Still here, still tinkerin' - but it's goin' about as slow as me wonly wifi... ahh the joys of detail work heh
Let's see... where was I? hmm...
So, the time had come for the taddy to no longer be "put on a pedestal" so to speak, it needs be on the floor for the final assemblies. So I installed tie-downs to raise the project, to clean & disassemble the project table & then lower it to the floor... I'll spare you the woes of a filthy shop, but I'll admit it was more of a bother to clean then it shoulda been lol
While the taddy isn't that heavy at all, it's cumbersome to lift. With two people it's no problem, but waking a friend at 3am when the tinkerin' urge hits is a pretty good way to strain a friendship heh, besides it outa be handy for the occasional flood too I figure;
It seems so little settin' on the floor o.O
I've done a buncha assorted lil things in the meantime, most insignificant & some more experimentation... I'm still fiddling around with the upper seat mount trying for "perfect" (which is no doubt a myth), did some more electric system trials, finally attached the seat cover, but in all honesty as it's on the floor now, I might have spent a disproportionate amount of time jus' settin on the thing & chuckling... and attending to some ergonomics such as the above (amazing how 1/2" will change a seat frm awesome to eergh), handle bar & pedal boom position etc. ...ok, mebbe a lot of just makin' vroomie noises & leaning into those hard turns lol
Now that the rear wheel & cassette is finalized, I did get around to modifying a rear derailleur to fit, I'm hesitant to say "finalized" though it should do fine - but it is a junk derailleur, tho a new shimano it's a stock take off from a box store bike, as they tend to refuse to index properly I'll replace it when it irritates me enough.
I stuck poor, filthy Mongo in the background of the last coupla pics for scale as although the taddy is obv settin on a 4x8' sheet of plywood, it's still kinda hard to figure scale w/o a reference;
Plodding right along, the tale of the 79¢ bit of mystery... for so very long all I needed to be able to pedal the thing was to cut a coupla keys for the jackshaft (three actually, three sprockets ofc) & finagle a coupla spacers, except there was so many other things to attend to... and ofc I seem to have misplaced the key stock. No worries I thought to myself, I'll just buy another & for the past coupla weeks I've been patiently waiting for my local hardware store to restock so I could do just that. Finally, lil bit of metal in hand I was able to finish the jackshaft for good, except ofc it'd rusted quite a bit in the meantime, cleaned & keyed it'll get painted when everything else is too.
and a silly lil vid jus' for the lolz
MVI_2643 - YouTube ...well, it amused me anyway *shrug* :P
speakin' of detail stuff, I got a couple more of the nearly endless list of minor things done, I picked up some (more) cabling (gaw, there's so
much of it) & finally managed to dig up some hex set screws to replace & complete my front brake cable splitter, finding to my dismay that particular hex size was ofc the one I'm missing from my set, so I picked up a new hex set as well as it was no doubt sacrificed to the gremlin when I cleaned the shop heh
I dunno why I was surprised that it worked so well, it's a simple enough dealie *shrug* but one of the things I made sure of when I was making it was accounting for the possibility of cable breakage (w/a large slider area). There's nothing to be done if the single cable from the lever to the splitter snaps ofc (& that's more likely) and it'd be sketch to only have one functioning front brake, but better one than none... and during testing that seemed to work too, so good 'nuff I figure.
Moving right along I rigged up the rear derailleur cable & dialed in the shifter & started on the front...
...to find a small oversight on my part heh - there's no cable seat/saddle thingie for the front cable to go into... um... yea, oops >.<
Not to be deterred by a mere technicality, I though about resorting to the internet to find a clamp-on, but I feared that given the square tubing and the orientation I'd be wasting my time even looking. I could be wrong, but I also had no desire to wait two weeks for shipping, particularly as soon as the roads clear I'll be vroomin' on over to the welding shop and zottin' one on there (along w/a coupla of other lil things), so I just cobbed a clamp-on myself.
It's not the prettiest or most professional (220 Miller MIG was a touch overkill lol), but it suffices to get the job done, I added the shrink wrap to prevent scratching the already scratched to heck pant heh
Anyhoo - both front & rear derailleurs are now completely functional & as I managed to sort the jackshaft keys last time, it's completely pedal-able, added a touch of cable & chain lube and it's far smoother & w/less drag than I thought given the sheer length & number of chains & their routing, another relief lol;
I was muckin' about tonight just trying to get more cable work done, cuttin' new ones for the throttle set & scared the heck outa myself when I went to test the electric... it's a damn foolish thing I know, but I haven't a proper plug going from the battery pack to the controller just yet & in a hurry I reversed polarity to the controller, naturally resulting in a zap of impressive intensity & what now seemed to be a completely unresponsive controller, no output, no lights, de nada.
Freaked and more than a little irritated with my stupid self, I checked the BMS to see if the battery was still puttin' out (yep), checked the plugs & wires for continuity (yep) & started to seriously worry I'd fried stuff as I was gettin' nothing other'n nothing at all... and then noticed that unlike my 'Pie hub (internal), this controller has an off switch, which a smarter self had ofc turned off last time I was done tinkerin' with it.
Whew - saved by happenstance, I quintuple checked polarity & flicked the switch, to my profound relief all the lights came on & a twitch of the throttle showed no harm, no foul... this time. Lucky indeed as this is a generic controller I doubt it's much in the way of protection from morons, it
might have a breaker, it
might have polarity protection... I suspect not though & better not test that luck again heh
Other'n that lil bit of humbling excitement, the rest went together like legos - as it outa as I've done this particular task before & already sorted the issues out. It's a different thumb throttle for the electric ('Pie stolen by Mongo), but that only required drilling a hole for the cable to pass through to utilize it as a remote cable actuated dealie for the trigger throttle (spring added for safety/throttle return).
...and yea, I might have spent too long w/the taddy on it's stand vrooming the electric drive "testing" it lol
I also redid the carburetor's throttle cable & it works well enough, I do think I'm gonna get another "springy" brake noodle (same as on the tops of the two trigger throttles) to replace the solid one I used on the carb - while it works, the inner sleeve diameter/bend is just a hair too tight & it drags a bit. I upgraded the slide return spring to a beefier one (safety/throttle return again) so it always returns, but it requires a bit too much pull for comfort & it's defo that noodle. Ah well, I needed 'nother excuse to visit my LBS right? heh
Well, that outa catch everythin' up fer now anyway lol