10/28/2020 1 Comment Week 7: More researchThis week I needed to finally decide on how I was going to mount my motor to a wheel and figure out how to make it efficient. I had a good idea that I would make use of a fifth wheel so that I would not have to cut the trucks for the motor attachment for the wheel.
The issue with not knowing what you are doing is the fact that I actually have no idea what I’m doing. Professional companies use weird techniques that use the attachment of the motor to the wheel on trucks with specially machined parts that are meant for electric longboards. The issue I have is that if I put the motor on bearings I will lose all efficiency if I put the wheel on the ground. If I don’t put the wheel on bearings then when I put the wheel on the ground and when I don’t have the motor going it will just destroy the wheel. So what I think I’m going to do is put the wheel on a stick so that I can push it up or down when I need to. I was even thinking that I could put the throttle into the handle as well. This could be nice because it could make it all in one for the handle and the board. Even though the hand position when trying to balance would be worse. The last issue that I have is that I have no idea how I am going to mount this said motor handle and motor. I was thinking that I could add an extra piece of wood that I can mount the motor to with a hole that I can use for the rod that has the handle with the throttle. I think that I am going to order an extra wheel or two to let me mess up and not have to wait more time.
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10/21/2020 0 Comments Week 6: The First RideThis week I finally got around to building the board portion of the project. I started by sketching an outline of sorta what I wanted. I knew I wanted to put the battery on the top so I made sure to outline that on the back as well. I knew that I also needed to be certain that I knew I had the board pointed forward so I made the back different from the front. If you want to see the board it's on the homepage of my website under progress pictures.
I then had to put the trucks of the longboard on which turned out to be a total pain in my (fill in the blank). First I was making holes for the screws and then when I put them in they were not long enough for the spacers and the trucks. I then took the spacers out and they were too long. I believe that there is a particular thickness that the trucks and spacers are made for and I definitely did not have the correct thickness. Instead I decided to make the holes deeper so they are currently recessed about a half of a inch. I then put the trucks on successfully and because I have no idea what I’m doing I put them on the wrong way. So normally when you turn left the board goes to the right correct? Well when I put them on the first time it went the opposite way. So leaning left goes right sorta thing. This is incredibly difficult to steer because your center of gravity is going the wrong direction of the board. So I switched the way they are positioned and it rides pretty good. Before the first rides I had to put the wheels on and again I have no idea what I’m doing so I put the bearings on the wheels all weird so I had to take them out and try again. I eventually got the board sorted and I think I might have an idea about the mount of the motor to the wheel. 10/14/2020 0 Comments Week 5:Finally, LuckThis week I actually struck some luck for once in this project. Last week I had been taking apart a leaf blower that I was going to use for the motor and ran into some issues. I had no idea how I was going to make the big motor work and the voltage right. This led to me having to figure out how to get the right voltage to not make the project blow up or smoke. Instead I found an electric weed eater that had a good motor that I do think I can use.
The next thing I had to do was figure out how to make the board shape in a way that I could attach the motor and battery and chords and such. The hard part of that is the fact that I need to connect everything together and I think I’m going to put the battery on top of the board and drill a hole to connect the cords to the motor. This could lead to cords being tangled or messed up in general. This would lead to obvious problems that would require extra work. I also have no idea how to wire it in the first place. That ought to be next week's project. Lastly I have no idea how I am going to make a gear system that will attach to the wheel so that I can actually power it. The problem is I might have a way to transfer the energy to the wheel with gears. I just currently have no way to attach the gear to the wheel. I might be able to use a pulley system or something. I just don’t know how to attach it to the wheel. If anyone reading this has any ideas on that it would be appreciated. 10/7/2020 0 Comments Week 4: Good ProgressI made some good progress this week on destroying what I bought. What I mean by that is I was disassembling the leaf blower and the RC car just to get the motor and the arduino and receiver for the controller so that I can change the speed and turn it on while on top of the board. For some reason taking apart the RC car was a struggle because I didn’t want to mess anything up and I had no idea what I was doing and I was making it up as I went along.
Taking apart the leaf blower was somehow more difficult than the RC car. For some reason I can’t get the fan off of the axle of the motor and I have no idea how the motor works or what parts of it make it work. It looks like there are a lot of exposed wires that seem to have no purpose. The motor seems to have two parts and I don’t know which parts to keep and which to cut. Another thing that I was doing this week was doing some research on the gear system and it turns out that I got lucky and I might be able to use the gear system from the RC car if I can attach one gear to the wheel. If I could do that then I would be very excited because that would save me some work and some money. Lastly I got some batteries that I can use for the motor that are supposed to be used for kids motors. I’m probably going to use these batteries in series so that I can get more voltage out of them. These batteries are pretty big which will pose an issue but I’ll probably just strap them to the back of the long board. Overall I have no idea what I’m doing and this will probably explode. |
AuthorI'm Alex and this is my progress for my Genius Hour project of making an electric longboard. Archives
December 2020
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