Building a couple of 20" wheel tadpole e-trike from scratch

[voyager]

Hi Folks
With several more miles under its wheels and lots of smiles , The trike is running well.
Ken went off clay pigeon shooting today and the weather cleared up a bit . In fact the sun came out for a little while .
I decided as the weather has turned out nice to fit the new mirrors ( I had already made some cut down goose neck stems with forward facing tabs ), after fitting the mirrors I went out for a pleasant 6 mile ride and returned home hungry and ready to make dinner .

The mirrors run quite close to the front wheels but are in the perfect spot for good rear views and the white reflectors on the front of the mirrors are above the wheels making out the width of the trike .

No Surprise now its raining again and we have a storm with real thunder and lightning .
The house was hit by a lightning bolt a couple of years ago that cause several thousand pounds worth of damage and a complete rewire , Now I get very nervous with the storm so near .

I have a new alloy rear rack to fit as my new pannier bags wont fit the existing rack

regards emma

 

[Scoosh]

Do you have room for mudguards over the front wheels ?

 

[voyager]

Because the Handlebars are really an inch each side (2" overall ) too wide the hands can and do get rather near the wheels and the Head tubes ( hence the position of the mirrors ) If and when I make a narrower pair of handlebars , I could position the Mirrors higher to accept mudguard . The original design criteria of these trikes were ( and still is for us ) to be transportable E-trike transport when we were on holiday rather than everyday transport with mudguards and lights .
The Eastern burnout tyres are virtually slicks and don't pick up much water . .

The Voyager was and still is the everyday transport trike with mudguards and lights .
I would like to build a semi velo shell for it to offer some more protection in the rain .

regards emma

 

[Tigerbiten]

The easiest way to make a shell is to use something like a streamer/windwarp fairing and a body sock.
Something like this -> http://www.bentrideronline.com/?p=1883

 

[voyager]

An Interesting Concept , originally it was something like I had in my mind but my idea was a semi rigid idea with loops but this is a good idea , I will investigate it further
thanks

regards emma

 

[voyager]

Hi Folks

With storms again early this morning it looked like another day without doing much but the sun did show for an hour and I have got the Handle bars made for the blue trike , Ken has said nothing but does not like the flat bars as they can only be ridden hands up and thumbs in . Where he prefers hands under and thumbs out , So I have made him a replacement pair of bars with the grips at 45 degrees , using these bars you can go for either position and with the twist grip throttle and pedelec sensor have motor control in both positions .
Like usual you cannot buy what you want and its a case of make it so using a flat pair or bars and a BMX set I have done a cut and shut on the bars and have ended up with a nice pair of bars about 23" wide at the top . Inside the join is a piece of split tube to ensure the bars are in the correct place and to give a better joint when welded .

A couple of coats of grey primer and two coats of satin black make a professional finish to the new handlebars .

I am only waiting for the q100 motor so I can build a replacement rear wheel with a 7 speed hub giving 21 speed instead of the 12 speed it has now and I will replace the SLA batteries with a Lithium 37v pack

regards for now emma

 

[voyager]

Hi Folks

The 36h Q100 hub arrived on Tuesday ( 327rpm 36v ) and I measured it ( 110 dia and 50mm between flanges dished 10mm ) and ordered the spokes, I have recycled a BMX rim as it matches the front pair The next day, the custom length 147mm Stainless Steel spokes arrived from e-bay and last night ( Wednesday ) evening I built the wheel and trued it . I have fitted a 11t -32 t seven speed freewheel and a 140mm rotor . This will give gears between 86 " and 16" and the 140mm rotor is more than adequate for the rear of a trike .

All I have to do is make the caliper mount after I have the wheel fitted as I need to get the brake clearances right and I have to remount the rack so it clears the caliper . Its racing car clearances again between the caliper and the hub with a 125mm overall hub and a 140mm caliper there is not much space .
The reason for using a 140mm rotor is the 160 mm rotor requires wicked things to be done to the inside of the left hand chain stay to allow the rotor to clear everything as the wheel is fitted or removed .

The q100 was fitted with a small 9 pin connector and I have made up a 9 way to 6 + 3 bullet connector conversion . to utilise the existing controller .

Not much doing for the next couple of days as I have caught a chill in my lower back and I need to take a rest ( the problems with getting old, The mind is still okay but the body complains working outside )

This hub motor change will make the jack shaft redundant but give us 21 gears ( 19 usable ) as the chain wrap will be in excess of 41t )


Photos later when its not raining .

Regards emma

 

[voyager]

Hi Folks

Started to feel human again , Nothing done on the trike but the wheel is built trued and has the tyre fitted , Felt well enough to look at the trike with a view to sort it next weekend after I make the caliper mount and the modified rack mount .

Made part of the replacement rear rack for the red trike but I need to take it easy this weekend and recharge my own batteries

regards emma

 

[voyager]

Hi Folks

I felt a bit better today , and fitted the q100 rear wheel on the blue trike and set up the caliper mount for the rear disc. The caliper mount is another home built item that bolts onto the mudguard bolt mounts , I made the prototype mount out of plastic and the actual mount from 3mm steel .

The caliper mount and the caliper prior to painting the mount and assembly

The disc rotor is running less than a millimetre away from the left hand chain stay but it clears happily even when removing and refitting the wheel . The bottle battery has been refitted and it only needs the handlebars changing and the short cables replacing as the handlebars need a few more inches of brake cable .

The rear disc upgrade also is in need of a longer cable , changing the rear mech position from the jackshaft to the rear triangle needed a chain extension together with a longer gear cable . All these jobs will need to be done at the weekend .

 

[voyager]

Here are the long awaited photos of the red one with its makeover of the mirrors , alloy rack and new panniers

Hopefully these panniers might last more than the 4 months the last set lasted

All being well it wont require any more TLC until February

Now I need a cup of tea

upload pictures online

regards emma

 

[voyager]

Hi Folks

The weekend arrived and this morning ( and some of the afternoon ) we finished the blue 20/20
The new handlebars are fitted along with the new cables ,Just before it got dark we got a few miles in around the block to test out the gears , brakes and the new electric wheel . As darkness fell we fitted the rear panniers , leaving the mirrors until next week , when the 100m m8 bolts comes for the mirror mounts ( we use cut down gooseneck tubes in the head tubes to fit the mirrors clamps to ) The original mirror mount was fabricated from a fork blade and a gooseneck.

unable to load a photo on this post

 

[voyager]

Tried again and it works . That windows virus is at it again

regards emma

 

[voyager]

Hi Folks
With the Last weekend in November giving us some marvellous weather, after We fitted the new pedals to both trikes and the mirrors to the blue trike ( here lies an odd story ) we decided to ride to Brighton for lunch and enjoy the weather whilst we can ,
We set off just before twelve and triked via the esplanade and Brighton Marina along the seafront to and stopped for Lunch at the bottom of West Street for Sausage and chips in the Sunshine before having a look at the pier and the Brighton Wheel before returning home via the cafe in Rottingdean for a cup of tea ( at £1.50 a mug ) we decided to wait until we got home for a dessert and a second Mug arriving jome just before three pm as the light was starting to fade and the sun was slipping down lower in the sky..
Now both trikes are finished and hopefully apart from a slightly out of true disc rotor wont need any more TLC until the spring . We can concentrate our efforts on the double trike rack as the metal has arrived and the set of casters are here as well .
After the fun we had with the mirror mount , one of the steerer tubes had a slightly smaller internal diameter than the other ( l had not noticed as the external thread was the same ) I machined the outside diameter of the modified gooseneck down and resprayed it and and modified the wedge with the angle grinder to fit snugly in the tube ..
I hope this weather stays for a few more weeks so we can enjoy the trikes fr longer . The batteries 37v 9 ah bottle style batteries just held out over the mainly flat with some really nasty hills both on the outward and return journey The were getting low at the end of the ride .

After the trike rack I can re concentrate efforts onto the transportable again as this only needs a few more miles ( and smiles ) before stripping and respraying and maybe a e-trike upgrade

regards emma

 

[voyager]

Hi Folks

After the mild weekend where we did get out on the trike I have done a little work on the second battery carrier .

To supplement the 37V 9ah battery fitted to the trike we are going to experiment with an optional 37v 10 ah LifePO4 battery on the rear rack . We need to see if this affects the handling and how much it will increase the range of the trike .
We hope the extended range will be in excess of 35 miles for the pair of batteries .

The LifePO4 batteries ( all 5 of them ) arrived without end plates and mounting plate . While John (AZ Sandman ) worked his miracles and the CNC milling machine threw out a pair of prototype end plate that we have fitted to the first battery , together with a rack I designed and built to mount the sliding battery onto the trike .The mount is built from 16g steel with a pair of thumbgrundles ( left ) to lock the end plate onto the rack and square section tube as stand-offs the tubes are plugged by plastic inserts and the whole rack sprayed matt black , the whole setup looks very professional

( John is going to use 2 of these on his warrior full suspension trike he is building . )

Further reports on the performance etc will follow after road tests .( both on my trike and the folding e-shopper which is now fitted with one of these batteries ).

regards emma

 

[Scoosh]

Amazing … and I think I understood some of it !