Intense Brushless DC Stage Brings More E-Bike Power

[ZombieSS] wrote in to share the latest iteration of his new open hardware Brushless DC motor high power output stage posted on the Endless-sphere forums. The thread is a gold mine of useful information on designing, building and debugging high power electronics and the whole thing is worth reading. This includes the story of issues he faced with common mode noise picked up by the probe leads on his Rigol, which sidetracked the project for a while.

ebikeWe’ve covered various ebike hacks before, but the guys at endless sphere appear to be developing a number of solid open hardware designs in this area. This includes the Lebowski controller which [ZombieSS] used in conjunction with his design.

He has installed the controller and output stage on his electric bike, and you can see one of the first test runs in the video below. We look forward to hearing more from the awesome hackers at Endless sphere!

Continue reading “Intense Brushless DC Stage Brings More E-Bike Power”

Castrol Virtual Drift: Hacking Code At 80MPH With A Driver In A VR Helmet

Driving a brand new 670 horsepower Roucsh stage 3 Mustang while wearing virtual reality goggles. Sounds nuts right? That’s exactly what Castrol Oil’s advertising agency came up with though. They didn’t want to just make a commercial though – they wanted to do the real thing. Enter [Adam and Glenn], the engineers who were tasked with getting data from the car into a high end gaming PC. The computer was running a custom simulation under the Unreal Engine. El Toro field provided a vast expanse of empty tarmac to drive the car without worry of hitting any real world obstacles.

The Oculus Rift was never designed to be operated inside a moving vehicle, so it presented a unique challenge for [Adam and Glenn]. Every time the car turned or spun, the Oculus’ on-board Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) would think driver [Matt Powers] was turning his head. At one point [Matt] was trying to drive while the game engine had him sitting in the passenger seat turned sideways. The solution was to install a 9 degree of freedom IMU in the car, then subtract the movements of that IMU from the one in the Rift.

GPS data came from a Real Time Kinematic (RTK) GPS unit. Unfortunately, the GPS had a 5Hz update rate – not nearly fast enough for a car moving close to 100 MPH. The GPS was relegated to aligning the virtual and real worlds at the start of the simulation. The rest of the data came from the IMUs and the car’s own CAN bus. [Adam and Glenn] used an Arduino with a Microchip mcp2515 can bus interface  to read values such as steering angle, throttle position, brake pressure, and wheel spin. The data was then passed on to the Unreal engine. The Arduino code is up on Github, though the team had to sanitize some of Ford’s proprietary CAN message data to avoid a lawsuit. It’s worth noting that [Adam and Glenn] didn’t have any support from Ford on this, they just sniffed the CAN network to determine each message ID.

The final video has the Hollywood treatment. “In game” footage has been replaced with pre-rendered sequences, which look so good we’d think the whole thing was fake, that is if we didn’t know better.

Click past the break for the final commercial and some behind the scenes footage.

Continue reading “Castrol Virtual Drift: Hacking Code At 80MPH With A Driver In A VR Helmet”

A Real Dash For A Truck Simulator

[Leon] plays Euro Truck Simulator 2, and like any good simulator, there are people out there building consoles, cockpits, and dashboards. In [Leon]’s case, he wanted a dashboard for his virtual trucks and cobbled one together out of a dash taken from a VW Polo.

This project was inspired by [Silas Parker] and his Arduino-based dashboard made out of a cardboard box, some servos, and a few LEDs. It worked, but [Leon] realized just about every dashboard made in the last decade or so has a CAN bus. You can just buy a CAN bus shield for an Arduino, and a dashboard can be easily found at any junkyard.

Right now, [Leon] is in the process of finding the CAN bus addresses of the relavent dials and LEDs on the dashboard. He found the tachometer at 0x280, and a bunch of indicator lights can be found at 0x470. Combined with a standard computer steering wheel and the telemetry SDK for Euro Truck Simulator 2, [Leon] has the beginnings of a virtual big rig on his desk.

Hanging Onto The World’s Greatest Piggyback Ride.

We were really sad to see NASA retire the Space Shuttle. Even though it’s being replaced with some new and exciting hardware, we have fond memories of the Shuttle program. The good news is that a lot of the old hardware can now be seen up close and personal. [Brady Haran] recently took a video tour of one of the iconic pieces of hardware from the Shuttle program, the Shuttle Carrier N905NA.

NASA purchased the Boeing 747-100 in 1974 from American Airlines, and by 1976 the jumbo jet was put on a strict diet in preparations to carry the shuttle on it’s back for transportation and initial testing. She was stripped of her interior (all but few first class seats), sound deadening, air conditioning, and baggage compartment. Vertical fins on the tail were added for yaw stability, and the four Pratt and Whitney turbofans were upgraded to more powerful units. The fuselage was strengthened, and mounting points for the shuttle added. Even with all the weight savings, it severely limited the 747’s range from about 5000 miles to about 1000 miles while the orbiter was on it’s back. The aircraft was retired from service after ferrying the Shuttles to their final destinations in 2012.

In the video after the break, you can take a short tour of the N905NA at the Johnson Space Center in Houston where they are preparing it for public display. Visitors will be able to tour the 747 (with exhibits inside the fuselage), and a very accurate mock-up of the shuttle that sits atop.
Continue reading “Hanging Onto The World’s Greatest Piggyback Ride.”

Kids Electric Mini Goes Brushless, Pops Wheelies

[ThatHpiGuy] had a problem. He wasn’t impressed with the performance from his kids’ electric-powered Mini. The 6 volt system was anemic at best, and was just begging for an upgrade. Pulling off the seat and checking the undercarriage, [ThatHpiGuy] realized the motor and gearbox were a perfect fit for the Turnigy 2300 Kv motor from his R/C short course truck. A couple of screws later, car-docuand he had the fastest ride-on toy on the block. Since this was a quick hack, [ThatHpiGuy] kept the truck’s R/C receiver, electronic speed control, and 2 cell LiPo power setup intact. The result is a cooperative system where he controls the throttle via R/C, and his kids control the steering.

That steering is still a bit of an issue though. Like many kid toys, the Mini only has one drive wheel, in this case the right rear. If [ThatHpiGuy] pours on the power a bit too quickly, the single wheel either spins or forces the car into a hard left turn. Aside from that, it looks like both [ThatHpiGuy] and his children are having a ball with this hack. The car will even pop a wheelie from a standing start! You’ve got to see it after the break.

Continue reading “Kids Electric Mini Goes Brushless, Pops Wheelies”

Anodized aluminium phone mount for a bike

Anodized Phone Mount For Your Bike

There’s a slew of apps out there for tracking your bike rides. If you want to monitor your ride while using the app, you’ll need it securely affixed to your bike. That’s where [Gord]’s No Dropped Calls build comes in. This aluminium mount was hand milled and anodized, which gives it a professional finish.

The mount consists of 3 parts which were machined out of stock 6061 aluminium. The plans were dreamt up in [Gord]’s head, and not drawn out, but the build log gives a good summary of the process. By milling away all of the unnecessary material, the weight of the mount was minimized.

Once the aluminium parts were finished, they were anodized. Anodization is a process that accelerates the oxidization of aluminum, creating a protective layer of aluminium oxide. [Greg] does this with a bucket of sulphuric acid and a power supply. Once the anodization is complete, the part is dyed for coloring. If you’re interested, [Gord] has a detailed writeup on home anodization.

The final product looks great, puts the phone within reach while biking, and prevents phone damage due to “dropped calls.”

A Jet Powered Go Kart

Do Not Try This At Home: A Jet Powered Go Kart

[Colin Furze] is at it again. This time he’s built a freaking jet-engine powered go kart.

In case you’re not familiar with [Mr. Furze], he’s no stranger to building high-speed vehicles, like the fastest baby stroller in the world. And he’s also got a bit of an obsession with pulse jet engines. He’s even made one out of a toilet roll holder. He was a plumber — but now he’s one of the best mad scientist YouTube creators around. We just hope he doesn’t kick the bucket too soon with one of his extreme projects, because his safety tie probably won’t save him!

This month’s project is no exception — he’s strapping his giant pulse jet engine he used to fart on France onto the frame of a tiny go kart. “As you can see the jet to kart ratio is pretty good”. No kidding — the engine has gotta be 2.5 times as long as the go kart’s frame!

Stick around after the break to see him risk his neck for our own amusement.

Continue reading “Do Not Try This At Home: A Jet Powered Go Kart”