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I built a bike trailer. After reading this inspiring thread I regret not taking more photographs while it was in progress. (Thanks rear end in a top hat who walked in my bedroom and stole my camera..) Anyway, I was living in Oakland these last couple years, and I hated driving, and I wanted a way to haul water, lumber, and whatever else I'd normally need a car for. I took two TIG welding classes at The Crucible in Oakland, and I spent most of the second class designing and building this. I welded the frame out of 1 1/2" square aluminum tubing, purchased the wheels, and later installed the plywood floor. The hitch I built was a combination of this and this. (Check out that last link, the guy has some pretty crazy bikes). I was really excited when I put this thing together. I hauled it home that night, and gave my housemates rides around the block on it. The next day I went to Berkeley Bowl and purchased 10 gallons of water. It was heavy as gently caress as I carried it back. I made it from Shattuck up to Telegraph Ave, and as I was getting past whole foods, only 8 blocks from my house, I hit some gnarly bumps in the pavement and the towing arm snapped off. gently caress! Luckily I still had some time to weld the thing back and re-enforce the re-enforcements so it can't happen again. Here are some pics of the last time I got to use it:   Trailer carrying 10 gallons of water plus my bag. Part of the reason it broke the first time is that I had all the weight (10 gallons weighs in at about 83 lbs) at the very front, so the milk crate helps move it back a bit. Now for a picture of one of my proudest moments:   I dumpster dived a FUCKLOAD of Lumber. The hardest part was getting going. I had to apply the back breaks and carefully balance while I leaned all my weight back just to get the back wheel on the ground. If I was five pounds skinnier I would have never gotten the drat thing to move. I hauled this load about three or four miles, and I estimate it weighed in at 300-400 pounds. The axle was about to snap, I'm pretty sure.  These pictures were taken in front of my house on December 17th, 2007. It was the last time I ever used the trailer. I was going to use the wood to build a shed in our back yard where I would have a small bicycle repair business. Before I got that lumber, I cut down a large morning glory vine to clear space for what I was going to build. Unfortunately, I guess I didn't do a good enough job of communicating my plans to my housemate, who, upon discovering his beloved morning glory cut down, did something so extreme and unreal that I choose to move out of that house, leave Oakland, and pursue an education. I now have a pickup truck, and I live too far out in the mountains for the trailer to be practical. I had it for less than a month, but in that time I hauled about 50 gallons of water (total), all the lumber pictured above, a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood, and other bicycles. What was so important about that trailer, however, is that it broke on me. It broke because I had no idea how to properly plan and design something like that. I had no idea that the towing arm would snap--I had no way of calculating where the weight should be, how the wheels should be positioned, or what areas would be under the most stress. With the combination of the trailer breaking, and my ex-housemates psychosis, I have decided to pursue a degree in Mechanical Engineering so that next time, I can do it right. I'm really sad to have this thing collecting dust now, but it's certainly had it's purpose. NoSoup4U fucked around with this message at 06:30 on Feb 18, 2008 |
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Feb 18, 2008 06:17
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So I'm working on a charger for my Android phone that mounts on my bicycle. Why do such a thing? Well, I love bike touring, and I recently discovered MyTracks. I think it would be pretty interesting to go for a trip and record my route exactly, figure out my elevation gain, milage, pace, etc. I'm a nerd like that. Now the issue is of course that MyTracks and it's constant GPS usage eats batteries for breakfast. I'm unwilling to schedule my trip such that I end up somewhere I can plug in my wall charger every 4 hours. (Hell, I'm unwilling to schedule my trip in any form at all...) I'm also unwilling to purchase 17 extra Droid X batteries and switch them out consistently. So I need a way to charge while I'm riding. I ordered a cheap droid charger off Amazon for $3 + free shipping so I have the not-quite-micro-just-different-enough-to-be-proprietary-USB plug that fits my phone. It hasn't arrived yet but I've got some things to figure out in the meantime.  My first attempt to generate energy from my bike involved hooking up a little DC motor I found at radioshack to roll on the side of the tire. I got this thing to work, and in the hardest gear on my bike got up to about 18 VDC. The current wall charger I have for my Droid says it has an output of 5.1 VDC. So I'd need to step that down (or find a way to limit it so it didn't burn my phone when I started riding 40 mph). This had a few issues with it, namely the noise it created, and all the stress it put on my poor little motor shaft. I wouldn't expect this setup to last long. Yesterday I spent some time volunteering in a local bike co-op, and as I was cleaning up I found this thing sitting on a repair stand. It's a generator for a bike light that someone had stripped that day. "Ummm.. you guys want this thing? Cuz I could have a LOT of fun with it." They didn't want it so I scored.  I like this because it's actually made for this application. It has a spring that presses the barrel against the tire, and ensures full and even contact despite inconsistencies in the radius of the tire. The barrel is also supported on both ends so I'm not going to snap any shafts anytime soon. This thing generates a max of 37 AC Volts in the big ring, but a more consistent pace for touring gives closer to 18 AC Volts. The other option is go and pick up a small solar panel at RadioShack. This is nicer because it doesn't take energy out of my pedals, and doesn't make any noise. But machines are just so much more FUN. =) So now my questions: 1) What's the best way to convert anywhere from about 5 to 40 AC Volts to 5 DC volts? 2) What can I do to make sure my DC output doesn't exceed a certain amount and thus burn out the phone? 3) How do I make sure my phone doesn't discharge when it's plugged in but the bike is stopped (or is it already set up not to do this)? I'm looking for simple solutions here, something that a cheap idiot with a soldering iron could rig up. Ideas? Comments?
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Aug 26, 2011 20:35
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Ok, so I went to radioshack and bought a bridge rectifier, transformer and regulator like Corla suggested and it seems to give me a pretty steady 4V DC now. Sweet. I read up a bit on rectifiers, and it seems I may get more (and more steady) voltage output if I rig up a capacitor in parallel to the outputs. I'll play around with that tomorrow some. I tried the transformer, but it's designed for 120V AC input, so it steps down my normal pedaling pace to about 3V, and I didn't think it would help me. Besides, it's bulky and heavy. I don't think I'll really need it though, since my voltage regulator is rated for like 50V and 1 amp, which is more than I plan to generate with the bike. I think for the actual device I'll go ahead and do solar. The little solar panel is about as big as a 3x5 card and easy to mount. And quiet, and no friction on my back wheel. But I wanted to hook up the rectifier to see if it can be done. I'll probably take the generator for a spin when I get my Droid cable just to say I did it. Pretty sweet, learned something today.
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Aug 27, 2011 03:53
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