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| An Electric Bicycle |
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| S. Heslop:
Well that was an adventure. Got everything set up and left the house while it was sunny. Had a good ride till it started to rain after about maybe 15 minutes. Rather than head back home like I should've, I decided it looked like it'd only be a light shower and headed on to an old station on the cycle path, to take shelter under a bridge there. Anyways my sister phones and says she's been locked out, so it's time to head home since the rain was only getting heavier and heavier. It was a full blown thunderstorm at this point and I didn't want to end up riding through mud and deep puddles. I'd brought a whole bunkle of tools in the back box, including some electric tape. So I taped everything up to keep the water out and rode on through the thunderstorm, which was really alot of fun! (The video this still is from is really very shakey. I've still got no idea how people manage to take stable footage on vehicles! Maybe that's why people go nuts for those gopro cameras) Anyways after a bit the motor started to cut out. Turns out when sealing everything i'd neglected to tape up the most important thing, the speed controller. I disconnected it, which was the smart thing to do. Although after pushing the bike for a bit the motor started to really stall despite being disconnected. So I tried reconnecting it, which was the stupid thing to do. The famous blue smoke escaped... had to push the bike about a mile and a half home since I also need to adjust the rear derailleur, since on anything but the lightest and heaviest gear settings makes the chain skip. Also the wet made my jeans shrink! Here's how it looked after taking the shrink wrap off. A fair bit of water made it in and must've shorted something out. It's got a hell of a lot of little transistors. There's 3 layers of boards and two of them are transistors. The only obvious fault I can see is that broken lead on the capacitor. I'd be surprised if it still worked after replacing the capacitor though, but it's probably worth a try. When I was pushing it the rain eased off. A couple of passing cyclists that'd also gotten caught in the rain took interest in the bike. Turns out one of them used to be an engineer, and said it looked like the kinda thing he used to build. He even asked me if I was an engineer, which was flattering! Kinda disappointed I didn't get a chance to take some photos of some other interesting landmarks in the area, for the video. There's a few viaducts on the cycle track and some interesting old buildings. Either way I should have enough footage to complete the video. Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking. |
| vtsteam:
Simon, we spray a product on ESCs here called Corrosion X for flying with amphibious planes. I wouldn't be surprised if you could fix your ESC. Interesting to see the guts. Great pix! |
| S. Heslop:
--- Quote from: vtsteam on August 08, 2014, 01:02:16 PM ---Corrosion X --- End quote --- That sounds good. I was thinking about how i'd keep water out of it while at the same time letting air reach the heatsink to cool it. |
| S. Heslop:
Editing the video now. Took a while to record and process the audio, which is my least favourite job. Ended up with 40 minutes of audio to pick through. But i've just realised while editing the video that i'd totally neglected to talk about the stuff i'm actually using. Motors, etc. So I suppose i'll have to record a little bit more, as much as I'd rather not... |
| vtsteam:
Looking forward to the premiere! :clap: |
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