I sure am seeing lots of tadpole motortrikes lately and at a ratio approaching one out of thirty motorcycles.
Still see the very occasional delta motortrike.
winkinatcha said:
...Ya trailer braking, have been letting my subconscious play with trailer breaking ideas for a while, n the thing I want to try to impliment eventually once my brain stops playing, is somewhat similar to some cage-based (aus motorcycle term for cars) heavy trailer braking system, IE a way of actuating the brakes using the trailer's weight when the towing vehicle decelerates...
here in 'murica that was a popular system for trailers until the 80's-90's when electromagnetic-actuated mechanical brakes supplanted them. The system is still used as an emergency disconnect brake on trailers.
winkinatcha said:
Also regarding running two cables to brakes on seperate two wheels of trailer... saw an episode of monster garage a whiles back where they had two brake levers mounted opposite each other, (imagine if you had break levers on each end of handlebars, you chop handlebars in half and line up brake levers so pivots are facing each other), so if you had something between em you could push one way to activate one brake, and pull the other way to activate the other. Then, with a pivoting rod between 'em that pivoted on a 90 degree axis to the way the brake levers would be pulled you put a trianglur shaped block at the same level as the brake levers, pointy end between the levers and wide end just touching the outer ends of both levers. If you move the rod towards the Brake lever pivots, the triangular block compresses each lever at the same time, thus applying braking force to both cables and onto the trailer wheels...
I built that type of system for my previous trailer so I only had to hook up one cable between the trike and the trailer. I unfortunately used three brake levers, making it a clumsy system to operate.
Sancho's Horse said:
I have been thinking about trailer braking also. I have been putting together a system so there is a slight delay between when the braking begins (in the trailer) and the rest of the bike begins braking. I am even considering putting regen on the trailer, as well as disk. Just a slight delay, but hopefully enough so that the compression you are talking about doesn't lead to any squirrelly behavior.
I intend to use the trailer brakes simply as a "drag" brake to be used on long downhill descents where normal brakes quickly overheat. (included rim, disc and band brakes)
Where I live and play I negotiate up to 30% grades... although most grades are below 6% -it's the reason I use two motors and a drag brake is a necessity (which I currently don't have, so I get to smell burning rubber on MT#1 at times)
Once upon a time there was a drum brake manufactured for tandem bicycles that made an excellent drag brake but it's no longer manufactured and all previous stocks have been depleted. Perhaps the 200-something disc brakes are an alternative but the 160mm disc brake I have certainly isn't. (tektro IO)
Anyways, it occurred to me that (big DD) motors would make an excellent drag brake where I can use my battery packs as the power sinks (regen) without resorting to large external power sinks such as resistors, space heaters or active devices.
So i came up with a simple two-buss charge-discharge system that allows me to manually select which battery pack is on what buss: one buss dedicated to the regen and bulk charger and the other buss dedicated to the solar-powered charging system.
Motor controllers and battery packs switchable between the two busses.
-Really it's just a handful of DPDT power switches.
Sancho's Horse said:
I have even considered stagecoach braking for inspiration. Just cram a log between the outside of the spinning wheel and some solid part of the trailer frame...whoa!!!
You might also consider a boat anchor ala "Popeye" :lol:
...hmmm. Maybe if I used the solar panels as a parachute/reverse sail
***rubs his hairy chin***