bike

157 Articles

Keep Pedaling To Keep Playing

August 8, 2017 by 12 Comments

It’s been said that the best way to tackle the issue of childhood obesity would be to hook those children’s video game consoles up to a pedal-powered generator. Of course, this was said by [Alex], the creator of Cykill. Cykill interfaces an Xbox to an exercise bike, so to keep the video game going you’ll have to keep pedaling the bike.

While there is no generator involved in this project, it does mimic the effect of powering electronics from a one. The exercise bike has a set of communications wires, which are connected to a relay on the Xbox’s power plug. When the relay notices that the bike isn’t being pedaled enough, it automatically cuts power to the console. Of course, the risk of corrupting a hard drive is high with this method, but that only serves to increase the motivation to continue pedaling.

The project goes even further in order to eliminate temptation to bypass the bike. [Alex] super-glued the plug of the Xbox to the relay, making it extremely difficult to get around the exercise requirement. If you’re after usable energy instead of a daily workout, though, there are bikes out there that can power just about any piece of machinery you can imagine.

Simple Electric Bike Conversion From 3D-Printed Parts

June 23, 2017 by 27 Comments

Challenge: Perform an electric conversion on a bicycle. Problem: No significant metal working skills or equipment. Solution: 3D print everything needed to electrify the bike.

At least that’s the approach that [Tom Stanton] took to his electric bike build. Having caught the electric locomotion bug on a recent longboard build, [Tom] undertook the upgrade of a cheap “fixie,” or fixed-gear bike. His delta printer was big enough for the motor mount and weather-resistant ESC enclosure, but he needed to print the drive pulley in four quadrants that were later glued together. We can’t say we hold much faith in the zip ties that transmit all the torque through the rear wheel’s spokes, but as a proof of concept it seems sturdy enough. With a throttle from an electric scooter and a battery in a saddle bag, the bike turns in pretty decent performance — at least after a minor gearing change. And everything blends in or accents the black frame of the bike, so it’s a good-looking build to boot.

Want to catch the cheap electric personal transportation bug too? Check out this electric longboard, or this all-terrain hoverboard.

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Suffer No Substitutes — The Hudspith Steam Bicycle Is One-Of-A-Kind

June 8, 2017 by 25 Comments

In a bit of punky, steam-based tinkering, Brittish engineer [Geoff Hudspith]’s obsession for steam and passion for cycles fused into the Hudspith Steam Bicycle.

Built and improved over the past thirty years, the custom steam engine uses a petrol and kerosene mix for fuel, reaching a top speed of 32km/h and has a range of 16km on one tank of water. While in motion, the boiler is counter-balanced by the water tank on the rear as well as the flywheel, water pump, and the other components. However, [Hudspith] says he doesn’t have an easy go of it carrying the bike up the flight of stairs to his flat — as you can imagine. A steam whistle was fitted to the bike after insistence from others — and perhaps for safety’s sake as well, since it does take a bit of distance to stop the bike.

Many people have offered large sums for it — and at least one house in exchange for the bike — but [Hudspith] has held on to this one-of-a-kind steam-machine. A little more about the development of the bicycle can be read here! A video of the bike in action is waiting after the break.

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Arduino + Geometry + Bicycle = Speedometer

March 9, 2017 by 9 Comments

It is pretty easy to go to a big box store and get a digital speedometer for your bike. Not only is that no fun, but the little digital display isn’t going to win you any hacker cred. [AlexGyver] has the answer. Using an Arduino and a servo he built a classic needle speedometer for his bike. It also has a digital display and uses a hall effect sensor to pick up the wheel speed. You can see a video of the project below.

[Alex] talks about the geometry involved, in case your high school math is well into your rear view mirror. The circumference of the wheel is the distance you’ll travel in one revolution. If you know the distance and you know the time, you know the speed and the rest is just conversions to get a numerical speed into an angle on the servo motor. The code is out on GitHub.

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Light Rider: A Lightweight 3D Printed Electric Motorcycle!

January 29, 2017 by 43 Comments

It sounds like the name of a vehicle in some sci-fi tale, but that fiction is only a short leap from reality. Light Rider is, in fact, an electric motorcycle with a 3D printed frame that resembles an organic structure more than a machine.

Designed by the Airbus subsidiary [APWorks], the largely hollow frame was devised to minimize weight while maintaining its integrity and facilitating the integration of cables within the structure. The frame is printed by melting a sea aluminium alloy particles together into thousands of layers 30 microns thick. Overall, Light Rider’s frame weighs 30% less than similar bikes; its net weight — including motor — barely tips the scales at 35 kg. Its 6 kW motor is capable of propelling its rider to 45 km/h in three seconds with a top speed of 80 km/h, and a range of approximately 60 km — not too shabby for a prototype!

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Snowed-In In The City? The Snow Bike Will Get You Where You Need To Go

January 29, 2017 by 20 Comments

If have ever gone snowmobiling, you may have thought about how to revive that thrill in the more confined atmosphere of an urban environment — to say nothing of their utility. In anticipation of heavy snowfall  over the winter in his hometown, [Ben] stripped the essence of the snowmobile down as an emergency vehicle and reshaped it into the Snow Bike.

This compact, winter transportation solution uses an e-bike controller, a chopped up ski, and a heavy snowblower track and a large RC plane motor for power all strapped onto a modified mountain bike frame. The motor mount is machined aluminum, the track rollers milled out of spare plastic — though they later had to be modified as they tended to get clogged by snow — and the front ski is simply bolted on using some 3″ square tubing.

Due to its small size the Snow Bike looks about as stable as a pocket bike, so perhaps some training tracks and or skis might help in deeper powder. [Ben] also notes that the present motor doesn’t have much power so the rider needs to keep it at full throttle to push through the snow. That said — seeing this thing smoothly cruising around in several inches of snow makes us wish we had one of our own.

If this ride isn’t fast enough for you, check out these rocket-powered winter vehicles.

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Barely-There GSM GPS Tracker

November 19, 2016 by 57 Comments

What’s the most un-intrusive GPS you’ve ever seen? How about for a bike? Redditor [Fyodel] has built a Teensy-based GPS/GSM tracker that slides into your bike’s handlebars and really is out of sight.

The tracker operates on T-Mobile’s 2G service band — which will enable the device to work until about 2020 — since AT/T is phasing out their service come January. Since each positioning message averages 60 bytes, an IoT data plan is sufficient for moderate usage, with plans to switch over to a narrow-band LTE service when it becomes more affordable. [Fyodel] admits that battery life isn’t ideal at the moment, but plans to make it more efficient by using a motion sensor to ensure it’s only on when it needs to be.

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