If you have ever worked on a motorcycle on a regular basis with a limited workshop, you’ll know the challenge of taking off one or other of the wheels. You’ll probably have plenty of tales of bikes balanced precariously on blocks or suspended from the ceiling on a web of cargo straps, and if you are really unlucky you’ll have the Dented Tank Of Shame from the whole edifice tumbling down.
Riding the streets of the Netherlands on a bicycle is a silky-smooth experience compared to doing the same on those of Germany. So says [Kati Hyyppä], who made the move with her trusty Dutch bike. The experience led her to record the uneven cobblestones and broken asphalt of the German roads on a home-made seismograph, a paper chart recorder driven by the bike’s motion and recorded upon by a pen free to vibrate as it passed over any bumps.
The resulting instrument is a wooden frame with a ballpoint pen mounted in a sliding holder weighted with some washers and kept under some tension with elastic bands. The paper roll is driven from the motion of the bike by the drive from a mechanical speedometer feeding a set of FischerTechnik gears, and the whole unit is suspended from the crossbar.
You can see it in action in the video below the break, and if you would like to build one yourself she has put the project up on Instructables as well as posting the description linked above.
Home-made transportation is a thriving area for makers to flex their skills. Looking to shorten their university commute, [doublecloverleaf] modded his penny board by adding a motor that can have him zipping along at 40 Km/h!
The electric motor is mounted to the rear truck and delivers power to the wheel gear using a HTD 5 m pulley belt. Finding the deck too flexible to mount the battery pack under, [doublecloverleaf] strengthened it with a pair of carbon-fiber tubes bracketed on the underside. A few custom PCB boards connect ten 5 Ah LiPo battery cells in series to create two, five-cell packs which are kept safe by a thick housing mounted between the board’s trucks. [doublecloverleaf] calculates that they could make up to a 15 km trip on a single charge.
Want to get somewhere safely, but all you have is a Segway? An afternoon spent tinkering can turn your Segway into a lounging cruiser with this hoverseat attachment, just like YouTuber [Inflatable Boats]’s hot new ride.
The backbone of the cart is the Segway Mini Pro. An aluminium frame attaches to the Segway via an eye-bolt and two carabiners, the larger of which has some tape wrapped around it to reduce wear. A swivel caster is attached with u-bolts to support the weight of the rider along the middle of this makeshift go-cart. Pushing on a t-handle made of pvc — connected to the Segway’s knee brace with a simple strap — engages the motor in lieu of the normal lean-to-go-forward action. Turning is simply done by swinging the handle or pressing with your feet.
Continue reading “Hoverchair For Your Hoverboard Turns Your Segway Into A Go-Kart”
It’s the water-borne equivalent of building a minibike out of steel pipe and an old lawnmower engine. Except it’s a DIY personal watercraft made out of aluminum and an old chainsaw, and it has that same garage build feel – and the same disappointing results.
When we first saw the video below, we were hoping for one of those boats that let you water ski by yourself, or a wave-hopping, rooster tailing DIY jet ski. Alas, the chainsaw [MakeItExtreme] chose to power this boat is woefully underpowered, and the boat barely has enough oomph to make a wake. [MakeItExtreme] acknowledges the underwhelming results and mentions plans to fix the boat with a more powerful engine and a water jet drive rather than the trolling motor propeller they used. Still, whatever improvements they make will probably leverage the work they put into the hull, which is a pretty impressive display of metalwork. We’re used to seeing [MakeItExtreme] work in steel, so it was interesting to watch aluminum panels being cut, bent, and welded into a watertight hull. Looks like there’s plenty of room in there for more power, and we’re looking forward to version 2.0 of this build.
If you like rough and ready metalworking videos, there are plenty of them on [MakeItExtreme]’s YouTube channel. We’ve covered quite a few before, including this all-terrain hoverboard and a spot welder that’s more-or-less safe to use.
Continue reading “Garage-built Aluminum Miniboat Tears Up The Surf. Or Not.”
You don’t have to know a word Swedish to understand that 86-year old [Lasse Thörn] is the coolaste modernaste pensionären in Gränna. All you have to do is see him rolling on his walker-assisted hoverboard and you’ve got the whole story.
Still, not knowing any Swedish and the spotty nature of Google translations makes it hard to discern the details of this build. Did [Lasse] build the folding aluminum bracket that connects the battery-powered hoverboard to his walker himself? We guess that he did, since another story says that he built a pedal boat back in the 1950s because he thought it sounded cool. He also says that he gets a lot of attention when he’s out on his contraption, and that other seniors have asked him to build one. [Lasse] says he’s too old to start a business; we don’t think he’s giving himself enough credit, but if he’s willing to leave the field of affordable personal mobility open to the rest of us, we say go for it.
We’ve seen lots of hoverboard builds lately, and lots of hate in the comments about the use of that term. Seems like the false advertising vibe grates on folks, but face it: “rolling wheelie board” is kind of awkward, and until technology catches up with the laws of physics, it’s the best we’re going to do.
Continue reading “Swedish Senior Rolls In Style With Hybrid Hoverboard Walker”
Growing up in the 70s and 80s, a go-kart was a quick ticket to coolness, second maybe to a mini-bike. In both cases, a welded steel tube frame and a cast-off lawnmower engine were all that stood between you and neighborhood glory. Looks like a couple of engineering students caught the retro juvenile delinquent bug and built this electric go-kart for their final project.
While the frame for [Adrian Georgescu] and [Masoud Johnson]’s build was a second-hand find, the powertrain is all custom. They targeted a power output of 3 kW but found no affordable motors in that range. So, in true hacker fashion, they rolled their own motor from a used Subaru alternator. The three-phase motor controller came from an electric scooter, three LiPo packs provide the juice, and a pair of Arduinos takes care of throttle control, speed sensing, and sending data to the virtual dashboard on an Android phone. Some lights and a snappy red and black paint job finished off the build. While the video below shows that the acceleration isn’t exactly neck-snapping in the Tesla style, the e-kart can build up to a good speed – 53 km/h. Not too shabby, and no deafening engine right behind your head.
If you’ve got the e-kart bug, best check out some of our previous posts, like this kart built from off-the-shelf components, or this four-wheel-drive mini-kart. Any way you build it, you’ll rule the cul-de-sac.
Continue reading “Alternator Becomes Motor For This Electric Go-kart”
