Sustainably built Amphibious camper trike!

[libarata]

Have you thought about eventually getting a little wind turbine? There may not always be sun, but there is usually wind of some sort, especially while traveling.

If you are ever in Virginia just let me know. I can try and find tradeshows in my area(pretty rural though), and I have plenty of room/can find remote spots for you.

If there were more places around me that used BTC, I would start investing in them, but I am poor as shyte as it is!

 

[ProtoTribal]

I've looked into wind turbines here and there over the years. Last time I searched, general consensus amongst the wind power crowd was that anything under 30 ft tall and 600 watts wouldn't make more power over its lifespan than it took to manufacture it. I'll set it up so I can disable the motor freewheel for pedal regen so I can pedal slowly while recharging the battery for the next hill. I'm really hoping that I can keep it light enough to pedal it most of the time. With 600-800 watts of solar on the roof, it should be able to maintain 10-15mph on sun alone so that's an easy 40-50 miles a day without pedaling at all. I've ridden 50+ miles over mountains on my fat *** downhill bike in a day so it should be easy to tour without worrying about wind or backup power. Since I can camp in it, and plan on taking trails and forest roads whenever I can, I'll be really happy to go as little as ten miles a day, which will be like an hour of two of pedaling, even without assist. I've thought about a small propane 2kw generator as a backup power source for long periods of bad weather but part of the reason I want a home on wheels that rolls for free is that I want to follow the sun!

So...the sun....

I was planning to build the temporary garage over the weekend but the monsoons are upon us. It's not like it's been raining a lot but when there are clouds in the sky, I wake up in the morning and can barely move. There's the early morning, when it's beautiful outside, and I've usually just fallen asleep...dang it....then there's 9am-6pm when it's 100 and so muggy that my glasses fill up with sweat every ten seconds.. Anyway....tomorrow morning dammit...lol...I'm going out to dig the holes to bury the anchors and I'm setting up that garage frame! I've got some Ska True Blond and a twelve pack of Blue Moon that will make sure I will sleep well and wake up at the crack of dawn, highly motivated to get out of bed!

I'll post up some pics of the "garage" and some parts tomorrow.

VA eh?

I was born in SC but haven't visited the east coast since I was 4...except for one trip to Linden, TN...for a Scout chassis... Anyway...
The reason I haven't gone back that way is a combination of gas, weather, and cops/highways. I've found that the farther east I go, the worse all of the above get! lol! Once I have this trike built though, I shouldn't have to worry about that stuff as much. I'd like to visit my mom in NY and check out Asheville, NC someday though so I'll definitely get in touch if I ever come through.

Bitcoin...I have about $30 worth of bitcoin left...from an initial investment of $70.....and I've never bought anything with it. I gave some to a podcaster that makes me laugh and sent some to a friend in Phoenix...mainly just because she's hot...but anyway... I won't set up a bank account so the only way I can even spend bitcoin is online or with gift cards. That's changing though. It's starting to blow up just as a means of value transfer, which is where I see its "value" right now. I don't believe in "investment" or "trading" as far as currencies are concerned. So yeah, in my mind, investment is gambling, but investing using people's means of value transfer is gambling with people's lives, which doesn't settle well with me personally. If someone sent bitcoin, litecoin, dogecoin, blackcoin, or anything like that and I could turn it into a resource I need, I'd much rather deal with that than use a currency that's backed by nothing but violence and coercion (all state issued fiat currencies). I've worked for a credit card company, had multiple passwords to global payment systems, worked with people on the boards of banks(read "oil guys")on "green tech" projects, and since I found out how "money" works, there was just no way way I can participate in the conventional money system without feeling like I'm breaking every rule that my mom, my school, and even sunday school tried to pound into my head! ...anyway...I'll spare you further details...

Hasta manana! Pics soon!

 

[ProtoTribal]

Sorry about the lack of updates. I hit rock digging the anchor holes for the temp workshop and have been pacing the pick axe work and doing other work for the last few days.

I got the resin in yesterday and the holes are dug! Hopefully, I'll have a workshop to get rolling in tomorrow. I'll get pics of the parts when I load everything into the shop.

 

[libarata]

Stupid rocks.

 

[ProtoTribal]

It took a few attempts but the shop is up! Should have taken 2 hours but every time I tried to get the cover on, the wind would ship up right at the last minute and flog everything until I took it all back apart again hoping to save it! Finally timed it right a couple of nights ago but I'm whooped from it!


The next step is finding some old carpet to throw down for a floor and setting up lights/power. An old generator, a few old car batteries, a 400 watt inverter, a battery charger, and some fluorescent and led lights and I'll be good to go. I have everything but need to recover the batteries by reverse charge cycling them a few times and the inverter popped for no good reason the other day. I'm sure it's something simple.

I've been trying to get my schedule flipped around so I can work at night when it's cool but my neck's so worn out, it's been hard to stay up long enough at a time to establish a schedule. Getting close though! Speaking of which, I need to eat some chili and take a nap!

Hopefully, I'll post some pics tomorrow morning!

 

[Co-opski]

Just posting for you. It may have good info on solar or other ebike stuff? http://organictransit.com/

 

[Amphibeast]

VERY COOL!!…. Big fan of amphibious anything, I had a similar concept based on a ninja motorcycle & VW front end! Any more progress so far?

 

[ProtoTribal]

Thanks! Sorry for the slow replies. I need to figure out why I'm not getting notifications.

I have made some more progress. Rounding up the last few parts for the drivetrain and getting lights and power in the shop took longer than I thought it would. I've been fixing tube amps, printers, designing keyboards, basically helping friends with their stuff more than I've been working on mine. My neck's been killing me too.

Anyway, I had to partially disassemble a few engines at the junk yard but I ended up getting all of the belts and pulleys I'll need to make it all belt drive. Now that I have those last few things in hand, I can finalize the dimensions on the main frame and swing arm sections and start cutting wood.

I still need to figure out a cheap way to increase the travel of the raptor 350 ball joints quite a bit in order to get enough pivot for the tilt and suspension, but I have some ideas.

While thinking about the steering linkage, I realized that it needed one more range of motion in order to work. Since the steering will be two tillers that go through pivots in the trike floor and interface with a pivot linkage that pivots on the center of the upper shock mount pivoting t-bar, which is the mechanism that will allow the wheels and body to tilt like a motorcycle, that either the pivot will need to slide up and down on the t-bar, which will interfere with the steering unless I go with a really complicated design, or the tillers will need to slide up and down as well as pivot where they meet the floor. The description of the system and the issue might be a brain warping conglomeration of nerd talk but the solution is very simple. I'm going to use four skateboard wheels per side. They'll be mounted in the floor and the tillers will roll up and down on and pry against them to allow the rider to steer and lean the vehicle independently. I picked up some cool shift boots from two geo tracker 4wd knobs so hopefully, they supple and waterproof!

I posted up some pics of the shop that I finally got set up and the parts here and will be updating it more often!
https://muut.com/campexist#!/camper-trike:diy-pedalsolar-camper-trik

 

[ProtoTribal]

Sorry for the lack of updates! I went on a couple of on foot expeditions and am finally done wandering and recovering and am back to work!

I'm cutting wood for the steel reinforced, plywood, super sap epoxy, hemp cloth laminate frame, swing arm, and rear wheel! Making little bits of progress daily and I should have something pedalable by the end of the month! I have a day of fabrication to do to make brackets and another couple of days machining drive train stuff and I'll be able to bolt everything together and take a ride around the yard! Then it will be time to enclose it and embed the solar in the roof.

A friend came out to camp and help and is building himself a trike too so we'll be making plans for a belt drive, planetary/cvp version and a chain/derailleur drive version.

https://muut.com/campexist#!/camper-trike:trike-progress

 

[ProtoTribal]

A friend posted some videos here: https://muut.com/campexist#!/camp-operations:questions-on-trike

 

[k9lestat]

Not seeing a video

Sent from my QMV7A using Tapatalk

 

[ProtoTribal]

Not seeing a video

Sent from my QMV7A using Tapatalk

Here's a direct link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIAl7FOZPyI&sns=em

 

[Haf-E]

Glad to see you are still working on it! As for the tilting mechanism for high speed turning - I think it is not worth the additional weight and complexity - especially with the tires you are using. On a super light recumbent trike they can really help to allow smaller/lighter wheels and tires to survive - but your wheels would be fine without tilting. I think just go with conventional front suspension based on what you've already got and get the rest of it done and go out and use it.

One other note - with those tires (even pumped up to high pressure) its gonna be a lot of work to peddle it - so I hope the electric drive you are using is up to the task. I've built a couple of electric Fat bikes and we burned up a couple of motors pushing those big heavy wheels around on soft surfaces - so be sure to allow for variable gearing to reduce the load on the motor when used on sand etc.

 

[ProtoTribal]

Glad to see you are still working on it! As for the tilting mechanism for high speed turning - I think it is not worth the additional weight and complexity - especially with the tires you are using. On a super light recumbent trike they can really help to allow smaller/lighter wheels and tires to survive - but your wheels would be fine without tilting. I think just go with conventional front suspension based on what you've already got and get the rest of it done and go out and use it.

One other note - with those tires (even pumped up to high pressure) its gonna be a lot of work to peddle it - so I hope the electric drive you are using is up to the task. I've built a couple of electric Fat bikes and we burned up a couple of motors pushing those big heavy wheels around on soft surfaces - so be sure to allow for variable gearing to reduce the load on the motor when used on sand etc.

I can't give up! I'm putting everything into this project.

Unless Zero donates a drivetrain and we run it in the Norra Mex1000, this thing really won't see much high speed...in theory...lol

The tilting mechanism adds less than a pound and is an important feature I'm definitely going to have to keep. It is important for a few reasons. One is tire wear. I want to ride on the centers of the tires and have the load vector over the contact patch. It's just so much easier on spindles, tires, wheels, and anal retentive engineer's brains. It would drive me nuts to look at non tilting wheels on a 3 wheeler! I know the sand quad tires in the front will wear quickly but I just wanted something with some volume and a smooth center ridge. The rear wheel/paddle assembly is going to end up being 24" wide so I'm not super worried about efficiency. I'll also be running a much higher pressure in the quad tires than one would in a high speed machine....even have an idea for a fat tire bounce dampening system I might try. It's surprising how light the quad tire/wheel assemblies are! Another reason I want it to tilt is so I can keep the track width narrow without sacrificing high speed stability. It's not going to be a single track machine but it should be fine on quad trails and forest roads, which is where I'll be using it. Another reason that I want it to tilt is for off camber trails, which there are a lot of around here. There's nothing worse than being on a rocky four foot wide trail that slopes towards the 400 foot drop while riding/driving something that can't lean away from the edge! I might end up designing a little assist system if the leaning thing fights me at all. That's what arduinos are for though. As it's currently designed, it uses leverage to amplify my arm force by a factor of 5 though so that plus my actual weight shift should lean it easily. No harder than leaning an Elefant. I've considered a scotts steering damper too. The last reason I can think of for leaning/tilting is balance/ergonomics. I don't want to exercise my legs constantly without exercising my arms and core. I think leaning and pedaling this thing down rocky trails is going to be great exercise.

The motor is a ryobi 40v brushless chainsaw. It's capable of 3kw peaks and easily handles 1500 watts continuous if it's not getting bogged down. It will have a couple of stages of reduction before going into the nuvinci cpv transmission so gearing is very covered. I'm only gearing it for <20mph top speed. Probably closer to 15mph with a conservative tune. I'll be happy to cruise at ten mph on the flats in this thing but will probably let speed be dictated by solar input. Whatever 600 watts will get me is how fast I'll go as long as all of the batteries are topped off. I'm hoping for 20ish wh/mile at 10mph with this build. The chainsaw motor will use a 12:1 friction drive and a 2.86:1 8m polychain belt drive reduction before it gets to the nuvinci cvp. Here's a link to the pedal drivetrain video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbvmQrLb1ec&sns=em

 

[Haf-E]

Sounds like you're gonna go for the tilting - good luck with it! Will be nice to see how it works. It seems like you are doing some good design work on this - I just prefer to do projects like this in smaller stages to allow testing of subassemblies and subsystems.

You've got some good parts too - the patterson drive and Nuvinci should work really well together.

Hope it all goes together well for you - keep us posted.