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

[amberwolf]

I forgot to post it, but the last two commutes were about 29Wh/mile. Pretty much in line with previous motorizations of the bike.

Today's was about 27Wh/mile, with more long runs of no stops in it than are in my work commutes, vs the short runs of frequent stops/starts. I went to my house to do more cleanup, so that's basically like my "new" commute *to* work, plus my old commute *from* work, for going to my house. Then I went to the post office around 19th Ave & Cactus, by taking the route for my old commute *to* work. Picked up the ~30lbs-ish package about teh size of an ebike hubmotor wheel box (but with an EMU6400 in it), and then continued up to Cactus via 28th Ave, then east to 23rd Ave, up to Larkspur, over to 19th, then south to the PO. Then out of there on Cactus west to 28th up to Thunderbird, west to 31st, and thence back to Bill's along the usual route.


Buuut....before I could head otu to my house today, I had to fix my 20" HSR3548 wheel's spokes again. I have been checking them each ride, except I forgot to do it the last two, because it had still been nice and tight each time I checked. Not tight enough, apparently, because all the spokes were loose, from outright floppy to just "not tight", this morning. There were also two broken ones, near each other but not next to each other.

However--to be fair, by breaking thsoe two could've let enough tension off the others to let them loosen quickly.

I retightened eveyrhting else but two more spokes (in the same area as the first two) broke, at the elbow, before they were even partially tight. Probably were damaged by the looseness and wiggling around before I tightened them all down the first time, and finished off by this round.

So now there are four broken spokes in one area of the wheel.

I had planned to pick up the old 9C 20" wheel (since the stator is out of it anyway) and see if it's spokes were the right length to transplant to this one, but in my anxiety at having to leave suddenly once Michael said he had to go, I completely forgot about it until I was already back at Bill's place.

The bike is recharged now so I am just waiting on it to get cooler (it's still almsot 110F out there right now here at Bill's, and officially 108F, and that's not in the sun, either way), then I will hopefully remember to ride back down to the house and pick up the wheel, and see about relacing it tonight. If not, I'll have to do it tomorrow.

I also am about to write Grin Tech asking about what it will cost for a full set of spokes for it, in some decent brand rather than whatever comes on these wheels, and ordering those. Or maybe from JRH. Doesn't matter, really, as long as they'll work better than what's on here. I'm assuming these are not name-brand spokes on here, and that it never got a professional lacing/tensioning/truing, or else it shouldn't have failed like this already, as I haven't even abused it yet. :lol:


I wonder if it is possible to lace this thing non-radially, at least a 1x? It'd be a PITA but would have to be stronger than the radial lacing it has now. But I have no idea what spoke length would be needed.

 

[amberwolf]

This morning I left to do more cleanup at the house with Michael and Mark, to meet them at 7am. I checked the spokes before I left and they were ok, but just after I crossed Peoria (about 3 miles from Bill's) I could hear and feel the rear wheel loosen up, and had to stop to fix it.

At that point there were now 10 (ten) spokes broken, and all other spokes were pretty wiggly-loose. I tightened up the remaining 26 as best as possible, but 8 of those 10 are consecutive in one area of the wheel, so it rode like an egg isntead of a wheel.

The fastest I could go was a hair over 5MPH, not even enough to keep the bike upright/stable without practically a deathgrip on the handlebars to steer back and forth. I didn't dare use the rear motor either, because i was afraid any torque on the spokes would end up breaking even more of them, possibly making the wheel collapse and the bike unmovable, so it was all with the front motor and 6FET with teh annoying nearly-unusable "cruise-control", for the ~2.5 miles to my house.


I hoped that the spokes for the old broken 9C 20" hub would be the right length for this wheel, but once I got there, almost half an hour after fixing the wheel as best I could, I foudn they were far too short to use, because the 9C rim is one of the deep "aero" types while the Crystalyte rim is not.


So the only option left me to get safely home again was to take the rear motor wheel off and just carry it home as cargo, and stick a regular bike wheel on the rear. Unfortunately the 20" wheel I'd used before was still up at Bill's, and I couldn't get to any of the other rear 20" wheels (there were a couple of 20" fronts but the axles are way too short to use on this), so I pulled the 24" IGH wheel off of CrazyBike2's replacement frame that might someday get finished, and after some effort managed to install it on CrazyBike2 itself.

It already had a tire and tube on it that should be "reliable" enough for the ride back to Bill's, so I left them on there, and just re-aired them up (might have a slow leak I wasnt' aware of, or I might never have aired it up back when I was test fitting things; I don't remember).

Then i had to move the CA's speed sense wire up to the 6FEt, and because I'd already neatened up the wire harnesses a few days or so ago, before all this crap started, there wasn't wire length to do that, and I had to unplug the CA from the extension down to the external shunt, and plug directly into the 6FET's CA connector instead, then recalibrate the CA's shunt setting, and also change it's wheel size setting from 20" (1600mm) to 26" (2180mm) so I'd still have an approximately correct speedometer.


Unfortunatley all this took an hour and a half or so to do, partly because I had a couple of really bad times in there, I don't know how long they lasted. So by the time I was done fixing the bike so I could get back to Bill's when i was done cleaning up at the house, Michael and Mark were both already worn out from the cleanup they were doing for me, and it was too hot outside already to continue. So I didn't get any cleanup done other than whatever they got finished (I don't remember what it was now), and just went back to Bill's.


I have tomorrow off too, and had planned on doing more cleanup then, but now I have to spend today and probably someof tomorrow trying to deal with the wheel problem one way or another, so I can safely go to work the next two days after that. I'd prefer to just relace the wheel if I can get spokes for it. I'd hoped to wait and buy new ones from Grin or JRH, while riding around on the existing ones, but too many have broken now to make that possible (four was pushing it as it was).

It's not comfortable (or safe, really) to ride around in traffic with only the front 9C on a 6FET (mostly because accelerating from a light or other stop is so extremely slow that cars behind me get dangerously impatient and do stupid things), so I will need to either fix the rear wheel, or put the 12FET on the front 9C isntead of the 6FET. Most likely it'll have to be the latter, as I don't knwo that I'll be able to get a set (plus spares) of spokes this short before tomorrow, so I would have the time to relace the wheel.


So...I hate crappily-laced wheels with too heavy a gauge of crappy spokes to be tensioned properly (if at all!).

I REALLY wish I could just finish the other frame with the middrive instead, and use regular bike wheels so that at least I could jsut carry spare whole wheels with me in case this happened due to potholes or whatever. But until enough cleanup is done (probably a few months from now) to find all the pieces, or re-collect new ones for those that were lost, tossed, or destroyed, and find all my tools or get new ones, and get better enough in my head to be able to stay at my house by myself long enough to accomplish anything, that frame is just gonna have to sit there, and I'm just gonna have to deal with hubmotors with shitty wheels on them.

 

[amberwolf]

View attachment 3

 

[amberwolf]

Everythign else went awry or didn't happen at all today, so at least this went accordign to plan:

I was using the bent-up 24" test wheel I made for the first trike experiment so tha tI could get home yesterday, but it's out of round (dented rim) and I don't entirely trust the tube that's on it.

So the plan was to move the Maxxis Hookworm, thick tube, and tire liner off the broken Crystalyte wheel back to the 40 or 44 spoke 20" BMX wheel I used when testing out the 9C front motor wheel Kingfish sent, just before this now-broken Crystalyte wheel from Grin arrived.

That part went pretty easy, as did the reinstall of that BMX wheel onto the bike, though it is damned hot out there, and I started this around 330-4pm-ish i think, when it was even hotter, very melty even in the shade, almost no breeze. I dunno what the temperature was at it's hottest, but it was 112F according to the gauge on the porch when I passed by it at one point.


Then I took the rest of teh spokes out of the broken wheel, so that it will be ready for the new spokes once Grin gets back with me with an invoice so I can pay and get them shipped to me.

(When I originally emailed Grin a couple of days ago, I asked if a 1x lace would be possible. Justin replied yesterday that it might be if the spokes are pre-bent at the approximate angle so that they enter the nipple straight enough to not stress them at the thread start point so they won't break there. He said that along with the regular $35 38-spoke set of Sapim 13-gauge spokes, he'd send me a free half-set of ones long enough to do the 1x lace on one side (presumably the drive side, in case I ever need to pedal it or drive it middrive), and if that either doesn't turn out to be possible or doesn't work like it shoud, it'd be easy to just use the other half of the regular set and radially lace both sides.)


I had to borrow Bill's cameraphone to get a pic of the cracks in some of the remaining unbroken spokes, because mine won't focus closely enough to see them. In addition to the 10 already broken spokes, there are five more already cracked thru and ready break off, and I don't know how many others with cracks that arent' yet visible to me without magnification.


First pic is the wheel with just the broken ones taken out, after removing the tire/tube/strip so I could pull them out. You can see how badly eggshaped the rim is from the uneven tension. I hope that it doesnt' stay that way after I get new spokes in it.


Another pic is my phone trying to show the obvious cracks in some of the not-yet-broken-off ones. Last pic is from Bill's phone showing the two most obvious cracks, one o fwhich is so bad that you can use one finger to push on the head and flex the spoke at the crack.








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[amberwolf]

Haven't heard a word back from Grin since last week's partial conversation, so I guess eventually they'll get around to sending me an invoice so I can pay for the spokes and have them shipped to me, so I can fix up the rear wheel and have a backup drive system again.


In other news, over the years the steering tie rod has been getting looser and looser as the threads on the nuts welded into the rod itself wear (never were tight-tight), and since it is kinda critical, I decided it needs immediate replacement (or as immediate as is possible for me). I won't have a chance to install it till later this week, but today I went to Grainger and ACE Hardware to get the parts.

I tried to go thru Grainger's online catalog/etc to figure out what I needed, but I couldn't determine exactly what I needed that they also had in stock at the one close enough to me to ride to. (although I ended up going with Bill cuz he was on an errand run anyway). At some point after clicking thru a bunch of stuff on the site, a popup window came up that asked if I wanted to talk to a rep for help, so I picked "online chat". The first person ignored a fair bit of what I asked and said, and eventually said they'd have to pass me to a techy.

Then that person didn't bother reading any of the previous chat log the first person forwarded to them, and I had to copy/paste it for them to read before I could go on, and they still asked questions I'd already answered. Then they said they couldn't help me find the actual rod or nut parts, and had to send me to yet another person.

Then this third person also didn't read the forwarded chat log (even though they said they did, after they'd gone off to do so for a few minutes). They asked me all the same questions as the first and second person did, and I gave up at that point and told them that after they read what I'd already wrote, and made me recommendations, I'd come back to read their recommendations. They ddint' even read THAT, because after a couple of hours we got back here to Bill's place, and in the chat window they'd asked for the dimensions *again*. (which were already in the previous stuff they already had)


Anyway, the people actually at the Grainger location up on Rose Garden and 19th Ave were very helpful, and quickly found parts they had in stock that would do what I wanted, although they were larger than I needed, they will certainly work. All I really needed was something with say, 1/4" or 5/16", maybe 3/8" hole or stud, but the only ones they had more than one of the same kind were 1/2". Since i kinda needed to replace everything in the whole steering tie rod and mounting points anyway, it doesn't matter, and it is also definitely strong enough to never have to worry about failure in my usages. :lol:


They ddint' have the threaded rod in the 1/2" size, though, except in the wrong thread pitch, and nuts/washers/etc only in packs of 50 or 100, so we went to ACE Hardware (closest place a mile south), and got the rest of what's needed.

Since I didnt' want to have to use 1/2" bolts to connect the tie rod to the bike, I got a split roll pin to use as a bushing between the smaller bolt size I wanted to use and the tie rod's bearing holes. I'll just need to cut the roll pin in two sections, one for each end. Then I need to cut the 3-foot section of threaded rod down to the ~18-19" for the actual tie rod. After taht I just need to drill out the holes in the existing mounting tabs on the bike for the slightly larger hardware, and bolt this new one on.

Eventually, after I get the 4-prong twist-lock 220VAC plug (which I forgot to get at ACE while I was there) to put on the welder to fit the temporary power tap now at my house, then I can weld up some new, better-designed mounting tabs, and weld them onto the bike in place of the existing old hacked-together ones (cuz at least the one on the handlebar end is not strong enough and flexes a little).

 

[amberwolf]

completely irrelevant but i was looking at the apartments near where i work via streetview, and detoured to see what latest images they had of my workplace, and found crazybike2 in the images, from june 2011. i am not certain but i think i am also in part of the pics from the side of teh building, still hobbling off my healing right ankle. can't tell cuz the post blocks most of the person.

View attachment 1




you have to go around form the side of the building in the parking lot itself to get these pics, as teh other views are newer or older and don't show the bike.

 

[mdd0127]

Glad you got that tie rod fixed. Sorry I spaced getting the rod ends to you.

 

[The Stig]

completely irrelevant but i was looking at the apartments near where i work via streetview, and detoured to see what latest images they had of my workplace, and found crazybike2 in the images, from june 2011. i am not certain but i think i am also in part of the pics from the side of teh building, still hobbling off my healing right ankle. can't tell cuz the post blocks most of the person.

View attachment 1




you have to go around form the side of the building in the parking lot itself to get these pics, as teh other views are newer or older and don't show the bike.

Haha thats awesome!

Sub'd.

 

[Rassy]

Those big steering tie rod ends would make real good trailer hitches for pulling a two wheel trailer behind a bike. Would work just like a regular ball hitch on a car and only require a single bolt to hitch or unhitch the trailer

 

[amberwolf]

I'm not sure the tie rod ends have enough range o fmovement ot use on hte side of a bike, so you'd have ot have something that sticks out the back end behind the tire (like on my dayglo avenger or crazybike2) to mount i ton, so the sideways pivot that needs the most range can be the full-twist patr of the rod-end, and the up/down pivot that shouldn't need much range can be the narrow-twist part of the ball on the rod-end, as well as the yaw pivot.


in other news, last night on the way home a police officer stopped me on 26th avenue just north of Thomas, maybe a half a mile from my temporary aprtment home, because she was probably checking out all traffic in the area to catch miscreants. But the excuse was that she was under the misapprehension that all vehicles with motors on them require a license plate and a drivers license to operate; when i politely explained that it' sjust an electric-bicycle and that as long as they're under 20mph they don't require either one, and are just considered bicycles, she just ran my id and returned it to me and sent me on my way. She seemed a bit disappointed, and a bit relieved, but I'm not sure exactly why for either.

I'd rather not have had the excitement, but at least I didnt' ahve any problmes. Tiny would have been disappointed at me being delayed getting home.

 

[amberwolf]

I'd received the spokes from Grin Tech the same day I was moving from bill's to the apartment, 7-2-13, I think, so I dind't have a chance to do anything with the wheel till today.

I got it laced up as 1-cross on the drive side and radial on the other, though I still need to tension and true it, then test it on the bike--that won't happen until i resolve an issue though.

It appears that for some of the spoke holes in the motor flange, the spokes are small enough to just pop right out when at a certain angle. It happened a few times while lacing, though no tafter tightening, yet. It may not be a problme when riding, but I think I need to go find washers to go in these things before I actually finalize the lacing/tensioning/truing and actually ride on it--I'm afraid they'll come out under load and have the wheel disintegrate. I can't afford to have that happen on the road; I'd be stranded.


I will probably still just carry the regular BMX rear wheel that's presently on the bike, just in case the wheel does fail even after I put washers on it, since I just don't trust it.

not sure exactly where to get the washers, but I'll check the hardware store first--I want them to be very small and they don't have to be thick, just have to fill that space the spoke head doesn't.


EDIT: Oh, and I fixed that silver Kingpan charger that just suddenly died several months ago--turned out to just be the main toroidal coil on the output had come out of the PCB on the output side. I didn't have any solder with me though I did have th esoldering iron, musta left it at bill's, so I just remelted the original solder till I get the roll back. Works ok at a steady 4A and keeps going down steadily from there as expected, so no more having to wiat forever for the "3A" Highpower charger that actually only does bursts of 3A for a few seconds, and hten goes way down to nearly nothing, then ramps back up to 3A, and so on fo rthe whole charge cycle, making it take 3-4 times as long to charge as it should.

Anyway, some pics of the lacing and the problem with teh spokes.

 

[amberwolf]

Yesterday while out with Bill I got the only washers I could find that were at least small enough to not let the spoke head just fall thru them, #6 stainless steel ones from Lowe's. I expect #4 or even #2 would probably be a better fit but I couldnt' find anything that small, except for one hobby place that had ones that *barely* fit over the spokes, but they were extremely thin brass--so thin that they were more like shim stock than washers, and would not have worked for this.

So I tried out the #6 washers, and unfortunatley they won't let me lace the wheel up with the spokes coming thru the flange from the inside, wrapping around the outside of the flange, to give it a wider "stance" on the flange and more side-to-side stiffness (wider base of the triangle). Trying it that way resulted in spoke heads deforming the washers enough that some popped thru them and sent the washers flying across the room, scaring Tiny into the bathroom, where she decided to nap while I was doing the rest of the relacing, which took several hours (with a couple of potty breaks for me and a couple of walkies for her that didnt' result in any potty, due to other noises scaring her while she was looking for a spot).

So I used the spokes the same way they came laced from Grin Tech to start with, from the outside of the flanges, and at least there isn't any tension on the washers themselves this way, and they just fill the rest of the space between the elbow and the spoke head on the flange.

Unfortunately my cheap multi-size spoke tool has soft enough metal that after tightening up these spokes the first time, and then loosening them all this time, it's rounded out a little bit inside, and now just slips on most of the spoke nipples, so I can't really tension them properly, or do any truing. So I can't ride the wheel yet.

The spoke nipples have wrench flats sized for 15-gauge, though teh spokes thesmelvbes are 12 or 13-gauge (I forget which). On the original spokes the 13-gauge slot on the wrench fit best, IIRC, but on these it really needs a 16-gauge slot, because the reason the 15-gauge slot rounded out in the first place is that it doesn't quite fit tightly only these nipples.

What I will need to do is take the wrench to Bill's place, where I left my angle grinder, and cut a slot in the wrench that's *almost* big enough, then file that out till it's a perfect fit, and do that on two places, so if I wear one out I will have a second one as spare.


But it has also damaged the nipples themselves, so I may have to order a set of those, depending on how many are unusable after the new wrench slots are made. (I have at least 18 "spares", that came with the other half-set of radial spokes to use in case the 1-cross doesn't work out as planned). Guess we'll ahve to wait and see about that.

 

[amberwolf]

Still waiting to get the grinder and files from Bill's place to make the slots in the spoke wrench and tighten up the wheel before testing it.


I don't have the actual data from the CA but presently trips are around 29-30Wh/mile whenever I have checked. There's a fair bit of cross wind on almost every trip, not sure how it's affecting the efficiency but I suspect it's making it worse. This is just with the front 9C 2806 26" on 40A controller.


I'm not certain of the actual mileage so far because the CA does not always save it's data when shutting down, because I'm powering it via the lighting pack on the alternative power input, after having blown the main regulator at installation cuz of the Thun sensor (which I still haven't got setup cuz it only mounts backwards in this frame due to incorrect installation of the BB shell by Magna, I guess). I keep intending to pull the 12V output DC-DC from DayGlo Avenger to run it off the main pack, so shutdown can work reliably (I hope), but so far I haven't had time while I'm at the house to dig it out of the shed it's in.






As a side note, these days I do pedal because my knees are getting better (thanks to the glucosamine/chondritin/MSM sent by an ES member shortly after the fire) but I don't put enough effort into it to be doing any work yet, and gearing makes pedals useless at over about 7-8mph unless I'm spinning like mad, which hurts too. Mostly I'm pedalling just to keep my legs moving, hoping that this will help me a teeny bit with weight loss as I am still gaining weight (another pound or so since I left Bill's) even though I am eating less (and better) and exercising more, especially with the walks with Tiny.

Maybe eventually I'll get to where I can actually put effort into pedalling again, and even ride a pedal-only bike again. Gonna be a while, I bet.

 

[e-beach]

Some of those washers look a bit....well....ify....as in "if the stay in it will be ok"..... Are you sure those spokes wont pull out of those washers under that configuration?

 

[amberwolf]

No, I'm not sure. Though presently all the iffy looking ones were bent up in trying to lace them heads-in, rather than heads-out, and don't presently have tension on them in a direction that would further stress the washers, so I suspect they'll be fine.

The reason I actually wanted the washers was because I wanted to lace it hte other way,heads-in, which *does* stress the washers because they are taking the place of the normal-sized spoke-flange holes, which on this motor are so large I could stick the whole nipple thru some of them, up to the rim of the nipple. :-/

There is a possibly better solution pointed out here:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=22800&p=767501#p767501

 

[e-beach]

....

There is a possibly better solution pointed out here:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=22800&p=767501#p767501

That is what came to mind when I saw your picts....a "finishing washer" or "cup washer"

 

[amberwolf]

Got the grinder and files from Bill's place, now need to mod the wrench so I can tighten the spokes. Got a longer workday today so not gonna get done today. Maybe tonight after work but I doubt it, won't be home till late and will be tired. Saturday maybe, since I'm off that day, hopefully Friday though.

I *do* wish nipples could be made of something harder than brass, though, so they wouldn't deform so easily when a poorly made wrench is used on them. (I've had some cheap bikes' wheels with steel nipples, but they were also rusted onto the spokes, so tha'ts not a good solution either).

 

[amberwolf]

Completed the wrench mod and tried tensioning the wheel, but the nipples are already too damaged and most won't tighten becuase there's no flats for the wrench to grab; too rounded off already.

Will have to get new nipples, unless osme of the ones I already have around will fit these spokes. I have to go digging thru my stuff at the house to see if I can find the melted plastic box that had all those spokes and nipples EbikeFanatic sent me for bigger wheels.

So right now the wheel is several mm out of round...not exactly egg shaped but isn't ideal by any means. it doesn't present the washboard or other symptoms at road speeds, so it's not as bad as it could be, but needs to be fixed--but I can't do it with the present nipples.


I put about 40 miles on it so far and it doesn't seem to be loosening up yet, but I have been trying to be careful and go slow over bumps/cracks that can't be avoided, so they're more like uneven road, and just avoid everything else. But there have been a few I couldn't avoid, most especially all the washboarding and huge bumps at the Glendale and Bethany Home intersections with 31st Ave, and the light is so short (when it even triggers from the bike at all) that I can't putter thru it I ahve to max out accleration or else cars will be coming thru the other way before I am even across it! (generally they won't wait for me to finish crossing, and just hold their horns down and come straight at me; swerving only at the last instant, nearly hitting other cars while doing so, so rather than be the cause of a collision or the recipient of one, I'd rahter just GTFOOTW).

There's one bump just before exiting the intersection (at BH, IIRC) when going home that actually sends the bike up into the air a little bit, evne at only 15mph, and then the bike bounces around upon landing.

I am carrying the regular BMX wheel in one of my cargo pods, just in case the motor wheel breaks in an unrideable way--then I can pull it's tire/tube off and put them on the BMX wheel, and at least ride home wiht the front motor wheel (9C 26" from Kingfish).


Another issue I've mentioned before that is driving me batty (ier!):
The "cruise control" on the little 6FET the front 9C is on is TERRIBLE. It doesn't engage in any consistent way. Sometimes it engages after only a second or two of throttle, at any level, and sometimes it won't engage after 30-40 seconds or more of constant throttle! I can lock my thumb against the bar grip and thumb tab so that it is definitely not moving the tab, and thus it ought to be giving a constant voltage to the controller, yet the controller does not engage cruise mode when I release it. Maybe half the time, it operates as expected, with around 5-6 seconds of sort-of-constant throttle will engage cruise.


But even when it does engage, it doesn't hold speed very well. It can vary as much as 4-5mph, and not in the direction I'd expect. When going uphill, I'd expect it to slow down in cruise, becuase it's theoretically applying a constant voltage in place of the throttle, not trying to hold a constant speed. But sometimes (not always!) it will acclerate while climbing (very slight slope, very short, mind you, like a short bridge over a canal, going up a driveway into a parking lot, etc), and sometimes it will decelerate while going downhill. Sometimes it tries to hold a speed, and sometimes it doesn't.

Even when on an essentially flat stretch, sometimes on that same stretch it will hold a speed fine, and sometimes it will go up or down in speed by several mph. Sometimes it does that quickly, and sometimes slowly. It doesnt' matter whether wind is with or against me, either.

There's a half mile of flat straight concrete multi-use pathway from Camelback halfway north to Bethany Home, instead of having a 31st Ave there, and I always ride at only 10mph there in case there's pedestrians/etc. If I try to use cruise to do this, sometimes it'll hold speed, usually it drops abut 1mph per couple hundred feet or so, until it gets down to around 8mph (when my pedalling force is finally high enough to start hurting my knees), then the power surges and it jumps up to around 11mph and then creeps back down. Watching the wattage it goes down to only a few watts just before it jumps up to a couple hundred and hten creeeps back down, and this ramping continues the whole way. Except of course when it won't engage at all, despite fiddling with the throttle for the whole half mile.

Basically, it's unpredictable and nearly unusable.

And downright dangerous trying to engage it while riding with traffic anywhere near, or all the parked cars alongside and in the bike lane (usually illegally, but no one will do anything about that, so i usually just don't ride in the bike lane whenever there are cars parked close to it)--it's just distracting my attention away from the people and animals that suddenly just step out from behind the cars, especially at night (no, they don't ever look first, they just step out and have this shocked look on their faces that something is about to run them over, while I or the cars swerve out into the far left of the lane to avoid them. ).




There's an additional problme that I might be able to solve with the CAv3 throttle control:

The HS rear motor on the 12FET is very very touchy. Regardless of which throttle I use on it, and even if I lock my thumb against the grip and tab so it's getting a constant throttle voltage (verified with the CA's monitor), the motor surges with power and then cuts out almost entirely--I can see this in the watt readout, as well as feel it and hear it. I basically cannot control it's speed with the throttle normally, like I can with any other motor/controller I've ever used. Typically all I'd have to do is hold the throttle in one place and the bike would stay at the same speed as long as the wind and terrain are the same.

That's how it works with the 9C 26" front and the same 12FET.

But with this combination, HS 20" rear and this 12FET, it just surges and relaxes, over and over, for no reason I can figure out.


The problem is less if I use the CA in speed control mode, but I probably don't have it setup correctly yet, becuase it is still pretty bad.

I haven't re-tried power control mode with it, as my experience with that on the previous motor/controller before the house fire showed it to be unusable, but again it probably wasn't setup correctly yet. That (and this) is also all with the beta firmware, v19 I think, but cna't remmebe rfor sure. I can't yet program it as I don't know where my USB-serial interface is in all the stuff left after the fire, so for now I'm stuck with whatever issues / features this firmware has.


Either way, the CA isn't causing the problmes becuase the 6FET/9C isn't even hooked to the CA at all, and I removed the 12FET/HS from the CA to see and the behavior is identical to CA pass-thru mode. Only thing still hooked to the CA is the speed sensor wires on the 12FET. The shunt is external, so that it measures battery current /power usage of *both* controllers.


Presently becuase I can't reliably control the speed of the HS motor, so it will easily surge and take me well over the limit of 20MPH, I am only usually using it for acceleration from a stop, and then using hte 9C for cruising. But the stupid cruise control on the 6FET makes even this difficult to do.





(below posted originally in the housefire thread, crossposted here cuz it's about this bike)

Washers are part of what I added to the wheel, but they're not really the right size to do what I wanted. Take a look at the CrazyBike2 thread's last page(s?) and you'll see what I have done so far. I added them partly to fill the thickness up and partly to fill the hole size, because you can pass the whole spoke head thru most of the holes in that Crapalyte HS motor flange.

(actually it's not really a bad motor per-se, just a lot of poor design and manufacturing choices, like many of the ebike products we end up having to use).

What I would love to do is make some new flanges with the right thickness and correct size/shape spoke holes, and bolt them to the outside of the existing flanges thru the existing spoke holes. But this would make the spokes even shorter, even though the "stance" would be wider by a little, which by itself might make the wheel a little stronger against side loading, assuming the spokes are tensioned correctly, even with a radial lacing.

Presently the lacing is radial on brake side and 1x on drive side, with a bend in the spoke itself before the threaded area, as an idea from Justin to see if it helps with the lacing and stress on nipple threads with that kind of angle to the rim.

I'm looking at those Zero rims Ypedal is selling, thinking that if I can use these spokes with those rims I'd love to try them out on there, with a new set of nipples and the correct real (park tool?) spoke wrench, along with nipple washers and flange washers.


But I think what I would really like to do, if I had the facilities for it, is to finish my other frame and make the middrive in it like I'd planned to, with the rear suspension. Unfortunately it'll probably be late this year, maybe early next year, before I will be able to do that, and right now is kinda when I really need it, because of the much longer work commute over worse roads.

 

[amberwolf]

Another 20 miles on it yesterday, no wheel or other problmes yet. Will have another perhaps 5-6 miles or more today, maybe 10, when I get done with a grocery run after I do the McD wifi/brunch thing (in progress; I walk over here for the exercise and because it's actually faster than waiting for the several gaps in traffic to get across the street; walking means I can pick any of several places to cross, whenever a gap opens to let me gimp across half the road at a time, while riding means I must wait to turn right into the right lane to get out of the apts, then merge left a couple lanes, continue down the road till I can get to the entrance, then enter the turn lane, then wait to make a left turn, then wait for gas station traffic to get out of the way so i can get to the McD parking area, etc).



Actually there is one problem still: The broken seat tube on the right side that's held together with the punch hammered down into it is still broken, and the punch plus my weight on the seat has expanded the tube enough that it doesnt' fit tightly. If it wasn't so long that it cant' fall out due to the cargo pod behind the seat it would have already been lost on the street somewhere. I wrapped the end in electrical tape and retapped it into the tube, and it stays better, but really the seat needs to be rewelded still, which I am presently waiting for cool enough weather when it isn't raining and i am not working so that I can go to the house to wire up the new plug on the welder and do the repair.

I still have to figure out which wire on the welder's cord needs to go to which wire on the new plug, for 220V single-phase, four-prong twistlock. The welder manual doesn't say which is which, and I figured it out when I got it to install a nonstandard plug I happened to have male and female for to make a cable to run it from off the breaker box each time I needed to use it, but I have long forgotten what I did and the notes and sketch I had of it were lost in the fire. I found many pictures of plugs showing the W X Y G etc markings but I havent' yet found an explanation of what each of those means in relation to hot, neutral, etc., so that I can match that with the welder's wire colors (which as I recall were standard, I think).


Even once i have the welder wired to the new plug, I still have to clear out enough really big stuff that's in the way of getting the bike close enough to the outlet to do the welding (basically right up to the back of the house by the meter), and that's gonna take the help of several of the right people at the same time, presnetly not possible to schedule. (made evne harder by me having ot go back to full time at work next week).



I am really thinking about buying one or two of those Zero rims Ypedal is selling, and getting new nipples and thinner spokes that will actually stretch for tension, and the proper wrench, and relacing this HS motor again.

But i also really think this heavy motor is more suitable for a middrive--however that won't fit in the frame as CrazyBike2 exists right now; it requires the new frame to do that. I'd probably do it Rassy-style, where the chain loops up around a singlespeed freewheel on the motor, so the pedals can drive the wheel without driving the motor but the motor does drive the pedals (cuz I don't have any freewheeling cranks). However, I think I'd really prefer to have separate motor and pedal chains merge either at the wheel or at a jackshaft prior to the wheel.

Either way I want suspension on the new frame, and that means either the motor itself would end up as the suspension pivot, or I'd need a jackshaft at that pivot point, so there is no chain growth problem or tensioner to deal with, other than the wheel placement, making it easy to tension the chain and change wheels/tires/etc.

Using the motor would be relatively easy, because it has a fairly long section either side of nice thick round axle to put bearings on for the rear suspension pivot, and relatively long sections of flatted axle to clamp in the front frame.

Using a jackshaft could be even easier if I make it from scratch, but most likely would not be as easy becuse i'd likely make it out of a bike hub of some type, so I could use existing stuff for freewheels or whatever.


Kinda doesnt' matter yet as I still can't go make the frame.

 

[amberwolf]

Oh, I forgot: I did have a problme last night as I was leaving work--the brake light would only flicker for an instant each time I engaged the lever (I test all my lights before riding, especially at night). Thought it was the switch, cuz it's from the 1980s and well-used before I got it. I had wrapped the whole harness in tape around the connectors and whatnot for the rainy season, and dind't want ot undo all that to unplug it, so I just snipped into the insulation and shorted the wires, and it worked and stayed on like it should.

So then i cut and spliced the wires over to my ebrake cutoff lever for the 6FET (as I dn't really need it; no regen anyway), and it didn't work there either, which is wierd cuz i know that switch works, and it's just a switch just like the one in the Honda brake lever. :?

But now even directly shorting the wires didnt' work, so I had to unwrap the harness, and found the automotive bullets on the Honda harness were not fully plugged in any more (loose inside each other), so there was no proper voltage supply (or ground, don't remember which) for the light itself--must've been that when I did the first short test I'd moved the harness just right to cause connection.

Anyway, so I just left it on the ebrake lever for now, and squished the bullet connectors together so they can't come unplugged.


I keep saying this, but I think it's time to rewire the bike with a new harness. Since it's time to also have the new frame, I'd rather not do the rewire until I have to do it for the new frame anyway, so....bit of a dilemma. :/

 

[amberwolf]

I haven't kept up with all the projects in the board in a while now, especially since the fire, so I guess I missed that Zombiess had finished the Throttle Tamer; it's cheap enough @ $35 shipped that I think I'm just going to buy one instead of me messing around with fixing up the power supply for the CAv3 so it doesn't have to be run from my lighting pack, and then figuring out and setting up the CA's settings for throttle control (which I think will require updating to the current firmware to fix some issues I ran into in my first tests, thus would also require finding my USB/serial adapter and setting that up on the PC, wiring up a connector on it for the CA, etc).


Also, since it can run two controllers from one throttle, it'll also solve another potential issue, that of easily running the 2WD system, presently on two throttles, which on bumpy roads is sometimes unmanageable.

Still feels wierd spending money on things for the bike instead of just repurposing things for it...probably gonna be that way for a while till I get my house back and my stuff sorted, though.

 

[emiyata]

Still feels wierd spending money on things for the bike instead of just repurposing things for it...probably gonna be that way for a while till I get my house back and my stuff sorted, though.

If you need something that just works ,buying new or good used parts are your best options and in the long run it maybe cheaper.

 

[amberwolf]

Too bad I can't just buy a new frame/bike, but nothing exists that does what I want it to. :lol:


I've been having a few issues with the bike frame that need welding (or other repair, but welding would be strongest), all of them minor but in total enough to warrant a fixit day.

So I rode from the apartment to my house today on my day off from work, with the plug I'd bought to put on the extension cord I'd made for the welder so it would work with the temporary outlet they'd installed at the meter for the house (since there is no power past the meter because of the fire damage).

When I got there I noticed some stuf fhad been moved around, and then I saw that hte cords on pretty much anything that had not been in a shed had been cut off and taken, along with any loose wire, EXCEPT for all the stuff that is piled up in the scrap "I don't care about this stuff" piles. ALL of the wire there and cords on things are cmpletely intact, including hte spools of wire I didn't plan on saving.

They also stole all the larger SLA batteries for my powerchairs and motor experiments. Now, the funny thing is there is a huge pile of stuff that's worth a lot more that weighs a lot less all along the fence, and none of it was disturbed. :?

There's probably other stuff missing that I don't yet know about, cuz I have little idea what is and isn't in the sheds except for the few things I personally put there; most of it was moved / packed by people helping me right after the fire.


But while looking at it I found they'd leaned some old doors up against the outside of the security fence to make a ladder to climb it, and my only choice to remove them was to lift them (very heavy) over the fence and dump them inside the yard. I was going to put htem in the dumpster the house debris is going into but I couldn't mvoe them any farther, my head was pounding just from that, and I was sweating so hard I thought I might be leaking. That was around noonish I guess.

I'd planned to start out a LOT earlier, after Tiny's morning walkies, but nothing worked out like it should. I left pretty early and was most of the way there when I realized I had left the angle grinder and other tools that I don't have duplicates of back at the apartment. So I had to go back for those, a total of about 15 miles, I guess, wasted out of my range, and over an hour of time. I decided I'd better go ahead and recharge it, and that was another hour+ probably, and afterwards I took Tiny for another walkies, then I dozed off when we came back in. I dind't get to leave until after 11am, when it was already very hot outside, with the only clouds on the horizon, rather than overhead.

(of course, now it's compeltely cloudy, and cooling off, about 3pm, when I'm toasted and done for the day).



Unfortunately, apparently the extension cord I'd had for the welder msut've been outside a shed, cuz it ain't there. I have an identical cable that *was* inside the shed but not yet prepared to be a cord, thankfully.

However, I apparently bought the wrong size (slightly too small) NEMA plug for the twistlock 220V 4 prong, so ther'es no way it'll fit. It's also been more than a month since I bought it at ACE hardware, but I couldn't get to the house with it until now to verify it, so now I have an unopened expensive useless plug, and have to go find and buy the bigger one.


Either way, I cna't use the welder without it, but after putting anything else I could think of that I would really hate to lose to thieves into the sheds (at least, the stuff I could physically move, as I'm not that strong and I'm tired and heat-exhausted, despite drinking water constnatly I can still feel the dehydration headache pounding away. (am sitting in McDonald's using their free wifi to post this, cooling off and eating and rehydrating before I go back to the apartment, so I don't pass out).


So all I could really do is hose clamp some standoffs on the seat base to hold it up where I want it (it keeps leaning back too far cuz of wear and distortion in the mounting). Then I hammered a long long bolt into the seat back on the left side, which was beginning to show a hairline crack at a slight bend. It won't hold forever, but it should reinforce it enough until I can weld across the crack with tubing, perhaps next week. Then I clamped the two triangulation tubes on the bottom together cuz the place the come together just behind the pedals is beginning to loosen.

The rest of it I'll have to do later when it's not so hot and after I've made the welder cord.


Assuming nobody breaks into the sheds and steals the welder and tools and such.

 

[amberwolf]

Ok, headache is much much worse now, because right after I got here and sat down with my stuff, a steady stream of uncaring mothers with screaming children and babies have arrived, and all of them seem to be sitting in my seciton instead of going to the separate (almost empty) area wiht all the tables, chairs, and play equipment and stuff just for such kids.

The mothers are almost all on their phones texting or talking, instead of paying any attention to their children, some of whom are running around being destructive to other people's stuff, knocking over drinks, grabbing people's food, etc. The employees don't care, either.

If I was in any shape to ride yet I'd just leave, but I still feel sick from hte headache and can't do it. At this rate I'll probably just have to go outside and sit in the shade in the heat and hope it doesn't exacerbate the headache as much as the screaming children and adults that are yelling at them and each other (partly just to be heard over the din).

Covering my ears with my hands is not even sufficent to help hardly at all; I would probably need to kill all the cells in my hearing nerve system to fix the problem.

I've managed to nibble about half of my lunch (one of those chicken wraps as it looked least offensive ot my distressed tummy), and about 3 refills of water, and now one of "powerade" as the closest thing to something that might help my electrolytes in their selection. Since i have absolutely no sign of having to use the restroom yet, I must've been pretty dehydrated....

 

[amberwolf]

Well, the battery ran out for the laptop soon after the above, but I didn't get out of there for a while afterward, and rode home at only 12-15mph, or slower, so that the bumps in the road wouldn't explode my head. Had to stop and wait a while to prevent puking a few times, on the worst parts of the road.


But I made it home, and the temporary repairs held up ok, too. I had planned to go to a hardware store on the way home and get the right plug, but I still felt so awful I just skipped that. I still don't feel all that well yet, as I didn't sleep well and my neck/head still hurts some, though not throbbing like yesterday. If it gets better, I might go get the plug today, since there's an ACE a couple miles north and east, on the way to Fry's. Since I brought the spare cable home with me I can then wire it up to the plug, and have it ready to wire to the welder next time I get to the house in a week or two.