Moderator edit: see below for normal size text
Greetings! I'm new to this forum so please excuse newbie mistakes. I'm an older guy, 65, and that's why I chose the "HUGE" font. I hope this will help others who have eyes as old as mine. I have taken my Catrike Expedition, 3 wheeled trike and spend a year, planning, and building it into a unique and in many ways radical designed electric bike. Starting with an Ecospeed Mid drive, probably the best mid drive available for recumbent bicycles, and then adding a Nuvinci n380 Hub to the back wheel so shifting is very easy and now there is no need for rear derailleur. Taking it further, I found that Fallbrook Technologies, maker of the Nuvinci Hub also had what amounts to an option to the rear n380 hub that allows the bike to shift automatically when my cadence (which is preset through testing and testing and testing) drops below certain threshold. The Ecospeed, and the Nuvinci components were not just quick add ons. Having a 52 volt lithium Ion pack mean I had to convert that voltage to somewhere between 18-48 volts to run the Nuvinci Harmony Hub (the component that makes it shift automatically). This took me to Holland or somewhere in the Netherlands to find a converter and when I got it, I had to set the trimmer, make a PC board for it, and then pot the wires.
I decided for both testing my sanity but for safety that I should have signal and brake lights. All this stuff can be seen on my picture link I'm including. Long story short, I needed to get 52volts to 12 volts now (and also 12 volts to 5 volts to power the USB stuff). Anyway, I found a converter, or should I say, I burnt out 3 converters and finally found one that worked. After all of this, I got a case of what all electric car (and eBike) users fear, the dreaded, "Range Anxiety" when your battery just doesn't have enough power to get you back to your home base.
So after wiring in a complex system using the main power pack to convert my signal and stop and running lights, I realized this might not be a wise choice. I started looking for hub generators but they were very expensive and I'm not sure if they would work on my fron wheels which are only 20" and have disc brakes.
In hooking up the Ecospeed mid drive I had to make an idler (no one makes one for this application) that would help the chain slack on rear chain on the return. I tried teflon tubes but didn't like the idea of a tube and a chain rubbing on it mile ater mile. I finally came up with what you see in the last pictures and the prototype proves it works.
Then I thought of having a generator charge a 12v power pack instead of using my main power pack to run the lights. And then I thought, why not the idler pulley. If I can make a self contained idler that acted as a generator, I could effectively eliminate the 12v converter and it's inherent flaws.
So as Ronald Reagan said during one of the biggest bluffs in history, "I call on all the scientific minds of the nation to develop a system that would render all nuclear missiles both ineffective and impotent." This program was called "Star Wars" (I had a friend who worked on this project and I have the original sticker from that program on my guitar case, lol!). Anyway, if anyone, after looking at my pictures has any idea of how I can accomplish this with my idler or another idler, please let me know. This month marked 1 year of designing, CNC'ing, drawing, cutting, point to point soldering, and failure after failure, but after all that, and thousands of dollars, it all works and works great!
Now if I an solve this on last thing, I will be as happy as a clam (someone out there please explain what that means anyway?).
Sorry for the length of this but it's hard to condense a year of building into less than this.
Thanks very much!
Victor
https://goo.gl/photos/iWj4xQf5im1tgjEM8
Greetings! I'm new to this forum so please excuse newbie mistakes. I'm an older guy, 65, and that's why I chose the "HUGE" font. I hope this will help others who have eyes as old as mine. I have taken my Catrike Expedition, 3 wheeled trike and spend a year, planning, and building it into a unique and in many ways radical designed electric bike. Starting with an Ecospeed Mid drive, probably the best mid drive available for recumbent bicycles, and then adding a Nuvinci n380 Hub to the back wheel so shifting is very easy and now there is no need for rear derailleur. Taking it further, I found that Fallbrook Technologies, maker of the Nuvinci Hub also had what amounts to an option to the rear n380 hub that allows the bike to shift automatically when my cadence (which is preset through testing and testing and testing) drops below certain threshold. The Ecospeed, and the Nuvinci components were not just quick add ons. Having a 52 volt lithium Ion pack mean I had to convert that voltage to somewhere between 18-48 volts to run the Nuvinci Harmony Hub (the component that makes it shift automatically). This took me to Holland or somewhere in the Netherlands to find a converter and when I got it, I had to set the trimmer, make a PC board for it, and then pot the wires.
I decided for both testing my sanity but for safety that I should have signal and brake lights. All this stuff can be seen on my picture link I'm including. Long story short, I needed to get 52volts to 12 volts now (and also 12 volts to 5 volts to power the USB stuff). Anyway, I found a converter, or should I say, I burnt out 3 converters and finally found one that worked. After all of this, I got a case of what all electric car (and eBike) users fear, the dreaded, "Range Anxiety" when your battery just doesn't have enough power to get you back to your home base.
So after wiring in a complex system using the main power pack to convert my signal and stop and running lights, I realized this might not be a wise choice. I started looking for hub generators but they were very expensive and I'm not sure if they would work on my fron wheels which are only 20" and have disc brakes.
In hooking up the Ecospeed mid drive I had to make an idler (no one makes one for this application) that would help the chain slack on rear chain on the return. I tried teflon tubes but didn't like the idea of a tube and a chain rubbing on it mile ater mile. I finally came up with what you see in the last pictures and the prototype proves it works.
Then I thought of having a generator charge a 12v power pack instead of using my main power pack to run the lights. And then I thought, why not the idler pulley. If I can make a self contained idler that acted as a generator, I could effectively eliminate the 12v converter and it's inherent flaws.
So as Ronald Reagan said during one of the biggest bluffs in history, "I call on all the scientific minds of the nation to develop a system that would render all nuclear missiles both ineffective and impotent." This program was called "Star Wars" (I had a friend who worked on this project and I have the original sticker from that program on my guitar case, lol!). Anyway, if anyone, after looking at my pictures has any idea of how I can accomplish this with my idler or another idler, please let me know. This month marked 1 year of designing, CNC'ing, drawing, cutting, point to point soldering, and failure after failure, but after all that, and thousands of dollars, it all works and works great!
Now if I an solve this on last thing, I will be as happy as a clam (someone out there please explain what that means anyway?).
Sorry for the length of this but it's hard to condense a year of building into less than this.
Thanks very much!
Victor
https://goo.gl/photos/iWj4xQf5im1tgjEM8
Greetings! I'm new to this forum so please excuse newbie mistakes. I'm an older guy, 65, and that's why I chose the "HUGE" font. I hope this will help others who have eyes as old as mine. I have taken my Catrike Expedition, 3 wheeled trike and spend a year, planning, and building it into a unique and in many ways radical designed electric bike. Starting with an Ecospeed Mid drive, probably the best mid drive available for recumbent bicycles, and then adding a Nuvinci n380 Hub to the back wheel so shifting is very easy and now there is no need for rear derailleur. Taking it further, I found that Fallbrook Technologies, maker of the Nuvinci Hub also had what amounts to an option to the rear n380 hub that allows the bike to shift automatically when my cadence (which is preset through testing and testing and testing) drops below certain threshold. The Ecospeed, and the Nuvinci components were not just quick add ons. Having a 52 volt lithium Ion pack mean I had to convert that voltage to somewhere between 18-48 volts to run the Nuvinci Harmony Hub (the component that makes it shift automatically). This took me to Holland or somewhere in the Netherlands to find a converter and when I got it, I had to set the trimmer, make a PC board for it, and then pot the wires.
I decided for both testing my sanity but for safety that I should have signal and brake lights. All this stuff can be seen on my picture link I'm including. Long story short, I needed to get 52volts to 12 volts now (and also 12 volts to 5 volts to power the USB stuff). Anyway, I found a converter, or should I say, I burnt out 3 converters and finally found one that worked. After all of this, I got a case of what all electric car (and eBike) users fear, the dreaded, "Range Anxiety" when your battery just doesn't have enough power to get you back to your home base.
So after wiring in a complex system using the main power pack to convert my signal and stop and running lights, I realized this might not be a wise choice. I started looking for hub generators but they were very expensive and I'm not sure if they would work on my fron wheels which are only 20" and have disc brakes.
In hooking up the Ecospeed mid drive I had to make an idler (no one makes one for this application) that would help the chain slack on rear chain on the return. I tried teflon tubes but didn't like the idea of a tube and a chain rubbing on it mile ater mile. I finally came up with what you see in the last pictures and the prototype proves it works.
Then I thought of having a generator charge a 12v power pack instead of using my main power pack to run the lights. And then I thought, why not the idler pulley. If I can make a self contained idler that acted as a generator, I could effectively eliminate the 12v converter and it's inherent flaws.
So as Ronald Reagan said during one of the biggest bluffs in history, "I call on all the scientific minds of the nation to develop a system that would render all nuclear missiles both ineffective and impotent." This program was called "Star Wars" (I had a friend who worked on this project and I have the original sticker from that program on my guitar case, lol!). Anyway, if anyone, after looking at my pictures has any idea of how I can accomplish this with my idler or another idler, please let me know. This month marked 1 year of designing, CNC'ing, drawing, cutting, point to point soldering, and failure after failure, but after all that, and thousands of dollars, it all works and works great!
Now if I an solve this on last thing, I will be as happy as a clam (someone out there please explain what that means anyway?).
Sorry for the length of this but it's hard to condense a year of building into less than this.
Thanks very much!
Victor
https://goo.gl/photos/iWj4xQf5im1tgjEM8
Greetings! I'm new to this forum so please excuse newbie mistakes. I'm an older guy, 65, and that's why I chose the "HUGE" font. I hope this will help others who have eyes as old as mine. I have taken my Catrike Expedition, 3 wheeled trike and spend a year, planning, and building it into a unique and in many ways radical designed electric bike. Starting with an Ecospeed Mid drive, probably the best mid drive available for recumbent bicycles, and then adding a Nuvinci n380 Hub to the back wheel so shifting is very easy and now there is no need for rear derailleur. Taking it further, I found that Fallbrook Technologies, maker of the Nuvinci Hub also had what amounts to an option to the rear n380 hub that allows the bike to shift automatically when my cadence (which is preset through testing and testing and testing) drops below certain threshold. The Ecospeed, and the Nuvinci components were not just quick add ons. Having a 52 volt lithium Ion pack mean I had to convert that voltage to somewhere between 18-48 volts to run the Nuvinci Harmony Hub (the component that makes it shift automatically). This took me to Holland or somewhere in the Netherlands to find a converter and when I got it, I had to set the trimmer, make a PC board for it, and then pot the wires.
I decided for both testing my sanity but for safety that I should have signal and brake lights. All this stuff can be seen on my picture link I'm including. Long story short, I needed to get 52volts to 12 volts now (and also 12 volts to 5 volts to power the USB stuff). Anyway, I found a converter, or should I say, I burnt out 3 converters and finally found one that worked. After all of this, I got a case of what all electric car (and eBike) users fear, the dreaded, "Range Anxiety" when your battery just doesn't have enough power to get you back to your home base.
So after wiring in a complex system using the main power pack to convert my signal and stop and running lights, I realized this might not be a wise choice. I started looking for hub generators but they were very expensive and I'm not sure if they would work on my fron wheels which are only 20" and have disc brakes.
In hooking up the Ecospeed mid drive I had to make an idler (no one makes one for this application) that would help the chain slack on rear chain on the return. I tried teflon tubes but didn't like the idea of a tube and a chain rubbing on it mile ater mile. I finally came up with what you see in the last pictures and the prototype proves it works.
Then I thought of having a generator charge a 12v power pack instead of using my main power pack to run the lights. And then I thought, why not the idler pulley. If I can make a self contained idler that acted as a generator, I could effectively eliminate the 12v converter and it's inherent flaws.
So as Ronald Reagan said during one of the biggest bluffs in history, "I call on all the scientific minds of the nation to develop a system that would render all nuclear missiles both ineffective and impotent." This program was called "Star Wars" (I had a friend who worked on this project and I have the original sticker from that program on my guitar case, lol!). Anyway, if anyone, after looking at my pictures has any idea of how I can accomplish this with my idler or another idler, please let me know. This month marked 1 year of designing, CNC'ing, drawing, cutting, point to point soldering, and failure after failure, but after all that, and thousands of dollars, it all works and works great!
Now if I an solve this on last thing, I will be as happy as a clam (someone out there please explain what that means anyway?).
Sorry for the length of this but it's hard to condense a year of building into less than this.
Thanks very much!
Victor
https://goo.gl/photos/iWj4xQf5im1tgjEM8
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