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These
pages will list smaller trike related projects, basic building tips/methods,
etc.
DIY
Lighting
As the volume of my riding increases,
I find I am in need of lighting for the darker mornings while riding
to work. After seeing a number of do-it-yourself light projects,
I decided to do my own in the same method and try to save myself some
money.
| I'd
already added tabs to the front of the axle housings with the plan
of using them for fenders or fairing mounts. A
tab was located at the front and center of the BB for lights, but
I still had plans to add a front fairing, so opted for the axle
housing mount instead. I had already read that 12v MR-11 Halogens
were the optimum choice for DIYers, so I bought a 20w and 10w bulb
at the local hardware store (Canadian
Tire) for about $10. I pulled one bulb out of the pack
and went down the plumbing isle to locate some kind of "housing".
The PVC adapters for a bathroom sink's drain turned out to
be a perfect fit so I bought two for about $4. I bought a
roll of 16 gauge wire for about $7 and a couple rocker switches
for $2 each. The light mounts on a small piece of scrap 1"
angle iron with a bolt through the bottom. The angle iron
was then bolted to the tab on the trike. The light can be
swivelled both up and down, and left and right to get proper aiming
so I can run one light as a high beam, and the other as a low beam. The
lights turn with the front wheels and while it's sort of "cool",
it's not really required as the light beam is broad enough to light
up the road when turning. The lights can get pretty warm if
you're moving slow, which starts to soften the plastic a little.
I was concerned the PVC end cap would work loose and I'd lose
a bulb, so I drilled a couple small holes and lock wired the cap
on. |
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| For
batteries, I went to Princess
Auto and bought two 12v, 3.2 AH SLA batteries for about $8 each.
They don't have a lot of capacity, but I only need lights
(right now) for 1½ hours max, and wiring them up in parallel
should provide lots of juice for that. Additionally, I was
planning on only running one headlight at a time. I sewed
up a small nylon bag with ½" foam padding sewn into
the sides so it would hold the batteries firmly. There is
also a 1" velcro strap to further secure the batteries. The
pouch is made to velcro onto the horizontal cross bar of the seat
frame and one can be mounted on each side if necessary. The
pouch is big enough to hold both batteries, or one larger battery,
as well as the ability for me to make another pouch to be attached
on the other side to extend light duration if need be. |
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| Here,
the battery pouch is mounted on the seat bar. It can be mounted
on either side of the seat with the wires zip-tied to the seat support
and they can run to either side to connect to the batteries, or
both at once. The pouch can easily be removed for when I need/want
to charge the batteries. |
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| The
two lighted 12v rocker switches are mounted on the left side frame
rail just under the seat, which is both out of the way and in easy
reach. Running both lights at once gets me a little over 1
hour running time while just running one is good for about 1:45
to 2 hours depending on if I run the 10w or 20w more. The
wires are zip-tied flat against the inside of the frame rails out
of harm's way and run back to the batteries and forward to the lights.
Each light has its own switch. |
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Here, the lights are mounted
and aimed. I'm pretty happy with the illumination and still
need to tweak the aim a little bit to get optimum lighting, but
they are more than sufficient as is.
As a side note, after building
them, I found small auto Halogen kits at Canadian
Tire starting at about $50. The quick and easy way is
to buy one of these kits complete with 2 covered MR-11s, wiring
and switches, then just pick up the batteries.
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Top
Trike
Crate, Python Crate
I made a trike to sell on Ebay, but
prior to posting it there, I had checked with two couriers about shipping
it to various points on the North American continent. With the
dimensions and weight, they said no problem and they could pack it.
After the fact, they then said they couldn't take it unless it
went "freight" which would have cost $1,800 (ludicrous) and
I would have to make my own crate. In the mean time, the trike
went up as "local pick-up only" on Ebay, and as no, surprise
being in the middle of the winter in the "local pick-up zone"
it didn't sell. The upside is, I have 7 emails indicating that
if I could find a way to ship it, it was sold and I found a company
(Purolator).
So, I ran right out and bought the materials to make my "Cratenstein".
Here it is.
First, it's made out of simple 1/8"
Masonite, a few scraps lengths of 2" x 4", and some 2"
x 2" lumber. I removed all three wheels from the trike, and
took one end of the steering linkage arm off so I could make the trike
as narrow and short as possible to fit in the 216" size limits.
A 4' x 8' sheet of Masonite wouldn't fit in my van, and it was
snowing so I didn't want to put it on top, so I used my "2 free
cuts per sheet" to have the lumber yard cut the sheets into two
2' x 8' sheets, which was my planned finished dimensions anyway(at least
for width/height) :)
| I cut the 2" x 2" pieces
to length, along with the pre-cut Masonite. I used two 2'
long pieces of 2" x 4" to act as both feet, and the main
anchor points for the front and back end. I screwed the 2"
x 4" pieces up through the bottom using 3" wood screws
and made gussets for the front supports out of some more scrap pieces
of 2" x 4". On the next crate, I'll substitute some
angle iron or light box tube for the 2 x 4's and add a mount at
the rear, one on each side, for the front wheels. |
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| I used 2" x 2" pieces
to frame out the skeleton with an extra piece in the middle of the
top and sides for stiffness. I had a line on a pneumatic stapler
and a portable compressor, but they fell through, so I used 1½"
drywall screws to fasten it together. The final crate was light
enough to be lifted by one person atabout 120lbs, but it was a pretty
awkward size and shape. |
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| The arrows point to the screws
along the bottom that have black circles spray painted around them.
If you remove these screws, the four sides and top can be
removed as one unit which just leaves the frame sitting in the base
as in the top picture. On the next crate I'll cut a few small
round holes in the top corners to act as finger holes to aid in
lifting the crate top off. The final dimensions were about
76"L x 24"W x 26"H. |
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30 May 2006
A brave soul was interested
in the BHP so I made another crate for it so it could be shipped
out. This second one went considerably faster because I
already had a good idea of what to do/not do from the first one.
I made the crate so it would
only provide about ½" of clearance on both ends when
completed, and made it just wide enough to clear the tailbox.
I deflated the tires a little and screwed two pieces of
2" x 4", for each tire, to act as simple vises to hold
the bike firmly vertical. The handlebars, brakes, front
fender, etc all packed on the sides in bubble wrap.
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| Once the python was squared away
in the base section, I built the sides and ends, screwed them together,
and then slid them down over the bike, and screwed them to the base.
I added some bubble wrap, paked the seat and front fender,
and then it was ready for the top. |
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The final crate is pictured
to the right. The screws to undo were painted black again,
and this time I was clever and actually cut hand-holds in the
sides. While the crate was a little awkward due to its size,
it only weighed about 90 lbs total - so it was easy to manage
for one person. The final dimensions were 76¼"L
x 26¼"H x 15¼"W. A simple, durable
and re-usable crate that cost under $50 Cdn.
With some design changes to
the trikes, and some ideas for some lowracer bents, the crates
can be made even smaller still.
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Top
Trike
Rack
With a growing number of trikes to
transport, I decided it was high time to develope a better method of
moving them around than having one trike inside my van, one on the roof,
and the 2 in a borrowed trailer. In looking at the options on
the net, they were few and far between and were definitely out of my
price range at $500 US and up, and certainly nothing with the capacity
that I was after. Additionally, it seems that you carry trikes
or pull a trailer, but not both. I decided I could build a better
mouse trap that might be able to carry 3 trikes on the rear, fold down
so I can open the rear of my van AND give me the ability to pull a trailer,
all at the same time if I want.
| First
things first, I tried to make a rough (very rough) 3D model of the
rear of the van with all the critical dimensions present so I had
a baseline to start from. I wanted to have two trikes mounted
vertically on each side, with hopefully enough room up the middle
of them for a third trike pointing down. Also, I wanted to
carry two more on the roof as the OEM "roof rack", if
you can call it that, is rated for 150 lbs, which is more than enough
capacity for a light steel rack and two ~45lb trikes . . . hopefully
:) |
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| After
my scary little 3D version basically validated my concept (I thought),
I took the 2" hitch off the van and welded two 2" x 3/16"
pieces of square tube to the sides of it, 18 inches long, and angled
them back about 20 degrees. I welded two more shorter pieces
to those, vertically, and welded 1/4" x 1" steel tabs
to act as pivots for the 1" box tube arms that would form a
parallelogram to allow the rack to pivot down and to the rear while
still holding the trikes in roughly the same orientation. Lastly,
I welded up a 1" box tube rectangle to attach the top of the
1" vertical arms to. The rectangle section is basically
the "omni mount" section and will have the actual T-shaped
trike racks attached to it. The rectangular section can be
used to fasten anything I like to it though. Trikes, bikes,
bents, luggage holders, etc. The 1" box tube is all 1/8"
wall with grade 5 pivot bolts and stainless steel washers and can
take my 230lbs hanging off the back with ease. Two 1/4"
safety pins, at about the bumper height, secure the rack in the
upright position, and with nothing on the rack, it will rotate down
until the 4 arms are slightly lower than parallel to the ground.
No tools are required to lower the rack and it takes about
5 seconds to undo the pins. The rack and hitch are probably
close to 60 lbs in my typical over-built style, but it stays on
the rear of the van so I don't need to carry it around, and my concern
was it's ability to hold ~150 lbs of trikes if need be. I
took it to my local powder shop and had it powder coated while they
were doing a run of UV resistant semi-gloss black. The
Finishing Centre |
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| With
the pins removed, and the rack lowered to this angle, the rear hatch
can be opened. If the rack pivots down further, it stops about
12" from the ground. While the whole rack is not neccessarily
light, it can easily be raised and lowered with one hand right now.
Once two 40 lb trikes are on it, it will undoubtedly require
two hands to lift, but I'll have to see how awkard, if it is at
all, it is to lift at that time. I can determine how high
or low to mount the actual trike racks when I finish them. I
want to make sure they mount high enough on the rack to allow the
rear hatch to open, and also high enough so the van's exhaust doesn't
overheat the one trike's rear tire and blow it up. |
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| Here,
the rear hatch is open. The rack is low enough that item's/groceries/luggage
can easily be lifted over it, and if need be, you can step over
the arms and stand in the middle of it. I've also loaded trikes
into the back of the van with the rack down in the position pictured.
If my measurements hold, I should be able to carry two trikes
on the roof, one in the back and 3 on the rear. I can also
pull a trailer and have a design that mounts an inexpensive rack
that can carry at least 8 trikes, in two layers, on a simple utility
trailer. |
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| The
actual T-racks for the trikes are under production at the moment,
and I'll add more pictures when one is complete. The trike
racks will adjust to fit a track of anywhere from about 24"
up to about 37". They'll take a trike with a wheelbase from
about 33" up to about 52", and they can mount vertically,
either cranks up or cranks down, and they can also be used horizontally.
I'll use bungee cord (2 per wheel) to hold the trike on the
rack because I can get 6 for $1 at the buck shop. Low tech,
inexpensive and easy to replace. |
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11 Sept 2006
So, it's been a long time in
the updating, but the rack is in fact finished and often in use.
To the right are the parts that I used to make the stirrups
that hold the wheels of either a bike or trike. From left
to right:
- 2" x 1/16" steel tube cut lengthways down the
middle
- below that, 2 pieces of 1/8" sheet steel
- ¼" pin
- ¼" steel rod bent into "J"
- 3/8" rubber hyraulic hose pieces
- piece of bike frame tubing to use as bending jig for the
steel rod
So, basically, after the 2"
box steel is cut down the middle, the "J" shaped steel
rod is welded one one side of the 2" steel, at the end. The
two pieces of 1/8" sheet steel tabs are welded one on each
side of the 2" steel, at the other end.
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In the picture to the right,
you can see the finished stirrups. Some of them have a small
piece of 1" angle iron welded to them because that is how
they will be bolted onto the trike rack. Some have the hooks
on the left and some have the hooks on the right. That is
so that the bent being loaded on the right side of the trike rack
can easily slide into the stirrups with the hook on the left side
becuase the opening is to the right. The stirrups with the
hook on the right side are for the bent that will be loaded on
the left side of the rack.
The way they work is that the
hook has about 3" of space between the bottom of the "J's"
short leg and the top of the "U" shaped 2" steel.
The bent's wheel slides in through this opening, the weight
of the bent then pulls the wheel down which locks the "J"
hook against the wheel's rim while at the same time the tire drops
down into the "U" shaped section of the 2" steel
and prevents the wheel from moving left or right, or twisting.
The small sections of rubber hose go over the "J"
to protect the rim's and provide a little cushion and shock absorption.
The two flanges at the opposite end to the hook have two
¼" holes each. The ¼" pins slide
through these holes, as pictured, and lock the wheel and tire
into the "U" shape of the 2" steel to prevent the
wheels from accidentally hopping off the "J" hooks when
a bump is hit. One hole in the flange is lower down for
smaller wheels and/or thinner tires, and the 2nd hole is further
up for fatter rim and wheel combinations.
The stirrup in the top right,
and bottom left do not have angle iron welded to them, but instead
have two ¼" holes drilled in the bottom of the "U".
These two stirrups will be bolted to the vertical section
of the "T" shaped trike rack, while the stirrups with
angle iron will be bolted to the horizontal section of the "T"
shaped rack.
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To the right is pictured a delta
trike on the "T" shaped trike rack. These "T"
shaped racks are bolted to the main rectangular section on the
back of the van. The "T" sections are made out
of plain 1¼" x 1/16" square steel tube and are
long enough to accommodate and wheelbase of any trike or bike
I build. For a bike, the "T" rack can be mounted
either as pictured, or right side up. For a tadpole, the
"T" section is simply flipped 180 degrees (to keep the
cranks from hitting the ground) or used as is.
For different wheelbases, simply
position the stirrups where required, drill two ¼"
holes for each stirrup, and bolt them in place. For setting
the track of a trike, again, position the stirrups, drill the
holes and bolt them on. For a different bent with different
wheelbase or track, simply reposition the ones that don't line
up, drill new holes, and remount the stirrups. The beauty
of this is that the stirrups have their own locks so it is impossible
for the trikes to ever fall off, and for security while on the
rack, a cable or U-lock can secure the bent to the rack, which
is locked ot the vehicle.
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To the right are a couple pictures
of the rack in use. The top one has 3 trikes mounted on
the way to some ice racing. On the left side is a tadpole
with skate blades (on a modified T rack due ot the skate bleades),
in the middle is a delta trike, and on the right is a tadpole.
With the trikes on the rack and the rack folded down, the
rear of the van can still be opened. A 4th tadpole is inside
the van.
In the bottom picture, some
of the stirrups have been repositioned to allow two wheelers to
be carried instead of trikes. At the back left is a tadpole.
In the middle is a high racer, and on the right side a Baron
clone. The only thing that needed to be added was two tie-downs
per bike to prevent them from swinging left and right while in
the stirrups the same way motorcycles are lashed to trailers.
They worked fine and were fast and simple to employ. 4
or 5 two wheelers could be mounted on the rack and there is room
for a 3rd two wheeler on the right hand side in the bottom picture.
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all instances, the bents' wheels are more than high enough off the
ground to prevent strikes and the van exhaust is away from the tires
so overheated tire explosions are not a threat. I'm very happy
with the function, capacity and flexibility of the rack, but it
can be a little heavy to drop down with 3 or more bents on it. I
have a spare 2" hitch so I'm going to build a side swing version
with a simplified "T" system but still using the stirrups.
Simplified versions of the stirrups are also being used to
store some other bents in my garage and work much better than the
big plasticized steel hooks that can be bought commercially. The
hooks end up bending a little but the stirrups haven't budged at
all. |
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Trike
Trainer Rollers
2 Wind Trainer Rollers
3
I didn't want my fitness level to
sag during the cold weather, so I decided to make a trainer/roller so
I could ride my trikes at work during lunch in our little ad-hoc gym.
I wasn't particularly excited about spending a couple hundred
dollars on one, so I decide to use some scraps of steel and an old front
hub and make my own.
| I
was given a conveyor belt roller that was bought at a surplus store.
I wasn't sure the roller would be able to take the rpm's
I figured the trike's rear wheel would generate based on the look
of the roller's bearings. I decided to take an old front hub,
cut it in half, and then weld the hub halves to the end of a scrap
piece of black pipe I had. I cut the axle as well, and extended
it by the length of the piece of black pipe, and welded it back
together. Aside from the unevenness of the pipe itself, it
rolls smooth and evenly. |
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| I
took some more pieces of 1" box tube, and some 1½"
angle iron to make the rest of the trainer. I made a roller
mount out of some angle iron and the long T section connects the
roller to the front wheel stirrups. The front wheel stirrups
can slide left and right to adjust for the track of different trikes,
and my trikes are all close enough in wheel base that I don't need
to adjust for length. The trainer can be disassembled into
the pieces shown without any tools in a matter of about 10 seconds. |
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| The
center of the roller and its mount connects to the back of the T
section and the trike tire just sits on the middle of the roller.
The wheels axle is about half an inch forward of the roller's
center and tends to push the roller back and down. I thought
I might need to add some kind of fan to increase the drag, but it
turns out the weight of me and the trike on the small contact patch
is enough to produce a sufficient level of resistance without any
fancy devices. |
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| The
front wheel stirrups slide onto the front end of the T shaped piece
and hold the trike in position on the roller to keep the front wheels/handle
bars from turning. |
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| This
is a side shot of the trike on the roller. I messed up on
the measurements and the front is about 2 inches lower than it should
be, but I got used to it pretty quickly and it's no bother at all
now. For the trainer, I put an extra computer on the rear
wheel, because the trikes computer is hooked to the right front
- which doesn't move :) When I've been on the trike enough,
I can ride the trike and maintain about a 32 to 35 kph speed while
keeping my cadence up. I usually average in the 30 to 33 kph
range on the road so it's a pretty close approximation to the actual
riding resistance - mainly by pure luck. Due to the small
contact patch, the tire heats up a little bit, but not alarmingly
so. It can be a little noisy when I'm sprinting up over 45
kph, but I sit and pedal while watching a TV at the front of the
room. After about 300 km, there's a little bit of tire rubber
on the floor behind the roller, but the tire still appears to be
in good shape, so I'm not worrying too much about it. Overall,
I'm very happy with the performance and durability. I greased
the hubs bearings well when I initially assembled the modified roller,
and it has required zero maintenance in close to two years and maybe
600 km worth of riding. |
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1 Dec 2006
Based on the success of the
first roller I made, I made a dual roller version out of the same
basic materials. 2" black pipe, a couple old steel front
hubs, some 1" box tube and a few bits of angle iron. A
little gloss black spray paint for the rollers and some gloss
red for the frame, and it doesn't look too hideous. I welded some
3/8" nuts on the underside at the 4 corners to act as feet
and hopefully make it move around less than the first one that
sat flat on the 1" tube. It didn't move around much
at all really, but I was trying to advance the design a little.
When using it, the roller as well as the front wheel stirrups
sit on a couple inexpensive little mats because:
- I didn't want the feet digging into the concrete floor
- the concrete floor is a little uneven in spots and the
mat compensates for this
- I didn't want the metal fram and rollers to vibrate or
"ring" while in use and the mat acts as a bit of a
sound dampner.
With about 2 hours of testing
on it, I'm very happy with it. The black pipe isn't made perfectly
round so there is a slight vibration at certain speeds, but it
is not noticeable at higher speeds, the roller doesn't move around
and the amount of drag is enough that I don't need to add extra
friction or drag.
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At
about the same time, a friend of mine was getting rid of an old
10 speed wind trainer he had kicking around. On initial
inspection, I wasn't sure what I could do with it, or how I could
use it for a bent, especially one with small wheels. I took
it though, because I am a bit of a pack-rat and thought I might
be able to use the parts for something, at some point.
The section with the fans on
it is pretty much the way it came, but the fans pointed backwards.
The center section of 1½" box tube was about
3 feet long and had a section that attached near midpoint, that
you would clamp onto the chainstays just behind the BB shell (in
the area where you would mount the old center stands). Further
towards the other end, there was an adjustable mount with a skewer
on it to fasten to your forks, and between the fork mounts and
the chainstay clamp, it held the bike in position because there's
only about 2½" to 3" of space between the fan
housings. You could adjust the drag teh fans produced by
rotating some round side plates up to cover off the fans' air
inlets.
I started by shortening the
center section, getting rid of the chainstay clamp completely,
and cutting down the fork mount because it had adjustable feet,
like the rear section. I made another roller out of some
2" black pipe and an old hub and welded a 1" box tube
and ¼" plate mount across the base of the old fork
mount. Welded it all up, cleaned the old paint off it. Repainted
it and mounted the fan outlets so they face forward so they can
blow towars the seat and provide a little cooling effect. After
a 10 minute test ride, I'm pretty happy with it, and it provides
enough drag that I don't have to worry about moving the side plates
down yet.
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18 Dec 2006
While the 2nd set of rollers
work fine, I realized I could have simply bought a spare set of
rollers from a Tacx bike roller and it would most likely be more
quiet and roll a little smoother than the douoble steel roller
one I built. So, I bought two replacement rollers, used
two 11" long pieces of scrap 1" box tube, and welded
some ¼" x 1¼" by 2"L steel tabs to
the sides of them and mounted the rollers at 9" between centres,
just like the full rollers have them spaced. They work like
a charm and the small mat is to further add some sound absorption
and protect the concrete floor as it seems to be a pretty low
quality pour.
To stop the trike from accidently
rolling off the rollers, and to raise the front, I made some stirrups
out of a few more scrap pieces of box tube and 1" angle iron.
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