Expanding my Web Presence

In the name of all that's nerdy and geeky, I entered a contest at Instructables.com. There's lots of soldering and circuitry and iPhone goodness. Vote for me and maybe I'll win!

Motor Mount

I need to resist the urge to title all of my blog entries in the Blog McBlogenstein format, so this one is just gonna be Motor Mount (at least it's aliterative). I mounted the motor on a .25" Al plate, which then picks up two existing engine mounts on the frame. Steel spacers box out the back Al plate that adds stiffness but does not bolt directly to the motor. Vertical angle has also been added at these pickup points to tie in the battery tray.

Mustang

I will write a formal entry on the mustang eventually, but I thought it'd be interesting just to post some pictures. Looking good was the best thing this car did anyway!?! It was a year ago that I sold this car at the Carlisle Car Auction, and I stillhave no regrets.

Is this going to my blog?

The old Yammy in this picture. Too bad Hottie McGee had to take it off my hands.

Lifecast Saves the Day... Sorta

Posted with LifeCast

Super Saver

Amazon shipped me my sixth and final Optima battery yesterday. They were, by far, the cheapest source both online and locally for these batteries. Using their Free Super Saver Shipping method, I saved (or Amazon spent) just over 120 dollars in shipping costs. Pretty impressive. I assembled the Optima battery pack using 4 AWG wire and stacked the batteries approximately how they will sit in my motorcycle frame. The red gauge is a Datel Voltmeter and shows my pack is currently at 73.7 Volts.

Measure Twice, Cut Once

Have you ever heard the adage, Measure twice, Cut once? Well, I was thinking it last night when I cut the long members of this tray, but I was too lazy to walk upstairs and do the measuring. The result? My tray is approximately 3/4" too long. Dammit! While this extra length is okay for the batteries, it creates an interference with the front wheel when placed in the motorcycle. To my credit, I knew that I was cutting the piece a little too long, and it's much easier to make things shorter than longer. Let's see if I can get it right tonight! The batteries shown here are a combination from my old electric Vespa and new batteries for this conversion. The yellow-top batteries(shown layer down on their side) are Optima D51 Yellow Tops, and the grey batteries are B&B HR-12-15. Both battery types are non-spillable sealed lead acid, which means they can me mounted on the motorcycle in any orientation.

Battery Tray

This picture shows the base of my battery tray. It is upside down in the picture so you can see the quality (or lack thereof) of my welds. I used 1"x1"x1/8" steel angle and miter joints in the corners. This tray needs to support approximately 165 lbs of batteries. Does anyone know a good mechanical engineer that can analyze this for me???

And After!!!

Here is a shot of the Ninja frame after removing all the plastic fairings, the engine, cooling system, gas tank, battery, and seat. The disassembly process was fun, just pulling parts off without Having to keep track of how things went together. Now the frame is ready to accept the electric components.

Before...

This image shows my donor bike for the electric motorcycle project. It is a 1993 Kawasaki Ninja EX250. This bike is a common choice for electric conversions because of its extensive body fairings. These fairings will cover all internal workings (batteries, motor, controller, wiring, etc) and maintain the original look of the motorcycle.

I also chose this motorcycle over my Vespa for a number of reasons. The Vespa has smaller wheels and drum brakes, which make for unstable high speed travel and longer stopping distance. The Vespa also had its motor, controller and transmission housed in the swing arm, which created a lot of unsprung weight. Lastly, the Vespa frame was prohibitively small and had reached its limit in terms of battery storage capacity. Even with 12 smaller batteries distributed throughout the frame, the Vespa only carried 30Ahr of juice. With the Ninja upgrade, that number will increase to 68Ahr, effectively doubling the range of my EV.

Test Image

This image show the swing arm of my Ninja. Due to the design of my electric motor, I am putting the final drive chain on the eight side of the bike, and the disc brake on the left side. This picture shows the three support tabs that I have to remove and re-weld onto opposite sides of the swing arm.

¡Bienvenidos!

Hello and welcome to my blog. I created this site to document the many vehicles and projects that I work on. As you can see, I don't actually have a garage so this website will act as my virtual garage. The main focus of my blog will document the building of my electric motorcycle.

If you are reading this, you know that I am neither well spoken nor capable of writing eloquent prose (I had to spellcheck elequent(sic) to write this sentence!). With that in mind, I will try to make this site the picture-menu of blogs. Let the fun begin!