S.B. Cruiser: A Practical Heavy Cargo Trike, Dog Hauler, and Daily Commuter

I can't believe it's been five years since I posted to this blog, but I've been active on the Endless Sphere Electric Vehicle forums all that time, busy posting and helping out, then I had a housefire in which all four of the dogs were killed, and after all that I guess I let the blog slip to the wayside.

First, here's the thread about the trike over there on ES.

 Originally it was built to replace Delta Tripper

because that wasn't much of a cargo trike (though I hauled a lot with it), and it was too tippy with insufficient power to get out of it's own way with any kind of a load on it.  Was also built to carry the dogs (especially Tiny) directly on it, rather than on a trailer behind it, which is a lot more convenient and safer.


It was also built to be a daily commuter, to replace CrazyBike2 

for days where I didn't feel well enough to balance the bike, or needed to be able to haul more stuff than usual, without using a trailer:

SB Cruiser is even more "scratch built" than any other bicycle project so far, other than the Mk III and Mk IV trailers

using just the Schwinn trike-kit's axle off Delta Tripper (along with some of the BMX frame already welded to it), and the headtube and a bit of top and downtube off an old Murray, and a bunch of square tubing mostly salvaged from old retail store fixtures and signage.  Plus a regular bike fork, wheels, pedal/cranks, chain....

The first night it looked like this, and you can see what Yogi and Tiny thought of it (and us):

It's more or less based off of the ReBike; that's where we started with wheelbase, steering geometry, etc

though it quickly departed in all the specifics.



It evolved quite a bit over the next couple of years, going from a single front hubmotor, with just pedal power on the left rear wheel, to dual rear hubmotors (same pedal power).

 Added lighting, evolved rest of electrical system, went from strapped-on battery packs to built into the body of teh trike, added cargobox area under the seat rather than just little bolted on toolbox and a suitcase on the rear rack.   Salvaged wood from old signs turned into decking, etc.

Went from going thru BMX bicycle tires like water (destroyed mostly from the heavy trike plus heavy loads and road debris, plus wear by the way the trike can slip around corners (rather than tipping)), to moped tires that have lasted since install.

 

Presently it looks about like this

where I had strapped in some dogfood bags to the cargo area.  It doesnt' have the seat back cushion now, and it has dual rim brakes on the front, clamped onto the fork.






It's present configuration list is:

Motors are 2WD.  front is still just a regular bike wheel, with dual rim brakes. Sunlite Rhino rim, 26", CST City tire with thickest Sunlite tube (actually made by CST, IIRC), 15g spokes off an old wheel.

Left rear is pedal powered as well as motor; pedals run a triple with hand-shifted chain (no derailer) if necessary, to an old Shimano333 3speed IGH (when it breaks I'll stick an old SA 3speed in there instead), with an output sprocket (that used to be part of an old multispeed freewheel) welded to the righthand spoke flange of the IGH (bolting it on just sheared the bolts). IGH shifter is below the tiller on the frame.  It's geared down so far that with the granny ring on the cranks and low gear on IGH it's about 1MPH or so at a comfortable cadence, but I can keep it moving by myself without as much joint pain; don't have to stop every few dozen feet.   Chain is presently an amalgam of various BMX chains, mostly old and worn, with one length of new chain in the loop from the IGH output to the transfer axle, and the loop from transfer axle to the single speed freewheel on the left motor hub. I think all the chain on the cranks to IGH loop is old.

Can't pedal decent hills (including the canal path underpasses) with it; even if the chain/etc survived the torque I wouldn't.  It's so heavy that to do that I'd probably have to have motorcycle chain and sprockets, and a dual IGH to spread the load, or just use sprockets.  I'd also probably want a ratcheting system I could engage on the wheels so it cant' roll backwards and I could do stop/start pedalling--crank a moment, rest while ratchets hold it in place, etc.   But the pedals are honestly just emergency backups in case all the motor/battery stuff fails, given the state of my joints and strength.


Left rear motor is a used (repaired) MXUS 3K 45H 3t hubmotor run by a generic 12FET 30A controller. (sometimes gets as high as 35A peaks, IIRC).

Right rear is a well-used front Crystalyte X5304 run by basically the same controller in a different shell with slightly different factory behaviors.

Need better controllers; still collecting parts for a pair of Lebowski controllers to better run these things, to give me the startup torque I need (especially with heavy loads) to be able to get up to speed (20MPH) as quickly as possible ( less than2 seconds would be great) so I can get out of the way of traffic at the start of a green light when I'm stuck in the front of the line at an intersection.


Both rears are 20" wide ex-Zero rim, 13/14 butted radial spokes, with Shinko moped tires and tubes.  I forget exactly which model, SR241 or something? 2.5".

Only rear braking is electric; plain regen on the left and EABS active braking on the right.

All powered from a 14s2p 40Ah EIG NMC pack from used cells; this is charged either from the Cycle Satiator or a pair of Meanwell HLG-600 LED PSUs (depedning on how fast I want/need to charge; the satiator's max is less than 8A, the HLGs is 24A).

Monitored by a Cycle Analyst v2.3 with standalone shunt, typical cruising power at 18-20MPh seems to be around 900W on "flat" terrain; there's always some breeze or wind so it's hard to say exactly; it varies a couple hundred watts as I watch due to terrain and wind.

I'd guess present weight is 300-350lbs unloaded.  Can easily carry at least that much cargo, plus my 180lbs, plus pull a trailer with at least a couple hundred pounds on it or more.    Typically not used anywhere near that capacity; mostly just me.  Grocery trips around 50-120lbs of stuff.  Dog food runs 100-200lbs+.    Dog runs about 120-270lbs at present, plus trailer weight of 30-ish lbs.

Trailer uses an automotive 1-7/8" ball hitch; I have two trailers presently setup to work with it.  One is narrow enough to fit between path bollards (as is the trike, barely), the other is much wider.  See the Flatbed Kennel Trailer threads linked earlier in this post, Mk III and Mk IV, for info on those.

CrazyBike2 uses the same size hitch ball to pull the trailers if needed (it doesn't have nearly the carrying capacity of the trike, so it needs them more often than the trike would).

Separate 4s 20Ah EIG pack runs a lighting system that includes a car headlight (presently from a KIA something-or-other, found in the parking lot as I was headed home one night), used to actually see on the roads, since the cars' headlights are usually so bright in opposing traffic that it takes a very bright light to be able to see the road surface between me and them as they approach, especially on undivided/unstriped side streets.  

Grin Tech LED headlight, mostly just a "see me" light, and for use on well-lit bike paths where I don't need a car headlight or it would be unhelpful. 

MC incandescent turn signals either side of the headlight.

Aquarium LED modules glued to the back of old pedal reflectors mounted to the rightside mirror (used to be also on the left, but now the leftside is a Suzuki MC mirror with integrated incandescent turn signal; wish I had a second one for the right, but there was only one at goodwill).

Downlighting strip of LEDs on the front/bottom of the downtube, to light up the whole road area around the front of the trike, to make it look larger to other traffic on the road, especially that coming from behind or to the side. 



Aquarium LED light for the same purpose (and to light up the cargo area/back of trike) mounted on the wire rack over the cargo deck.  A second one is mounted inside the dog crate to light it up inside, whenever it's on the trike (goes in the cargo deck under the rack, blocking the other light).

Back of rack has aquarium LED lights replacing the incandescents in a couple of old Honda moped/MC taillights, in each there's two strips for tail plus a third for brake; eventually I'll add two more strips in each for brake for better daylight visibility of braking lights.  

Between those units is a "third brakelight" module (incandescent) from some car; don't remember what kind, from a junkyard years back, IIRC.

Incandescent MC turn signals on the rear corners of the rack. 

The whole lighting module is actually a bar bolted to the rack, so it can be removed from teh rack and bolted to the edge of the cargo deck instead, so that for tall cargo that won't fit under the rack, the rack can be removed entirely (presently this would also remove the canopy; eventually I'll fix that).  Mostly I use a trailer for tall cargo instead, but sometimes I might not want to, so....

For cargo that would obstruct or otherwise be problematic with the lighting bar in either of those positions, it can be removed and tied to the cargo itself with the cargo straps that secure the cargo to the trailer, or to the back of the canopy, etc.


The trailers have a lighting bar of their own, with  MC LED tailight/brake light in the center, and MC turn signals with aquarium LED lights in place of their incandescents.  The bar gets moved from one trailer to the other as needed, since I don't have enough lighting for each to have their own.    For cargo that would obstruct or otherwise be problematic with the lighting bar, it can be removed and tied to the cargo itself with the cargo straps that secure the cargo to the trailer.

CrazyBike2 Front Hub Modified To Rear Hub with Clamping Dropouts

Last month I changed my 9C front hub into a rear hub, process posted here:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=551146#p551146
and resulting in finally having front disc brakes plus rear regen brakes, with 26" rear and 24" front.   

One primary reason for the changeover was to get those disc brakes, and another was to be able to use a better suspension fork, without ending up with the death wobble because of the geometry change.

This also let me get much more traction with no wheelspin, and far less tire wear, since there is now enough weight on the motor wheel to keep traction as I startup from a stop, even on poor road surfaces, so far.  Sand and gravel can still wheelspin a bit sometimes, but I am rarely on anything but asphalt.

Then I swapped to 26" front so I could *also* have front rim brakes, as even the disc is not sufficient to be able to lockup the wheel by itself.  While I don't ever want to lock it up, it's good to ahve that much braking power available, so I can stop in less than a  few bike lengths. ;-)  

I also modified the seat, after having planned to do so for nearly a couple years.  Now it is bent forward at the midpoint in back, which makes it more comfortable and lets me relax in it better while riding. 

Overall it is a much better ride than previously.

Powerchair Motors for Bikes...Brushless this time

I used to run CrazyBike2 on brushed powerchair motors with right angle reduction gearboxes, and that was ok, with the only real problem being the repeated chain and sprocket mangling from the incredible torque I could get out of them, and misalignment problems I had due to frame twisting (because of said torque).

Well, now I've got a *brushless* powerchair motor, direct drive rather than gear reduced, to try out.  This thread on Endless Sphere documents my exploration, modification, and testing of that motor, and will eventually show it's first tests on CrazyBike2, and it's later testing on the bike it's intended to be one of the various experimental power sources for. 

That bike is not yet named, and isn't finished yet due primarily to not having a reliably-working welder anymore, and secondarily from not having enough time to do everything yet.  There's a thread on it's evolution over on Endless Sphere, showing it's current progress.   The main thing I needed from this frame was stiffness, to prevent the flexing and twisting issues I had with CrazyBike2 with chain-drive motor power, whcih I still have issues with when carrying heavy cargo.  It'll use a mid-mounted NuVinci 171 developer's kit with autoshifting for a "transmission", to help keep power usage down (although it might not actually make it any more efficient due to the losses the NuVinci itself incurs internally). 

Also, to start it out from beginning as a full-suspension, since CrazyBike2 has broken lots of rear wheels while loaded down because of unavoidable bumps, potholes, and road debris, which shouldnt' cause such problems on a suspended wheel.  It will also use a motorcycle (Suzuki dirtbike, acually) rear wheel, which will take a lot more abuse than the bicycle wheels I have used so far.  I just need a good narrow "slick" tire for it, as the wide knobby it has now isn't really suitable for my purposes.

That's my update for now, hopefully I can keep coming back and adding info to the blog more frequently--but if you are a reader of it, and need more, I tend to post on at least one of my project threads on Endless Sphere ebike forums every day, and sometimes on several of them. 

Endless Sphere Forums Now Safe and Independent

Thanks to many people, including Justin of Grin Technologies at http://ebikes.ca for putting up the necessary money and negotiation time, the Endless Sphere forums are now safe from the takeover (see previous post) and are now independent, and will become hopefully self-sufficient in the coming months.

Justin's Summary Letter thread


If you look me up as Amberwolf on there, you'll see where my various builds I started here on this blog have gone, how they have progressed, and the new things I've started:

Day Glo Avenger

CrazyBike2

CrazyBike2's Replacement

My new trailer from a dog kennel and wheelchair parts

Hostile Takeover at Endless Sphere Ebike/EV Forums

It is still in the process of going on, so there is still a chance to save the best Ebike/EV forum on the planet.

If you're already a member there, come by and read and then voice your opinion in this thread:

Hostile Takeover at Endless Sphere

If you're not a member yet, come on by, read lots of stuff for a while (it'll take a few weeks or months to really grasp how big this site's member contributions really are, and how helpful the members can be).

Then see if you think it'd be best left as it is, or run as a for-profit ad-based site instead of the self-evolving community of helpful people and information resource that it is right now.

What's the hullabaloo about? Well, members have created the content and community there over several years by helping each other out, by publishing their ideas and spending their precious time detailing their work and assisting the work of others. The new owner wants to put ads on there, that among other things would essentially turn all that work into ad-bait (rather like the content of this blog is ad-bait for Google's Adsense and whatnot, unfortunately).

We don't agree with that. At all.

I've started using that logo on my posts, signature, etc., to represent the idea that what we do is not for that purpose--it's freely given but not to earn money from, even indirectly.

Certainly not for all the sleazy vendors that will end up with ads plastered all over the forum, who will get traffic to their sites and purchases made by people that were lured to them by our hard work and content and helpfulness, when none of what we did was for that purpose.


It's not about the money--it's about the idea.



If you look me up as Amberwolf on there, you'll see where my various builds I started here on this blog have gone, how they have progressed, and the new things I've started:

Day Glo Avenger

CrazyBike2

CrazyBike2's Replacement

My new trailer from a dog kennel and wheelchair parts

Xtracycle-style Sierra?

I don't know if it's possible to do this with an actual Xtracycle due to it's frame construction, but I am pondering an Xtracycle-like addon (that will do this) to that Schwinn Sierra I fixed up recently, perhaps with a motor assist, perhaps not.

Specifically so that I am not dealing with a longer shiftline and the problems reported with it where shifting can be finicky in one gear or another, I intend to put a regular rear hub with the derailer still on the Schwinn's dropouts, so the original chainline stays as it is, as does the shifter cable. Then there will be a separate sprocket from that hub to the rear wheel, which will be re-laced to a no-dish single-speed wheel to make it stronger for cargo use. (actually I will probably just take a front wheel with a sprocket bolted to it, for simplicity of testing out the idea).

I will probably build the addon frame around an existing rear triangle off of some other bike. I am tempted to use the one off the white Huffy, simply because it is called a "Nevada", which would make this bike a "Sierra-Nevada". ;-)

But that is a silly reason to pick a frame, so I will more likely start with one of the old chromoly tenspeeds I have, whose frames are way too tall for me to use for myself normally. I'd remove the entire rear triangle from the donor frame, but not including it's BB. I would cut down the seatpost from the bottom end, leaving that extra on the BB itself. Then reweld the seatpost and chainstays to a new crosstube from something else. This would all be welded to a subframe that can then bolt to the Schwinn Sierra's rear frame and keep the whole rear end stiff. It would mount in such a way as to leave a clear chain path between the Sierra's rear dropouts and the new rear wheel position, and would be able to slide back and forth for chain tension adjustment and lock in place to hold it once set.

I would like to make some bottom/side rails that let me rest cargo on them (like some Xtracycles do) that are removable, so I do not have to carry them for typical rides, but instead only when I will carry more than normal stuff with me.

Then a top deck to cover the entire space from over the rear wheel to the back of the seat.

I am also considering a more recumbent seat design that would fit down into the gap that could exist between the tire of the new rear triangle and the Sierra's seatpost/seatstays. Then I would move the steering handlebars back to fit in a bushing in the seatpost, and a linkage for remote steering to a stub-bar up in the original stem. This is a very similar arrangement to Justin's (of http://ebike.ca) cross-Canada bike, and inspired by it.

The problem with such a design is that it reduces the cargo I could carry on it, so I would (as Justin did) likely leave the option of pulling off the remote steering and inserting the original seat and post, and riding it just like that. The 'bent seat would stay, as it would make a nice carrier for some cargo. Well, unless the cargo was too large and needed to fit across the full length of the area behind the seatpost.

Just some thoughts for another possible cargo bike, most likely quite short range in nature.

Let's Build It Already!

Upon pondering some transmission thoughts, I think that at least for now I will setup a system to switch the motors from series to parallel depending on A) speed and B) steering. It is far easier to do this than to mechanically deal with huge reductions and shiftable drivetrains (other than an internally geared hub).

So series wired for startups and slower speeds. Once past a certain speed, will switch automatically to parallel, and not drop back to series until a couple MPH slower than that setpoint. The hysteresis will prevent the switching system from chattering and blowing stuff up. :)

I will need to learn to drop the throttle when the shift occurs, so I don't end up with sudden bursts of speed. I will probably put a light and maybe a beeper on there to alert me to an imminent shift, maybe 1/2 second before it happens, which should be enough to react to until I get a feel for it.

Since the main reason I wanted series motors was so that I could get an electronic differential for turns, it means that turning would need to be done at slower speeds in order to get that differential. For gradual curves it may not matter; have to test that. For sharper turns, such as from a N-S road onto an E-W one, I will probably need that differential.



Hmm....maybe a much better idea would be to build up the second 2QD and tweak them both to run identically when matched with their own motors, then use separate controllers with one throttle, compensated for an electronic differential by having a steering sensor that changes the proportions of left vs right motor throttle. It'd be more electrically complex, but also simpler in a number of other ways. It also leaves me with redundant controllers as well as motors and drivetrains, which is a nice feature.

I think I already have all the parts for a second one, including another metal enclosure (from an old external harddisk) similar to the Jensen inverter case I am installing the first one into.

This also means I can leave the Curtis on the CrazyBike2's motor, to which it is more suited (given that motor's short-term power capability).



I could not sleep last night (again, it's a common problem) so in between dozing just long enough to know I dozed as my head hit the keyboard, I looked up tilt-steering (leaning) trikes, all over the web.

I found a little information here on ES, which eventually got me links to links to links to a place called Jetrike, an open-source recumbent bike / trike project. The creator of it has plans and construction notes for a bike and a couple of tested trikes there, and some of the stuff looks very interesting. The most interesting part is that he has run simulations for the designs to see what would "really happen" before actually building anything. And has data tables and stuff for a few critical types of dimensions and how to work them out for a particular design. The trikes are deltas, but he started on a tadpole according to his pages there. I'd be super-interested in seeing what he comes up with.

However, the link to that project is broken, and there are no updates to the site that I could find since late-ish 2007. There is also a discussion link, but skimming thru it's archives I don't see any indication that he has proceeded with that project at all, which is very disappointing, as he did good work on the previous versions, and has hard data on why some things should or shouldn't be done, and how they might be improved to fix problems reported with various ways of building trikes (including fixes for rear-steering trikes, which are notoriously unstable and potentially very dangerous, due to flaws in layout of the tested versions, apparently).

Anyhow, I have many more ideas on a tilting trike, but I am still not confident at all that I could design something around that concept and make it work safely and reliably. Not with the stuff I just happen to have laying around, anyway.

There are others around as well, and many images and a few clear videos of some in action. I may be able to learn enough to actually design one of my own, though first I need to learn enough about the math involved to grasp the solutions in my head so I can come up with stuff without having to actually sit down and do all that math (at which I really suck).


I think I need to just build the thing first and get experience with a trike, then start working out version two that will have more features on it, probably including tilting.

I might even go ahead and build a pedal-only trike first, just so I can get that part working, and get a feel for ergonomics of the design based around my riding, and THEN work out a replacement for the front wheels/forks that lets me use the motors on there. I've been putting off this trike thing for so long because I didn't have this or that or a way to figure such and such out, etc., and I am really wanting to just get it STARTED!

More Trike Thoughts

spinningmagnets on ES is looking out for internally-geared hubs, which would greatly simplify the switching-gears on the front wheels, and ought to be able to take the nominally 300-350W per wheel I would be putting thru them, as long as I set it up to cut power during shifting.

So I will probably build the front setups simply using regular rear hubs on both front wheels, and any multi-gear drivetrain I come up with for temporary use will be easily removable. I still need a ratio change of around 1:5 to get the 20MPH top speed, from the gearbox output that's intended to directly drive wheels half the size of the ones I'm using for 8MPH.

I have been pondering a way to swap the gears in the gearboxes so that they output closer to what I want to start with. I cannot remember exactly what ratios they are inside for which parts, but basically the main reduction is from the motor shaft's helical gear to the first right-angle gear in the box. Then that has another gear on the same shaft that meshes with the output gear, which is on a lever-type clutch to disengage the gearbox for manually pushing the wheelchairs these came from. I'm pretty sure that the last two gears are different sizes, with the larger of the two on the output shaft.

If the shaft diameters are the same between the output shaft and the first shaft, I can swap the gears so the larger one is on the first shaft, which will give me some amount of anti-reduction (gain?) within the gearbox itself. If they're not the same ID but I have or can make a collar adapter for the difference, I can still use the gears swapped; just have to lathe out the smaller one to fit.

Then I have just that much less anti-reduction to do from the gearbox to the wheels. If the gears are the same OD/teeth or the larger is already on the first shaft, I'll have to do all the work outside the gearbox.


I've also considered taking the motors off the gearboxes and affixing a timing-type pulley directly to the motor shaft but this would require creating a drive-end plate for the motor that supported the shaft, as right now that bearing is part of the gearbox. This is not that trivial a matter to do, for me.

I would then need a much larger pulley on the wheel itself. I can't recall offhand the motor RPM, but somewhere in the 3000 range, I think. That would be a ratio of about 9:1. The smallest belt pulley I have around here is for a V-groove, and it's around 1.5". So I'd need a 13.5" diameter pulley on the wheel!

I can't recall the way to figure minimum number of teeth I'd need engaged for a timing pulley, but I suspect it'd be at least an inch or two in diameter.

Can't really use chain; at 3000RPM at the motor end that would be a helluva noise.


Basically, at 9:1 reduction, compared to 1:5 anti-reduction, I'm better off sticking with the gearboxes and using bike chain/sprockets for output shaft to wheel transmission. It's not as "efficient" as less stages of changing ratios around would be, and it's heavier, but it is a lot easier to do, with less stuff I have to build from scratch to make it work.



Now, one problem I have is that for the right side wheel, to get power from the motor to the wheel, I need the motor on the right side of the wheel, just like it will be on the left side wheel. But that would be problematic for reasons of safety, clearance, and keeping the motor itself safe from damage. So the motor must go on the left side of the right side wheel.

That leaves the issue of how to get power to it. To use a regular bike hub for it isn't that big a deal, as I can just bolt a sprocket (or weld it) to the left side of the hub. But I will want to use the internally-geared hubs for this later, and those will need the sprocket on the right side of the hub. Meaning I have to get power around the wheel somehow.

Thus, I will probably end up using an extra hub at the rear of the fork, to act as a jackshaft and pass motor power thru to the other side of the wheel. I can simply use a front hub since I don't need to put any freewheels on there, or spoke a wheel to it, and just bolt the sprockets on thru drilled-out spoke holes if they line up right. An adapter plate if they don't. Or weld them on, one on each end.

I just weld on some little dropout tabs to the fork near the U end of it, just clear of the wheel.



For the fork itself, I'm going to need to take some 24" or 26" U-forks, and cut them in half at the stem end. Then weld a tube across there to space them far enough apart for a rear hub to fit in the dropouts up front. But since the internally-geared hubs need dropouts that are slotted to fit them, and I will need enough dropout length to use to adjust chain tension (no derailers), I'll need to remove the original dropouts and put on some from scratch or from BMX bike frames.

Alternately, I can just build the forks from scratch, which would simplify making them significantly, and give me control over every part of their design, as well as make them the same for each side, mirrored. (well, mostly)


Another thing I've been pondering, and that is which way to make the forks--vertical or horizontal.

Horizontal will keep more weight down low, which is very good for a trike. But it means the motor mounted on there will have to have it's weight swung back and forth on the pivot every time I turn, which will act as a pendulum weight and make steering a tad more difficult--it will tend to resist starting to change the wheels direction, and resist stopping that change, too.

Vertical will essentially fix the latter, but will place at least a little more weight up higher. I can still mount the motor itself so that it is centered about the axle, and that will keep most of it's weight low, but the fork will still be higher up and that weight will be above the centerline, giving the trike just that much more susceptibility to tipping in turns, especially if I use the kingpins/pivots up at the top end of the forks.

If I mount the motor vertically on a horizontal fork, it will end up as the best compromise, but it will interfere with the steering pivots and kingpins, unless I move it farther forward, and then the pendulum problem reappears.

Probably I will go with the horizontal fork, and change it if it doesn't work out right.


I've been going back to my old trike research and rereading info I found then but didn't apparently fully comprehend at the time. Now I have seen enough stuff in action and worked with various things in steering, and I understand them better. I think if I had built a trike before, unless I had simply copied someone else's design, I would have ended up with an unsafe or unrideable trike. :( Now I think I know enough to make a passable first shot at it. ;)


I am certain that I got lucky with CrazyBike2, in that it's configuration ended up working fantastically well for something so randomly chosen at each point in the process. I'm fairly good at the by-guess-and-by-gosh process, but it doesn't always work. :roll: The trike needs more thought put into it, and more choices of parts based on design rather than just whatever I have laying around. That said, I think I have a handle on it, and might be able to start building it in a month or so. Less if I'm lucky enough to figure the rest of the design out sooner.

CrazyBike2 Stalled

Not much progress on CB2 itself. Seems like every time I sit down to work on it either I find a serious problem with whatever it was I was about to do to fix the chainline stuff, or something happens to pull me away from it. Or fabricating something turns out to not be possible with the tools I have (or I don't have the skill to do it yet). It's kind of depressing. At least I have the trike design in progress to get excited about. :)

Using that smaller chainring off the Trek is impossible. It would bring the chain itself down to the point it would cut thru the frame. :( Any guide I put on there to route the chain around the frame would probably break under the motor power, probably when I have it heavily loaded and am far away from home. :roll:

To keep the chainline straight on the top where the load is, I have to keep a large chainring on the receiving crankshaft. So it is back to fixing one of the previously destroyed ring sets. Maybe I can mix and match them well enough to double up thinner rings, then use BMX chain for strength. Bolt or weld the ring set together.


Considering welding a threaded section from either a BB cup or a rear hub to the motor shaft's hub end, then putting a freewheel cassete smallest sprockets I can get away with on there. That would get me a freewheel so that I would not be driving the motor when pedalling.

Also considering taking a BB cup and welding it's cup end to the right end of the threaded part of a rear hub. Then welding it's nut end to the face of a steel square-taper crank. The cup would need to be bored out enough to be able to get to the nut and crank threads, so I could still tighten or remove it later.

That would give me a long enough threaded cylinder to do what I originally set out to do for leftside chainrings, which was to put a couple of freewheels on that threaded cylinder with spacers to line up the chains as needed, and allow both motor and pedals to drive the wheel without driving each other.

Problem is, I am not sure that the welding would take the torque, or that the crankshaft itself would take it either, with the load cantilevered out that far. Originally the custom-made cylinder design would have had the motor load still over the actual crankshaft, but both of these would end up out beyond the end of the shaft, putting quite a load on the welds.

So...CB2 is stalled.

Lithium Traction Pack From Scratch--Update

Not much progress here yet. Still trying to find enough time to test the cells, sort them, and then find a good way to assemble the packs.

A new problem with doing it is that the Sorenson I had been using to charge the batteries on CrazyBike2 before, and was going to use to charge up the NiMH packs (from deardancer) and test and charge the Li cells with, just sparked and smoked when I turned it on last night, even though it wasn't connected to any load yet. It's a linear supply, and does not require an external load to operate, so something must've died in it during power-on-surge. A transistor burned and a resistor smoked, and a couple of traces on the board's cardedge connector vaporised, too.

I've got three others (only 40V models) that are not working for various reasons, so I will need to check their boards for the values of parts, and then see if I can trace out enough of the circuit to ensure replacing the blown parts is all that will be needed, so I don't smoke more stuff when I turn it back on again. :roll:

Maybe I'll get the others fixed while I'm at it. :)

I did have another idea for charging the NiMH, though: I already had two little NiMH chargers for AA batteries, and I found another for a couple bucks at a thrift store, so now I could charge up to twelve cells at a time. All three chargers will charge either two or four cells at once. They are all microcontrollers or dedicated chip chargers, so they should be safe to use with any NiMH cells.

I am considering putting charging taps on every cell in the NiMH packs, in connectors of four cells, and one of two cells. Then put a mating connector wired to the contacts on each little charger so I could not only plug in to these cells, I could also still use them for the AA and AAA cells I already use them for (for my flashlights/headlights/taillights, etc. on the non-ebikes).

Then I would be able to charge three sets of cells in the packs at a time. On the 36V pack, that's 30 cells, so two charge cycles for 6 of the 7.5 sets in it, and one more charge cycle for the other set plus 2 cells. On the 24V pack that's 20 cells, so only two charge cycles total (one for 3 of the sets, and one for the 2 full and 1 half set).

The whole pack will not get that warm this way, and though I will have to manually plug and unplug the charging connectors after each cycle, it will let me safely charge the packs.

Well, assuming I don't burn out the chargers doing it; they only put out less than 500mA charge current. Well, one of them can put out almost an amp charging current if it's only charging two cells. I'll try it out with the cheap thrift store one first. It's the model down from one I already had, and is an Olympus BC-100.



I'm also considering taking a bunch of old celphones I have that are broken in various ways, and wiring them up to charge cells. They're all isolated from each other, so I could theoretically charge the pack "in place", with charging taps coming out of it for each cell, and a charging connector. It would never be a fast charge, but it would be possible, though a lot of work.

I would need to take the little BMS board off each celphone battery, and lay them all out on something flat. Then solder wires from the cell connection tabs to the interconnect that would go to my pack cells. More wires from each board's input connection tabs to the celphones themselves.

If I have enough celphones that actually give me a display (many have broken screens or even broken-off flip tops) then I can even monitor the charging process via the little battery meter on the displays. Not much of a meter, but better than nothing. :)

Trike Motor Mount Thoughts

A little redrawing needed. I found the article by Julian Edgar I had been thinking of that explained this stuff, which reminded me of a few things.

The "steering inclination angle" for scrub radius is indeed pointing at the center*line* of the tire, but not the contact patch itself. I still need to have caster (trail) so it needs to point ahead of the contact patch. ;)

I also came up with a couple of possible ways to add the motors to the front wheels, but I am thinking I might want to have shiftable gears, at least two of them, since I end up in stop-and-go traffic often enough to make the power usage horrible, since it will use a lot more current at slower speeds if it's geared high enough for 20MPH.

Apologies for the incoherence of the sketches; I did them while eating dinner since I had the ideas in the middle of that. So they're not pretty. Later they'll be translated into Sketchup if worthwhile.

One issue I have is that i need to get about 5:1 gearing if I use only 24V to drive each motor, because they were originally designed to drive a 10" wheel at 8MPH. To get a 20" wheel up to 20MPH, I need 5 times the output RPM from the motor. On CrazyBike2, that's partly acheived by running it at 36V (now 48V), and partly by the bike drivetrain. Plus, the motor on there runs about 200RPM at 24V IIRC, and these only run about 135RPM or less. So it is a challenge either way, if I use a series wiring setup as the electrical equivalent to a "differential".

One of the ideas uses rear triangles on the front, with the old style one-piece cranks for the triple, and a 5-speed cassette on the back. Only the back gets a derailer, because the triple isn't used for shifting, just as a jackshaft. The left side triangle keeps it's triple. Only a single large ring will be used on the right side's triangle instead of a triple, with a granny ring welded on to the left end of the shaft.

The motor would bolt to a bracket fixed to the triangle in a way that leaves it below the chainstays (for COG reasons) and on the "inside" of whichever side it's on. On the left side wheel it's on the right side of the stays, so that the chainring mounted on the axle hub will be lined up with the granny ring of the triple. The right side wheel will have the motor on the left side of the stays, running to the welded-on granny. The large ring of either side will run to the wheel, shiftable to each of the cassette rings by the derailer. Both derailers would be operated at the same time, by a ganged shifter setup.

Has to be a ganged setup so I can properly adjust each derailer for shifting, while still shifting at as close to the same time as possible. Will also have to shift while not under load, cutting throttle way back during the shift, so that I don't end up being pulled back and forth on the road by the difference in speed while one wheel is shifted but the other is not.


I fully expect this to be too complex to pull off well, so an alternative is to use the regular front fork, and set up the wheelchair motors themselves as if they were the bottom bracket with two rings and a front derailer. This would require putting the U of the fork in front of the wheel instead of behind, and might require putting the righthand motor on the outside of the wheel, which I don't want to do.


Now, I know the reports on the internally-geared hubs under motor power aren't good, but if I used one for each wheel, and ensured no shifting under load and no sudden starts, I might get away with using them. This would make it a LOT simpler to use these wheelchair motors and gearboxes to drive the front wheels. Ganging their shifters would present the only real challenge. Besides actually acquiring two identical ones as part of scrapped bikes, that is. ;)


If I don't use a shiftable transmission, then I can go with a simple chain and ring, but I will probably have to use a two-stage to do it, due to the large ratio required, with the largest ring on the motor, and the smallest on the wheel, with an intermediate jackshaft making the second stage. I could do a 48 to 21 first stage, and another 48 to 21 second stage. Alternately, a 48 to 16 first stage, and 34 or 32 to 16 second stage, to keep stuff a little smaller with a little less chain weight.


Any way I do it, I will need to widen the U forks to accomodate a regular freewheeling cassette, even if I only use one of the rings on it, with no shifter.

The original thought before i realized the ratio needed was just to use a belt and pulleys:


The tank style steering:


More later as I think of it.

Schwinn Sierra: From Junk to Ride

I decided for now that enough of the Schwinn was intact and in good shape that I'd spend a couple of hours and fit it out as a rideable spare bike, even though it is has no suspension at all, and is a regular straight-top (men's style) bike, which is really hard for me to get my leg up and over.

But it is very light. Even with the little rack I stuck on there, which is cheap steel and about 2 or 3 pounds by itself, plus the Stanley light full of 12 AA batteries, I can still lift it with one hand (not with my backpack/helmet on there, though).

I stuck the original front Kenda road tire off of DayGlo Avenger on there, as it is a lot better than the disintegrating front tire it had, and the Kenda Krossroads off the Trek, which is slightly better than the Kenda Road. Unfortunately, this Kenda Krossroads has the same problem my other Kenda Kross tires had--the sidewalls are not made right, and they shed bits of rubber off the fibers, eventually splitting along the diagonal fiber lines and coming open far enough to let the tube bulge out. This one is going to need patching inside just like the other two do.

I like the tire *style*, but their QC and/or sidewall design sucks. I sure wouldn't buy Kenda tires new, based on my experiences with all the ones I have had so far, including the pair that came new on DayGlo Avenger when I originally got it as a new-in-box Columbia Comfort Bike back in 2005 (of which the front tire on this bike is one).

That front wheel has the Slime thorn-resistant pre-slimed tube in it, too, as the original thin tube in there had several patches already, and was sticking to the inside of the disintegrating tire such that I didn't trust it.

This is what it looks like with no flash, and it's lights on.

My helmet light is on, too, and it is shining at the chair's right arm. It's a very diffuse LED light, without much of a spot. Lights up stuff close fairly well, and does a decent job of lighting up reflective road signs, license plates, etc, but not the actual road.

The Stanley light *does* have a really good beam, enough so that you can clearly see it on the wall in front of the bike (only a foot away, but still)

That spot stays a spot far enough away that I can't see enough light back from it to be useful, probably about 50 feet on road surfaces, farther on lighter-colored objects and much much farther on reflective ones.

It's a point source light from a distance, and quite bright; I keep it pointed at the ground about 20 feet ahead most of the time on the roads. Farther on unlit trails/canals. It's clamped to the bars with 2 hose clamps, like my other flashlights have been, and like the little red one is clamped to the junction of cargo rack and rear triangle.

I had to replace the sheaths for the shifter cables, though the cables themselves were fine. I swapped out the freewheel cassette for the one off the Trek, as the one on the Schwinn was very noisy, and the one on the Trek was virtually silent. I'm sure the original would work better if I serviced it, but I wanted to try the bike out for a bit before it got too late tonight, and I was getting hungry.

I tested it out for a few miles tonight, going to the store and stuff, and it worked well. Only problem I had was that the "Primus" thick tube that was already in the Kenda tire in back blew a hole (slit, actually) too big for even Slime to save it. I had to flip the bike over, peel the tire off the rim, and patch it, about a mile into the trip. No problems after that.

The hole was about 1/3 of the way up from the inside circumference of the tube, and looked like it was from someone using a screwdriver as a tire-iron, but on these tires and rims it's not even necessary to do that. They easily roll off the rims when deflated, which makes for easy fixing if something goes wrong, like above. I didn't even have to take the wheel off. I didn't see the mark when I originally swapped this onto the Schwinn's rim, but I did not look that closely at it. My mistake. :(

This bike is actually a joy to ride--it is so light and is geared right that I can start up without much knee pain, as long as I am not carrying anything. Adding the backpack with toolkit, pump, etc, plus wearing longjohn bottoms & top under the jeans and tye-dye long-sleeve sweater (for warmth in the chilly evening, made worse by the breeze from riding), was enough to make it harder to ride but still better than DayGlo Avenger even without it's cargo pod and rack.

I *don't* like the lower handlebars, though, so I will have to do something about that. The stem is already most of the way up, though, so I can't get enough height from it to help. I will probably have to change the handlebars to something that reaches farther up/back.

It is quite a tall bike and is not a joy to get onto. I can barely stand astride it, with the top tube against the seam of my pants. Wouldn't wanna slip off the seat. ;-)

I also don't like the seat, which is the original Schwinn narrow hard seat. Like all of them, it doesn't fit me and it's also slippery, so I can't seem to stay on it. It's a quick-release so I will probably use my shock-post seat if it fits in this tube (it might not). That seat is wider and at least somewhat tolerable for longer rides than a couple of miles. This one is mildly painful after only about a mile and a half; I probably could not ride it longer than 5 miles even if my life depended on it. ;-)

I'm pretty sure it was actually meant to have 700C rims on there, or at least something larger than the 26" that it came to me with, as the brakes don't adjust down the rims very far--the top edges of the brakes just clear the top of the rims by a millimeter or so at their lowest adjustment, but would go at least 1/4" higher--enough to ride completely on the sidewalls of the 26" tires!

If it did have taller wheels, I would not be able to ride it, though. I would be unable to mount it without holding it sideways so far that I could not push it upright to get it going, and I would be unable to dismount at stops, forcing me to lean over on one side while staying in the saddle. I'm not sure I could startup from a stop then, as most of them are on slight uphill inclines. It certainly wouldn't be easy.

Anyway, it's a good bike.

Throttle Lever, Gas Springs

More parts donated, including a lever for my throttle

That is in the max output (max pot reading, 5K) position.

That is in the max physical pot rotation position.

That is at the zero pot position, centered on the pot (the pot, like the lever, is made for a reversing motor controller in a wheelchair).

I don't yet have the spring return on it, as I need to make something to connect from the throttle lever into the spring's "catch" for the return action. Should just need a little bracket to wrap around the far end of the lever's pivot and back in an L shape into the spring's "catch".


and some interesting actuated "gas" (probably hydraulic) springs.

The springs are neat because they have a little push rod in the center of the strut, which must be pushed in before the strut can move. This is done for ride-height adjustments on the chairs they come from (using a cable and lever similar to bike brake levers but smaller), but the nice bit about this feature for me is that they would let me "disable" the spring action if the bike was too heavily loaded to work without bottoming out, simply by raising the lockout lever.

Or they could be used solely for their ride-height adjustment ability, and not as springs at all. That would let me explore different front and rear heights to see what worked out better for height for clearance of road debris, curbs, etc, vs stability in turns, before permanently building that height into the frame (if ever).

More Bikes for Parts

Day before yesterday while helping a friend move stuff, I scored a couple of nice but very beat up bikes that happen to have square taper cranks with several things I have wished I had for a while: bolt-on spider/chainrings for the triples, trigger shifters, and some good derailers/shifters for 6-speed cassettes.


One is a larger triple than the other, and I think it is aluminum or some alloy for the rings (as well as the spider/crank. I can actually wiggle it side to side between spider legs.

The other triple is much harder, does not wiggle, and has that darker brownish tinge of titanium, although I am sure it is just plated or anodized to that color rather than actually being made of titanium. I sure wish it was, as I doubt I could break it if it was. ;) The crank/spider is still aluminum/alloy, which is fine. It's a lot smaller rings though, so I'll need to use the smaller ring on the motor, maybe even cut it off and replace with an even smaller one.

The crank rings on the Trek do appear to be very hard metal on the largest ring--it does not even have it's tooth count stamped in it as the two smaller rings (of a different color metal) do. It is stickered as a Shimano Hyperdrive C. It's a 42T, and the others are 34 and 24. There is minor damage (chipping?) on certain teeth and tips, but it is in better shape than most of the rings I already have around here.

Being a Hyperdrive C tells me more certainly that the original wheel/cassette isn't on the back, because AFAIK these were meant for an 11T rear smallest sprocket.

The rings on the Schwinn are larger, at 48T, 38T, 28T, but are definitely weaker than the Hyperdrive rings.

I am going to see if I can work out a new driveline on CB2 for the motor/pedals using the Hyperglide as the receiver. Kind of a waste, as it won't be used for any shifting. :)

I will probably just put the old strong single-ring cranks back on CB2's pedals.


There are a number of other nifty parts on the bikes, too, including even the frames, which appear to be nice cromoly, and are light enough I can pick them up onehanded even with the whole bike together, though I can't carry them far (I'm a wimp and my knees and joints hurt a lot).



One has Shimano trigger shifters, but they weren't working. The trigger shifters are part of the brake lever mounts, too. The cap on one is missing; hopefully it is only a cover and not a functional part.


These may end up being perfect shifters for the trike, since I will not have my hands in my field of vision with the tank style underseat steering, so I also can't see what gear things are in or what position the shifter lever is in. A trigger shifter always returns back to "home" after each shift, so it would be easier to shift with "blind". In theory. I've never used one.

I did a little bit of cleaning of the trigger shifters, and now they work fine. Just had dirt in there keeping the mechanism from moving the ratchet. I'll have to make a cover for the right (rear) shifter, or that will continue to be a bad problem.

The other has Deore lever shifters for a 6-speed rear cassette and a front triple, which is what I have on the CrazyBike2 right now. The Deore shifter I have on CB2 is for an 8-speed and thus doesn't shift properly due to differnet ring spacing (I dont' have anything with an 8-speed cassette).

Both shifter cable housings were disintegrated at the shifters, as you can see.

One uses vbrakes, one uses side-pull linears with the noodle. The vbrakes appear to be almost new pads, the others have some medium wear on them.

There is only one good tire on there, a Kenda something-or-other. The others are typical knobby stuff, though one of them is much less so than the others.

The Schwinn is a non-suspension bike, and the Trek is a hardtail with front shock forks that don't appear to work. They are labeled Skareb, though parts of the lettering are worn off so I can't read everything on it.

They appeared to be hydraulic rather than spring, but turned out once I found the manual online to be pneumatic shock and hydraulic damping. There is a lever on the top of one of them that I originally thought was supposed to adjust the ride/travel and thought was missing on the other one, but it turns out to be the damping adjust, and is only supposed to have one.

The other is a schrader valve, which I aired up to about 100PSI based on the manual and some posts found on an MTB forum, and it now operates as a shock. :) I haven't opened it up to check the oil, but I suspect it's empty or near so (or the valves are bad) as there is no damping at all, regardless of the red knob setting.

It appears based on the manual to be easy to disassemble to check it out and/or fix, once I have time to clear off a table to lay out all the (presumably oily) parts. :)


One bike has wide-flanged hubs, which could come in handy for bolting diskc brakes to via adapters, but neither has any disk brake mounting holes on the hubs. The shock fork above has the mounting for the brake calipers, though. They're all 26" wheels with aluminum rims and hubs. Don't know if the spokes are good ones or not. I'd bet they are better than the cheap junk on most of the wheels I have.

Turns out the rear hubs on both are regular freewheels, and I suspect they are not the original cassettes, either, as neither one even has much in the way of the little shifting-helper-ridges and contours on any of the sprockets--they're pretty much flat on the Trek, and just have the twisted tips on the Schwinn.

The rear hub of the Schwinn:

The hubs/rims on the Schwinn could be original, they appear to be at least decent quality ones and both match. Spokes seem a lot better steel than the Trek, as they don't just bend (even the loose ones) with finger pressure. There is a spot on the rear rim that is dented/bowed out a little from what was probably running over a rock (there's no matching one on the other side, so not likely a pothole or curb jump). They're even reasonably true.

I'm pretty sure they're not the original rims on the Trek, as the rear is a VERY cheap steel rim that has a horrible welded seam, with cheap steel spokes on it. The front wheel isn't that much better but is at least intact. Neither is true at all.

The Trek is really a mishmash of different bikes, and some of them were very badly put together, including it's rear hub. I thought maybe it was just loose, and jokingly thought it might be missing the bearings, as it was so wobbly. Actually it was missing the cone nut, and a regular washer had been put against the bearings, with NO LUBRICATION AT ALL, with a single spacer-style nut tightly up against it. Regular nuts just threaded there as spacers up to the dropouts, but not threaded up to the washer very hard. This was the result:

Yes, that is a flat-sided bearing, and it's not the only one.

All the bearings are actually stuck to the race so hard I can't pry them out; I suspect they're partly welded in place by friction heating. It even looks like the bearing cup itself is separated from the hub's outer edge, and pushed into the wheel some.

This is all on the drive side, so the stress broke the spoke you see above, and damaged others.