Custom Build -2 Speed RC Motored Cruiser

[KiM]

Happy New Year to you Kim as well as to your family.

I've been reading some of your build threads, and man you are very good at what you do.

I wish I'll have the skills...and tools as what you have in the future.

Jeco

Happy New Year to you and the family also Jeco and thankyou for the positive comments much appreciated. All i can suggest if you want to get into this sort of fabrication is do it, you will likely have alot of mistakes whilst learning i know i did and still do, you don't see the mess ups i make only the 'good stuff' makes it onto the net but i can assure you there are many times things are done more than once. Thanks again buddy i hope you continue to enjoy and get something from this worklog....all the best ;-)

KiM

 

[Goat Herder]

Happy new year

 

[KiM]

I have been puting off working on the bike, its assembled and looks all prurty
as it is LoL... bit the bullet and pulled it apart yesterday morning so i could weld the
rear brake caliper mounts to the frame. Slight issue of clearance i hadn't planned on but
this was over come with a few spacers...

Some very shocking welding i know, my trusty 170 dollar mig is on its last legs
the wire feed mechanism is broken, have managed to get it working...just

Long hot day in the workshop to do this, doesn't look much but it took 4 hours to get right...
The spacers will be 'trimmed' in length today, the lads rocked up for 'beer oclock'
so i quickly assembled everything for a few pics, end of the day we have a L337
Hope mono mounted on the cruiser's frame WooTz

Want to attach the mount for the stabilizer setup today, that will complete the
work on the frame and the 'prettification' can then start ;-) I'm very very keen to get this
thing rolling the silly season is over and its time to get back into it, we are at the
stage there isn't great deal left to do to get her rolling and i'm getting excited all over again hehe
The hot weather hasn't really been bothering me as much either, haven't turned my aircon on in
weeks and we have constantly had over 30C temps :-| i think my new anti spasm
medication may have something to do with it?! either way expect more
updates very soon

Back soon folks

KiM

 

[LI-ghtcycle]

Welds? What welds! An less than pretty weld is no match for a good grinder (that's how I fix my welds, wish I had your reason, I just have no skills, and an old stick welder that only works when I don't try and weld with it! )

Looks great as usual, I'm really interested in your LH drive, do I understand correctly that you have the sprocket piggy-backed onto where the brake disc is mounted?! Outstanding idea! I might do a LH drive after all to avoid double RH drive chain line issues!

Is that #25 chain on there?

 

[KiM]

@lightcycle...Only #25 chains are in the gearbox, the chains on drive and pedal side are half link BMX chains...
A disk brake sprocket adapter with additional spacers is used to mount the sprocket, Recumpence from Endless Sphere
sells them...

Yesterday for use Aussies was Australia day
its a public holiday and a pretty big day here for us Aussies, officially it's the anniversary of the
arrival of the first fleet of 11 convict ships from "The Motherland" in 1788...Today
it's a celebration of Australia and being Australian... and of course another excuse to get pissed :mrgreen:

A Few of the mates made an early trek south to Mandurah, waded around in waist deep
water for an hour with scoop nets and picked up 34 blue manna crabs
on the way back they also grabbed some prawns, after all what would Australia Day be
without prawns on the bar-b-q right! :mrgreen: too keep the prawns company we threw on some scallops to....
then coated them with a nice chilli marinade :: mouths starting to water ...again...:: :lol:

I almost feel sorry for you member's under 3 foot of snow....almost but not quite :mrgreen:


A little belated but to all Australians Happy Australia day i hope you had a terrific day
and the hangovers ain't too serious Personally I think it should be a two day public holiday
one to celebrate one to recover, but thats just me ;-P anywayz moving on.....

My dear brother was up at 5.20am yesterday morning dropping his welder off for me
I have it till Saturday so need all welding done on the frame by then.

SO...Before i got the invite to the barby i managed to get a good start on the stabilizer
setup for the bike. I want a lighter system than on the cruiser, bere in mind this is a stabilizer
to aid in keeping the bike upright for transferring from wheelchair to bike & assist my
wobbly legs to hold the bike up when stationary. I have more than adequate leg
strength to hold up a bike, i don't have very good control, this is what the stabilizers will help with
this they don't need to be incredibly strong, as such i have opted for a single length
of 16mm solid steel bar for the stabilizer arms.

4mm steel plate is being used at the ends of these stabilizers to hold wheels that i am fabricating
from polyethylene, don't worry they wont stay white either, rit dye on the stove simmering
for 30-40minutes dyes the poly reasonably well, they will be black.

Having been "interrupted" by the whole Australia Day bar-b-q this is as far as i got, thankfully i
was able to limit myself to a six pack of beer i was ever wary of going to hard and be laid up with a hangover for 2 days
remembering the welder is mine only to Saturday....shall be back with completed
bars or close too it by days end...

hrmz..have 8 crabs i bought home, going to be a lovely crab and salad roll for Lunch
while soaking up the 33c forecast temps...hoes that snow doing for you fellas in the
"The Motherland" the USofA and Cunook land. :mrgreen:

Back soon folkz...

KiM

 

[fasteddy]

KiM, I often wonder what those poor people must have thought when the ships stopped and the anchors dropped and they realized that they would never see "home" again.

Bet many of them weren't guilty of any thing more than shop lifting to live. Sad.

Always laughed at a story that a former German WW2 soldier I worked with, told me.
He was a machinist before the war and when he was a POW there was a call for anyone who could fix the camps cook stoves. Walter got them working when no one else could so he was the camp fix it man. This led to him going with various U.S. soldiers to the Allied soldiers camp bar.

One time a bunch of Aussie soldiers came in and he said none of them were under 6'6. Just then a British soldier yells out "Good God, the convicts are here". Seems every one not British ran for cover and watched the mayhem. Not a Limey left that could crawl and the Aussies put them out in the street so the medics could carry them off.
I could hear the amazed tone in his voice when he told me the story.

Food looks wonderful and I admire your beverage intake restraint. Hard with great food.

To keep this on the up and up, do you do all your pipe bends with the hydraulic bender in the back ground and if so does it flatten out the bends at all?

Steve.

 

[KiM]

Hot and humid in West OZ & cyclone on its way down from the North West
due to hit today or tomorrow somewhere on the South of the coast
resulted in a horribly sticky day in the workshop yesterday ... I also
had issues with the welding, turns out the brothers welder
wasn't up to welding 4mm plate to 16mm rod, well not in the middle
of it anywayz, Timma2500 and myself came to the conclusion
too much heat dissipation in the center of the stabilizer to weld
on the 4mm thick mounting tabs, apparently though enough juice to weld the
mounting plates for the wheels on the ends of the stabilizer bars as these i
welded on easily...

Thanks to the 'two Pauls'..Timma2500 and my best mate Snapper for their assistance
in the arvo lining everything up for an attempt at getting the mounting system finished...
better luck today, (more on that below)... We did manage to get the bar tacked long enough to
raise and lower the stabilizer, she will work a treat when all welded solid, the bars raise
high up and out of the way, so no chance of hitting on those big lean angles...likely only to be seen
on the way to the ground when falling off...unless of course ThudSTaR 8) ever gets to these parts
and takes it for a blat :shock: :lol:

As can be seen, i have also knocked up a couple of new 'wheels' from polyethylene the
original 'lightening holed' wheel was actually a chain tensioner i made early in the piece
for the old blue cruiser's original belt drive setup...

Now the bars still remain unattached and my bro grabbed his welder this morning, not that
it was usable to finish the job: :-S anyhoot..Last night Snapper offered to pick me and the bike
up in the 'Bengenering work truck' take it to work and use the industrial grade MiG to
weld it up... 7.45am this morning, phone rings .. It's Snapper he is on his way up, bringing
one of the MiGs from work to finish the job WooTz! ;-)

I got LiPO! yesterday too! all cells bar one are between 3.84-85v the odd one out is 3.79v...reckon i can live
with that, shall cycle them a few times i think we will then have all cells perfectly balanced
and ready to roll... I have a Hyperion EOS-1420i NET3 14s Balance Charger on the way thanks to Mr GGoodrum and a pair of 24v Meanwels to complete my
bulk charging/balancing setup... These are great value chargers TPPacks.com offering ES member's a $US50 discount off advertised price! get in quick while the offer lasts!

More soon chaps..

KiM

 

[KiM]

KiM, I often wonder what those poor people must have thought when the ships stopped and the anchors dropped and they realized that they would never see "home" again.

Bet many of them weren't guilty of any thing more than shop lifting to live. Sad.

Always laughed at a story that a former German WW2 soldier I worked with, told me.
He was a machinist before the war and when he was a POW there was a call for anyone who could fix the camps cook stoves. Walter got them working when no one else could so he was the camp fix it man. This led to him going with various U.S. soldiers to the Allied soldiers camp bar.

One time a bunch of Aussie soldiers came in and he said none of them were under 6'6. Just then a British soldier yells out "Good God, the convicts are here". Seems every one not British ran for cover and watched the mayhem. Not a Limey left that could crawl and the Aussies put them out in the street so the medics could carry them off.
I could hear the amazed tone in his voice when he told me the story.

Food looks wonderful and I admire your beverage intake restraint. Hard with great food.

To keep this on the up and up, do you do all your pipe bends with the hydraulic bender in the back ground and if so does it flatten out the bends at all?

Steve.

Apologies i missed the post...yes i do use a hydraulic bender, one in back ground, it does crush tubing its far from ideal. I don't use thin wall tubing as you would find on bicycle frames its half to a mili,eter thicker...

My father fought WWII i heard some great stories from his time in the war...Australian Solders were a feared lot by the
enemy by all accounts i have heard.

KiM

 

[fasteddy]

Thanks KiM, I'll source some heavy wall tubing.

Steve.

 

[KiM]

SO...we got to welding the stabilizer arm up since last post
and the bike is now free standing at last, i have climbed on
and tested her for size, shes perfect and the seat strangely is
not that bad for my broke ass to sit on...for short rides at least :lol:

The stabilizers hold me steady just as planned, there is slight flexing
but its not a problem when i am on the bike, i like the look of the setup
its not as 'obvious' as the stabilizers on the blue cruiser IMO......

The Hyperion EOS 1420i NET3 14s Balance Charger...
from Mr GGoodrum along with a Meanwel charger were also delivered on friday..
I went about hooking them up for a test last night...

I drilled a hole and fitted a rubber grommet in the back of the Meanwel
to run an AC power cord, i find this setup favorable over hanging the cords
out the front of the supply.

I have started fabricating a bus bar system for the bike,
battery setup in favor of a heap of wires to parallel the packs up
The bars are cut from 3mm thick copper plate i had lying around the
idea came from one of Liveforphysics drawings in the EVdrag car
thread on this forum, albeit in a much scaled down version
cheers Luke ;-).

The bus bars are mounted to polyethylene which will then be bolted
to the right angle alumnium on the main panel 4 lipo packs
per side for 44v 20ah setup...If i lay the packs end to end i can
actually fit 30ah worth in, but seeing i never used more than 12ah out
of the 20ah pack in the cruiser, i settled on the 20ah arrangement...
For those worried about shorts between the two bars, the black
plexi in above pics will cover the bus bars, what about water
i hear some asking LoL... siiif this bike will ever see wet weather
conditions I dont ride in the wet...Should make for a neat
setup i think, pack wires will be under 2inch long an inch
of that a bullet connector

Hope to solder the connectors to the bus bar today and finish
mounting it to the alumnium angle...more soon

KiM

 

[KiM]

@GTadmin... I haven't soldered the bullets as yet,
you are correct with a 4mm hole they 'press' into
the copper and are solid, i think filling the bullet
with solder using a 130w iron i'll get enough heat
in the area to secure them, shall let ya know lil later today
if this fails I'll simply use a butane torch, as to the
the fires, they are close to me but still the other
side of the 'hill' and i'm in no danger at all.
Something like 60 houses have been burnt too
the ground in the last 3 days. My friends fathers
house in RolleyStone was one of them. Two other
of my friends were evacuated from their houses
but fortunately the 90km/hr wind changed direction
as such the fire did and their houses were unaffected.
I wouldn't have liked to be a fireman thats for sure
temps into the mid 30C all weekend...i wonder if
our resident fireman Matt.P was involved? The
fire now is thankfully under control.

The bus bars...shaped the plexi and fitted the pieces yesterday afternoon, then mounted them on the bike

I shall tackle the soldering today, i am off to local electronics
store late this afternoon (friends driving me) too pick
up the connections for the battery harness, switch
few other bits and pieces to complete the wiring...

I did some work on a friend of a friends laptop on the
weekend, needed a new hard drive and formatting
the fella who's lappy it was, came across a Gell Seat
cover thought it would be perfect for my bike, well
it doesn't fit properly and doesn't look the best, but
anything helps my broke ass, its 100% more comfy...

I also scored a bike frame/fork its the most unusual looking
frame, originally had a ICE motor mounted on it, i shall
take pics today and post it, i might build it up as
an ebike and flog it off to make me some pocket
money... Got a good deal on a 9C frock for me
HiGHSiDE Hyena :!: :?: SiiiiiiiF

Back soon guys

KiM

 

[KiM]

This is the third time i have attempted this post for one reason
or another the browser was closed grr freakin hate that....anywayz
...bus bars soldered with 4mm bullets :: check ::

Very happy with how the soldering went, when finished i gave
the copper a quick 'whip' over with a wire brush on the dremel
to clean them up a lil...

I also did a lil video, im far from an expert when it comes
to soldering with a butane torch, this was my first effort at it
never the less it might help others here in some way-->

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4pu0Yk-NQ0

The next issue was the serial connection, the brass threaded
rods are quite close together but there's room enough for some
juicy connections still, I decided on 8 guage size wire for this connection. After removing the wires insulation at the end points i proceeded too
split the copper wire into equal lengths, then wrapped the ends
around a jewelers screwdriver too form a 'loop' then flooded the
wire with solder-->

When the wire was totally soaked through with solder, i used a
file & dremel with a grinding stone to shape & flatten the wire/solder
out so as a good connection with the bus bar is possible when
fastened down...

I will continue with the wiring today, not sure how far i will get
not feeling too sharp this morning....back with whatever work
done later today ...

KiM

 

[KiM]

I got shortening all the leads on the lipo today
the wire is now around 2 inches long on each
positive and negative lead...

I also did a quick video showing the method i
use to solder connectors to the leads, i thought
it might be helpful for others that haven't done
this before...I'm no expert on this, it's simply
how i do it and its worked without failure.

YouTube - Soldering Gold bullet connectors

I have decided how the rest of the wiring will
be done after much procrastination today
involves one project box containing a 200amp
switch a Lyen DC-DC converter and a couple
of small bus bars ...Luke i think i'm a
bus bar addict now too HAHA

...Back tomorrow folks...

KiM