't feel really rested...but at least im not likelyt o fall asleep randomly. still too wiped out to go do anything, need to keep resting more so i cna live thru the next workweek.


sometimes when i wake up and cant sleep i play with the musci creation stuff, have been wroking mostly on this one song "ghosts, rattle the bones", with the current version up here
https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=13974112





ia slo need to fix this keyboard; there are some keys that wont' push down nromally and some not at all, end up having to use the onscreen keyboard to click some characters which makes posting slow, plus im uncoordinated more than ususaly making my regualrd typing pretty bad too. probably fulll fo doghari and just needs cleaning otu. trackball failed a couple days ago, just stopped moving cursor at all in the middle of using it, had done this a few times before but mving the cable made it work again, so figure the wire is broken inside somewhere and ill have to replace the cord once im up to working on things like that again. have to sue the rackpad on the laptop till then; don't like them much vs trackballs.

 

[john61ct]

Try some walking, or swimming even better, work up to 30+ min sessions

but start out just meandering or floating bit of paddling, baby steps

key is building up a habitual routine

I know it's hard man we feel for you

but that's life, s'a bitch then we die, make it later rather than sooner

 

[amberwolf]

stuff is getting better, beginning to get sleep again (not enough, but some).

starting to work on projects again today; didn't have a lot of energy but enough to dig out my 3-jaw puller project and finish it; been using it half-done for the last several motors i've had to disassemble, but the last time (more than half a year ago) i needed to use it the screws being used as jaw-ends bent and couldn't pull the cover off the ex-stromer motor, so i couldn't finish the rewiring i needed to do with it, and so i couldn't build the wheel with it (since it'd have to be unlaced again to do the rewiring), and so i couldn't put it on the trike to replace the mxus 4503(?) on the right side.

anyway, today i cut the bent screws off, then bent the jaws to make new ends, and then welded the holes shut in the strips i'd made teh jaw extensions from, and welded reinforcing buttresses across the bends to keep the jaw ends from bending, since it's not the hardest metal. to help that hardness a bit, i also quenched the metal in cold water immediately after each weld, for what little that is worth (but it doesn't bend now, in use).

the old modification, shown here pushing the stator out of an mxus 450x motor:

and on the ex-stromer motor

the new modification:

 

[amberwolf]

next:

i needed a scale i could weigh heavy stuff reasonably accurately on, that i can actualy read, unlike the common bathroom scales ive used before. i found an electronic one that has a remote screen, pcr-
2126 i think, at goodwill for a few dollars, but it didn't read quite right.

but t has a calibration routine, but requires 25kg weights to do this, and i didn't have anything i knew for sure was that weight...but i have a stack of eig c020 cells in their casing modules. so i asked jimbob01 to weigh one cell (as a control for his measurement) and it's casing; his measurement of the cell itself is within a couple grams of the spec sheet, at 426g, and the cell case is 91g. the spec sheet says 428g, iirc.

so that works out to
48 cells & cases = 24816g
+ 2x cases = 24998g

96 cells & cases + 1 cell = 50058g
96 cells & cases + 4x cases = 49996g

close enough for me.

now it's measuring normally, and matches what i get on other scales, plus the same reading the postal scale printed on the label for the shipment posted below.

 

[amberwolf]

i needed the puller to open up the qs205 that shortcircuit911 had the axles shear off of, so i could see what kind of work i will need to do to weld on new axles to make it usable on the trike for experimentation, and to see what kind of quality, etc. that it was built with, design flaws, and so on.

it has statorade, or at least a version of ferrofluid, which smells like formaldehyde, on the magnets and laminations. trying my best not to touch it so it stays there, and am keeping the whole thing in a plastic crate with folding lid while it's disasembled until i can do the repairs. i haven't thought of a way to mask the stator off that won't touch the ferrofluid, though, other than keeping it installed in the rotor, and then sealing the windings and laminations all the way from the axle itself, out to the cover bolt holes, so none of the grinding dust and debris, or welding slag, gets into the motor.

i *might* be able to leave the covers on to do the work, but i'm not sure i can get deep enough into the axle shoulder with either the slot or the weld if i do it that way, *and* it's going to heat the bearings up a whole lot, probably enough to damage them. (at the least, to melt the plastic seal covers in them and damage or even burn off any lubrication they have).

if i could drill out the axle and then press in a pipe, i could then weld that in place, but it would *have* to have the covers off to do the welding, even if the drilling could be done with them on (and the drilling *should* take out the entire axle shoulder, everyting up to the inner face of the inner bearing races, which means debris is going to fall into the motor, so best not to have the covers on then either) not actually sure i can use the drill press accurately enough for that, so would proably have to use the lathe to hold the stator by the laminations, if the jaws will open that far, and then put the drill bit in the chuck for the far tip support (forgot what that's called); the part that doesnt' rotate, at the other end of the lathe's slide, and unbolt it and move it down to where the motor axle is to push it slowly into it to drill the axle out. (i don't even know if i can afford enough drill bits that are large enough and hard enough to drill thru an axle).


pics of it in the state it arrived in







it's a big heavy motor, i think 150mm dropout width, 29.38lbs (minus the few ounces for the missing axle ends and nuts). the stator is 16.8lbs, including the external wiring (which is probably a couple of pounds by itself). the rotor and covers are 12.58lbs, including the single speed freewheel it came to me with. just the rotor and brake-side cover are 11.02lbs, so presumably each cover is about a pound (since a freewheel is probably around half a pound).






the covers are made to clear the windings/etc by quite a lot, there's essentially no risk of touching the windings with them. they use quite large cover bolts, probably not going to have any strip out trying to tighten the cover down, etc., though they're still cheap bolts, not graded ones. the brake cover has a hexagonal steel insert in the aluminum cover casting. (the other covers i've seen used round ones; i don't know if anyone ever had one strip out of a cover, but the hex one shouldn't be able to do that). wire side bearing is much larger than the drive side, probably only so that they could use a standard bike freewheel on it...but there is room in the cover hole for a larger axle if the bearing id was bigger, without using a larger od bearing or modifying the cover. i may see about getting that larger id bearing, so that i can use a thicker axle overall, or even better to replace the axle with a pipe, so i'm not depending on flatted axles to transmit torque (but instead, large-surface-area clamps around the pipe itself), and ther'es plenty of room for any kind of wiring desired. the magnets are quite wide, as is the stator











the axle itself is pretty thick, but it still uses the same old trick of drilling diagonally thru it to pass the wires, which weakens it. they could have done what ultramotor did, and just left a flat / groove along the axle to pass the wires, but they didnt', they just went with what every other hubmotor maker seems to do (if they don't actually drill all the way thru from the axle end, and instead exit wiring it inbaord of the dropouts) they weakened it even further by drilling holes into that diagonal channel for injecting sealant in the cable channel, in two different places. but those aren't where it broke; it sheared at the stress riser of axle shoulder to threaded axle section, which was machined smaller diameter all the way around than the axle shoulders themselves.






the phase wires are thick, probably 10g, maybe 8g, with teflon insulation, and a cable jacket that's pretty tough (not just a rubber or heatshrink sleeve)...but it's not invulnerable, and was damaged when the axles sheared off. i have to take the wiring out of the axle anyway, in order to weld new ends on (or pretty much any other axle repair method), so i'll fix that at the same time.






i don't think i can unbolt the stator windings/laminations from the core supports using these, but they have antirotation bolts from it into the suports. i would like to find a safe way to undo the rivets holding the windings/laminations to that support bracket, so i could slip them off the support core, and then just work on the core safely by itself...but the rivets are so close to the windings i don't think there's any safe way to do this, more risk of that damging something than when doing the welding/etc on the axle.




some pics of the stator as a whole, and the laminations, and the redundant hall sensor sets:

 

[amberwolf]

don't know the actual temperature but it got cold enough long enough last night to freeze the dogs' pool
https://www.google.com/search?q=crabbie+sandbox&tbm=isch
solid down about a finger's thickness (more than a 1/4", less than 1/2"?).

rest is over in teh trike thread.

after breakfast kirin went to get a drink from it and bonked her nose, and looked confuzzled. i banged a big stick end-on into the ice, and it bounced off, had to hit it a lot harder to break it. and then kirin was happy...

yogi wanted to take the ice out of there and chew on it but couldn't grab hold of it without getting his face wet, so he gave up till i gave him a plate-sized piece, and then he was very happy and went off somewhere to eat it while i got ready to leave for work.

jelly didn't care and just ran around the yard in assorted parabola-ish paths at slightly subluminal speeds.

i layered up and went to work, ride was very cold even at half past nine in the morning, at 20mph. (the motor started out at 5c...even with that 100w lamp under the trike a couple feet away from it, probalby cuz of the wind last night, since the shed isn't sealed by any means, just partly insulated along roof (inside and out) and walls (inside). )

anyway, enough rambling....brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

 

[amberwolf]

a delayed grocery trip a couple days ago ended up as 360lbs of stuff in the back of the trike, in the cargo area (well, 30lbs of it was on top of the upper deck).

I think that's the heaviest load i've carried on the trike itself, and is actually heavier than the unloaded trike.

it rode fine, if rather sluggish accelerating (between the cold making the battery sag more, and the heavy load, and the fairly severe squish of the rear tires, as they're really only rated for around 240lbs of weight each).



lots of rambling below...kinda just thinking out loud. but advice is welcome (even if I don't use any of it :lol: )




i've been considering a change of drivetrain, partly thanks to a small bonus at work (which never happens...but, it did, this once). if other stuff also works out, i could potentially afford some stuff.

there are several possible paths for the trike's future power method. the present one is sometimes problematic, because of the various design problems with typical hubmotor axles, primarily. wheel strength and difficulty of swapping one out if necessary is another, and weight is yet another. (not that even 30lbs for like a qs203 or something heavier than what i have is much of a dent in the trike weigth--is only around a tenth of the total, at a guesstimate.)

the most likely thing is i'll just continue with hubmotors, since they're easy and relatively reliable, less parts to fail, etc. (mostly just axles). if i do, i should work on figuring out how to implement the pipe-axle / clamp axle design i posted about some months ago; it requires quite a lot of motor modification, and rebuilding the trike frame to accommodate the clamps, replacing the dropouts entirely with something that's a lot more like the front axle clamps of a motorcycle fork.

with hubmotors, i need more torque (so more power) to get quicker takeoffs, especially with loads like the above--while rare, i still need to be able to clear bad drivers in traffic, which while also rare, do happen, and at some point the two things will happen at the same time. without the power to get out of the way, if braking is not an option because of the situation, something bad is likely to happen. so...need bigger controllers. also need better control of the power.

the 4835 grinfineons are alright, for generic sinewave controllers. they don't really do anything for me other than give me quieter motor operation, and theoretically proportional regen...but only after i make a system that switches the throttle off during braking, and switches over to an analog brake lever signal (so that the brake lever controls braking, not the thorttle, which is confusing and will cause a crash trying to operate at some point). right now the regen is set to on/off at max...and even at that is not enough for real braking. the controllers are not powerful enough for either startup or braking. i could swap out for about $200 to the next up grinfineons, the 7240s. but those are unlikely to be powerful enough either, at least for braking. if i bring up the voltage from 52v to 72v, i could probably get the startup power i'm after, but the braking is unlikely to change, unless i'm misunderstanding how the grinfineons work.


so, instead, i could go lebowski, since kiwifiat sells the smd brain boards (minus cpu cost) for $65 each, and apparently ev inverters (leaf, volt, etc) that can easily be driven by this are available used for $100-$200, and there are two (or more) powerstages, so one inverter and two brains will drive two motors. a third brain could even make it three wheel drive with at least one inverter that has three powerstages (one of which is small, but would work for the front wheel). would have to wire the brain to the powerstages, then program the brains to work with them and the motors....

(i also have two thru-hole brain pcbs, and have collected some of the parts for those, but i'd still need to buy a couple hundred dollars worth of parts, not including the brain chips, and then build and test and troubleshoot them, and *then* wire them up to powerstages, program them, and get them working. cost is probably about the same as the smd prebuilt ones, but the time investment is much much larger, so is a long-term (months, years) project at this point)

or i could go with incememed's sfoc5 (i have one here i'm already testing...), if it works out with the stuff presetnly going on.


i could also go with another generic controller that's just much more powerful...but i'm kinda trying to get more programmability, and/or features not always found in the same controller:

--wheel-skidding-strong propoertional regen
--phase-current-control throttle
--sinewave
--sensorless but only if it has perfect startup from a stop even uphill with very high mass / load, otherwise sensored.
--easy setup and good user interface on any programming software, able to read back the settings in teh controller rather than just sending new ones.



i've also considered a different kind of drivetrain, either for sb cruiser or for a completely new trike based on the present one, with improvements.

i could use the m-drive over in the for sale section, for instance. that particular type would require modifying the entire cargo/seatbox, and the frame in front of it. or a different design on a new trike. it'd also need a differential, and new wheels. because i would like to use larger wheels (for a better ride), a new trike is a better option than rebuilding the whole rear end of this one. there will have to be a chain drive from the ends of the diff axle to the wheels, because their axles will need to be above the deck by several inches.

or running the hubmotors out of the wheels, either above them or behind them, driving them via chains like i owuld above, but with no diff. it doesn't save any weight, but it is less complicated, and it gets me "normal" wheels, which should be stronger...and i can gear the motors to run optimaly for larger wheels, or the ones already on there.



with any of the drivetrains, i'd also be adding the avid bb7 disc brakes i bought a few months ago to each rear wheel; this requires modifying the fender frames and dropouts.


none of this is going to happen really fast, anyway..

 

[amberwolf]

almost a week ago, i had my first flat in a while, from what was probably a nail or metal rod. wasn't in the tire so don't know, but it was a good 3-4mm hole in the tube. coudln't find the hole in the tire itself, it's thick enough it probably closed back up after the thing fell out.

the double old-tube layered over the actual mc tube didn't help in this case, partly because it came in from the sidewall just above or at the edge of the tread, based on where the hole in the tube was. but given the size of the hole, it was also probably long enough to make it thru the whole tire and even hit the inside of the rim, so wouldn't have been stopped by those layered tubes anyway.


there *were* a whole bunch of thorns i pulled out of the tire while i had it apart, that didn't reach the actual tube because of the double old-tube layers, though.


since i was on my way to work, and only around a quarter mile away, i ended up having to ride on the flat tire the rest of the way--i don't use slime in the tires because it makes patching harder, and doesn't usually stop the kind of flats i do still get (like this one). but i do carry a small bottle for the times i can't stop and patch the tire, just in case it might actually work (doesnt' usually). i tried it this time, and to no surprise, it didnt' work. i could start to air up the tire, but about 10psi in, it just started to leak hissily and burbily, and green gunk seeped around some of the spoke nipples at the "bottom" of the wheel. tried leaving it below 10psi, but as soon as the tire rolled past a certain point (where the hole was probably), it'd do the same thing anyway.

i actually thought it was probably the valve stem, as that's the most common failure i've ever had on tubes, but so far never on these mc tubes, just bicycle ones regardless of brand or type or size. if it was the valve, there'd be no way to fix it, and i'd've wasted an hour on the roadside and been late to work for no reason. so rather than be late to work i just rode in on the flat.



after work but before leaving, i pulled the wheel off and foudn the hole, etc., and a coworker gave me a ride to my house and back to get the spare tube that i wasn't carrying on the trike for some reason, as i didn't want to try patching the hole and have it fail due to the slime (no good way to clean it thoroughly while at work, or time to let stuff dry out as long as it really should). if i hadn't tried the slime first i'd've just patched it and it'd probably have been fine...which is why i don't run the slime in there in the first place. :/

once i got home i cleaned and patched the old tube, and it'll probably be fine as a spare now (not tested yet).


while i had the wheel off, i did notice taht the tread area is pretty thin now, so it's probably about time for new tires again. seems not long since the last ones, but i looked up my purchase history, and it's been about two years, and about four since the first pair. so i guess these shinko sr-714's last me about two years on the trike. not bad, for $22 tires, given that bicycle tires mroe than twice that cost last much less time, give much less grip, and much less puncture / flat resistance.


before i order new tires...these should last another month (probably several), so i will first work on the new wheel wells /fender frames / etc for the trike, to allow me to use larger tires, and get the 3" version instead of the 2.25" version. (the new wheel wells/frames will also let me add the disc brakes in the back, and better axle mounting hardware, too).

hopefully that will all happen last week of april on my next time off from work. (but i also thought it would happen the last two times, last month and first week of this year, until other things got in the way of that)

 

[amberwolf]

got a few things done today and yesterday; pics and details below the lists and notes:

yesterday:
-- fixed a phase connector on the rightside motor
-- called it quits trying to test the sfoc5 controller (after wasting too many hours to get much else done)
-- got the shifter and cable installed for the sachs igh

today:
--replaced the old turn signals in front
--added an led bar over the kia headlight
--moved the grin led headlight and disconnected it for now
--removed the failed left throttle after impossible repair attempt
--replaced the left brake-light-only lever with system to handle ebrake, brake light, and proportional regen
--removed the temporary rigged brake wire/tape system from the right brake lever (front disc)
--repaired the rear top-bar red led strip
--removed the dead white led strip under the left handlebar


notes:
-- am investigating (almost ready to buy stuff) using two lebowski brains from kiwifiat to run two honda ima inverters, to replace the rear wheel controllers. it should cost around $150-ish per controller, $200 max, and a few hours of work hooking them together, running thru their setup, and documenting the process in a thread here so anyone else can do this, too. disadvantages, they use igbts, so more lossy than fets at my 14s voltages, and rather large. advantages are the control options and whatnot are much better with the lebowski brains, and the honda ima's are reliable powerstages. (and cheap, as low as $50 or less shipped, each). there's some discussion of this over in the main lebowski chip thread:
https://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=36602&hilit=lebowski&start=1775#p1524016
with other options like volt or ampera or prius inverters (all of which are either too expensive or too physically large for me, or require too high a voltage, despite their other advantages over the honda ima).


--i'd love to keep using the 30a grinfineons, but they simply cannot produce enough regen current. i tried to ask grin tech if the next size up would produce enough more braking with my system details, compared to the lower power version, but coudln't get any answer at all for quite a long time, then was just told to look at the documents on the website. :/ that wasn't very helpful, and finalized my decision (that i'd been considering but was hopeful that being grin tech i'd get better help, and at least responses of some kind to my questions, much quicker than i finally did) to go ahead and send both of them back (one has to be repaired anyway, due to a wiring fault in one of their brake connectors (can't remember which one) that swaps the 5v and signal lines, iirc, which meant that becuase i had paralleled the brake connectors (a totally normal thing to do), every time i pulled the brake lever it was shorting the 5v for this controller to ground and eventually that killed the 7805, and possibly other stuff). the controller that still works works fine, but is insufficient braking to even slow me quickly, much less stop me (and of course the other one never gave any braking at all, because it was being completely disabled by having it's brainpower shorted out everytime i braked, but i had no idea this was happening until it died). it'll cost me shipping plus 15% of purchase price, but that's my problem.



details of yesterday:
last thing first so you can see some pics





it was relatively simple; teh hard part was getting teh old cable out of the shifter and chainpuller. after taht the hard part was getting the cable and sheath just the right length to use the adjuster i built into the system for the old igh to let me tension it enough for the shifter to work. swapping the old sturmey-archer shifter for the sachs shifter was kind of a pain, because i had to undo wiring tiedowns and such to get the one off and the new on. but it works, so now i cna use the two lower gears. if i leave it in the middle gear, it's *almost* easy to startup from a complete stop without using throttle to get going, with the pas engaging the motors shortly after i start moving the cranks...but not *quite* easy enough for my joints yet. it's really easy in the lowest gear...but then i'm literally jsut spinning loose on the pedals after the first few revolutions. the shifter is still not in the best position for accessibility, but there's not really a good place on the bars for it (that might be different now, today, see the next post).



next...i lost the melted phase connector parts after removing them, so didn't get a pic, but the contacts inside the pp45 andersons on the yellow phase of the rightside motor had somehow gotten misaligned during tiedown of cabling, so they had high resistance, and have been slowly failing since the tire repair in the previous post. easy enough to fix, just cut off the melted andersons, and replaced them with spares, then ensured the contacts were aligned and floating in the housings when tying down the wiring (which i failed to do after teh tire repair).

i had thought when it first started that it was a mechanical problem with the motor mounting, or another broken axle, but couldn't find anything. after a while it seemed like a controller problem...and when i came home from work tuesday night, it was really bad, intermittently acted like a fet failure sometimes (but not always), dragging the right side as if it were braking, etc.; seemed like it might be a motor problem with an intermittent phase wire short to stator or to axle, etc. just at the moment i pulled into the backyard and got the gate closed, it really really began dragging, but only under power, not just handpushing it when not riding. checked it out the next morning (wed) and found the contact problem.


since i already had the trike on it's side, and was dealing with controller/motor stuff, next up was retrying the sfoc5. i had been trying to get it to work for the last several weeks, off and on when time permitted, but after having updated it's firmware successfully sometime early this year (while trying to work past peanutbutter's sudden death), it would no longer communicate with the outside world at all, not even status leds. i tried everything, even non-related steps, including everything i'd done before with it as noted in the sfoc5 thread, but it just did nothing. it did have 12v, and 5v when switched on at the statusled panel, but since i coudln't put my system settings into it, i coudln't even do a spin test of the motor (because the default settings for it are always more than twice the battery voltage that my system uses, and you can't do *anything* with it outside of connecting to a computer if the lvc has been reached). i redid all these things again yesterday, but eventually just gave up on it--something is wrong inside, despite it reporting successful firmware flash. either the flash really didnt' work right, or there's a bug in the new firmware that prevents me from doing anything else (it wont' even talk to the firmware updater). either way....nothing i can do. so it's got to go back to incememed. since i have been unable to do much testing on it, between my own life-delays, and lack of responses from incememed when trying to ask questions about functions, updates, tests, etc., i think it's better if i just don't continue testing it at this point. maybe in the future someday when it's "better suited" for a trike like mine, and when it has a usable user interface (because the one it has now is...convoluted, at best). but probably not, because i'll have the lebowski/honda system working before then, and i don't imagine i'll need anything else at that point.




the rest of the stuff, for today, is in the next post: