Building A Bicycle Dash Cam With Advanced Capabilites

November 1, 2021 by Lewin Day 15 Comments

Riding a bicycle is a wonderful and healthy way to get around. However, just like with any other vehicle on the road, it can be useful to have a camera to record what goes on in traffic. [Richard Audette] built just such a rig.

The original setup relies on a Raspberry Pi 3, which takes a photo every 10 seconds using the attached Pi Camera. It then processes these photos using OpenALPR, which is a piece of software for reading licence plates. Licence plates detected while cycling can be stored on the Raspberry Pi for later, something which could be useful in the event of an accident.

However, [Richard] has developed the concept further since then. The revised dashcam adds blind spot detection for added safety, and uses a Luxonis OAK-D camera which provides stereo depth data and has AI acceleration onboard. It’s paired with a laptop carried in a backpack instead of a Raspberry Pi, and can stream video to a smartphone sitting on the handlebars as a sort of rear-view mirror.

Anyone who has commuted on a bicycle will instantly see the value in work like [Richard]’s. Just avoiding one accident from a car coming from behind would be of huge value, and we’re almost surprised we don’t see more bicycle rear view kits in the wild.

Alternatively, if you just want to scan your surroundings as you ride, consider building a landscape scanner instead. Video after the break.

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Modified Car Alternator Powers Speedy DIY E-Bike

October 25, 2021 by Tom Nardi 38 Comments

Your garden variety automotive alternator is ripe for repurposing as is, but with a little modification, it can actually be used as a surprisingly powerful brushless motor. Looking to demonstrate the capabilities of one of these rebuilt alternators, [DIY King] bolted one to the back of a old bicycle and got some impressive, and frankly a bit terrifying, results.

We should say up front that the required modifications to the alternator are quite extensive, so before you get too excited about building your own budget e-bike, you should check out the previous guide [DIY King] put together. The short version is that you’ll need to machine a new rotor and fill it with the neodymium magnets salvaged from hoverboard motors.

A custom built alternator rotor is the key to the project.

Once you’ve got your modified alternator, the rest is relatively easy. The trickiest part of this build looks like it was cutting off the bike’s rear wheel mount and replacing it with a plate that holds the alternator and a pair of reduction gears pulled from a 125cc motorbike. Beyond that, it’s largely electronics.

Naturally, you’ll also need a pretty beefy speed controller. In this case [DIY King] is using a 200 amp water-cooled model intended for large RC boats, though interestingly enough, it doesn’t seem he’s actually running any water through the thing. He’s also put together a custom 1,500 watt-hour battery pack that lives in a MDF box mounted under the seat.

To test out his handiwork, [DIY King] took to the streets and was able to get the bike up to 70 km/h (43 MPH) before his courage ran out. He thinks the motor should be able to push it up to 85 km/h, but he says the bike started wobbling around too much for him to really open it up. In terms of range, he calculated that while cruising around at a more palatable 30 km/h (18 MPH), he should be able to get 100 kilometers (62 miles) off of a single charge.

If you like repurposed motors and suicidal bike speeds, you’ll love this build that uses a washing machine motor to push a rider to a claimed 110 km/h. If you’re not worried about speed or range, then this supercapacitor e-bike is certainly worth a look as well.

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DIY Solar Ebike Goes Around The World, We Hope

October 7, 2021 by Bryan Cockfield 47 Comments

[Mark Havran] is on a mission to complete a solo trip around the world on his bicycle. For such a long and arduous trip, unsupported by anything other than what he and his bike can carry, he has devised a unique vehicle with everything he needs to accomplish his journey. This bike has plenty of things we’ve seen before, such as solar panels and an electric motor, but plenty of things that are completely novel as well.

For such long-distance trips, the preferred style of bike for most is a recumbent. This allows the rider to take a more relaxed position while riding and is much more efficient than an upright bike as well. [Mark]’s bike also uses a hub motor in the front wheel powered by a set of lithium ion battery packs. The bike also utilizes four solar panels with three charge controllers (to reduce the impacts of panel shading) laid out with three of the panels on a trailer and a single panel above the bike to give him some shade while riding. [Mark] also built solar tracking abilities into each of the two arrays, allowing the solar panels to automatically rotate around the trailer and bike to more efficiently capture sunlight than a statically-mounted set of panels would be able to. They can also be manually controlled in case of high winds.

From the video linked below, we can see a number of other added features to the bike that will enable it to make such a long trip. First, he is getting a new motor which has a number of improvements over his old one, which he put over 30,000 kilometers on. Second, there are some safety features that deserve a mention such as his lighting setup borrowed from emergency response vehicles, and even includes a fire extinguisher for any catastrophic electrical failures. Of course, if you aren’t optimizing your recumbent electric bike for long distance there are some other modifications you could make to it as well to improve its off-road abilities. Best of luck, Mark!

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Bicycles Are Bad At Towing, Even With Crawler Gears

October 4, 2021 by Lewin Day 43 Comments

Gearing can make a huge difference to a cyclist, enabling even the least fit rider to climb a steep hill, albeit slowly. [Berm Peak Express] took that to the next level, creating a super-low geared bicycle capable of actually towing seriously heavy loads.

The build consists of a custom 74-tooth sprocket for the rear wheel, paired with a 24-tooth chain ring for the pedals. The custom sprocket doesn’t have any holes drilled or other lightening measures taken, but given the slow speeds involved, the extra rotating mass probably isn’t much of an issue. With that gearing, 3.08 turns of the pedals will result in just one turn of the rear wheel, with the aim to provide tractor-like torque with the trade-off being incredibly low forward speed.

Installing the giant rear cog required using a 3D-printed guide to keep the chain tensioned, and the rear brakes are entirely absent, but it all came together. Bikes aren’t built for towing, and some issues are faced with dragging a Jeep as the bike struggles with balance and traction. However, with some effort, a grown adult can be towed in a child carriage up a hill, no problems.

The bike proves difficult to ride as the forward speed is so slow that balance is problematic. However, it was interesting to see the experiment run, and the wear marks on the hub from the huge loads put through the rear wheel. If you’re digging the weird bikes, though, check out this hubless design as well. Video after the break.

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Put A Landscape Scanner On Your Bike And Ride

September 27, 2021 by Lewin Day 33 Comments

Google have a fleet of cars travelling the roads of the world taking images for their online StreetView service. You could do much the same thing pedalling on two wheels, with the help of this landscape scanner from [Celian_31].

The basic concept is simple. A powerbank on the bike runs a Raspberry Pi, kitted out with its typical Pi Camera within a 3D-printed housing. A reed switch on the bike’s frame detects pulses from a magnet attached to the valve stem of one tire, and this is used to trigger the taking of photos at regular intervals with the aid of a Python script. Further scripts are then used to knit all the photos taken on a ride together into one contiguous image.

It’s unlikely you’ll recreate Google’s entire StreetView in this fashion. You’d probably want a spherical camera anyway. However, if you wish to undertake regular static surveillance of your local area in an inconspicuous fashion, this would be a great way to do it while also staying in shape. If you do that, please don’t tell us as it would be a major violation of operational security. We’d love to hear about any other projects, though! Video after the break.

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Scratch Built Tricycle Maximizes Fuel Efficiency

May 16, 2021 by Bryan Cockfield 27 Comments

While the bicycling community is welcoming an influx of electric bikes, there’s a group of tuners on the fringes that are still intent on strapping gas motors of all sizes to bicycles and buzzing down the roads in a loud and raucous fashion. Kits are readily available and are much cheaper than comparable e-bike kits, and with a little bit of work it’s possible to squeeze a lot of excitement from these small motors. With a lot of work, though, you might end up with something like this incredibly fuel efficient and fully customized reverse trike from [Paul Elkins].

The entire goal with this build was fuel efficiency, so the plan is to eventually enclose the vehicle in aerodynamic fairings, most likely using his favorite material, Coroplast. The frame itself is completely hand-made from square tube and welded by [Paul] himself to his own custom specifications. He bolts on a suspension and custom steering rack with levers to control the two front wheels, and the small engine and gas tank are attached to the back above the single drive wheel. The engine hadn’t been started in ten years, but once he got it all put together, it started right up and he was able to take his latest prototype out on the road for a test drive.

While the build isn’t completely finished, the video below (eleventh so far in the build log) is far enough along to show the fruits of years of [Paul]’s labor. It’s taken a while to get a design that worked like he wanted, but with this iteration, he finally has what he was looking for.

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Keep An Eye On Your Bike With This DIY GPS Tracker

May 14, 2021 by Lewin Day 31 Comments

Owning a bike and commuting on it regularly is a great way to end up with your bike getting stolen, unfortunately. It can be a frustrating experience, and it can be particularly difficult to track a bike down once it’s vanished. [Johan] didn’t want to be caught out, however, and thus built a compact GPS tracker to give himself a fighting chance to hang on to his ride.

It’s built around the Arduino MKR GSM, a special Arduino built specifically for Internet of Things project. Sporting a cellular modem onboard, it can communicate with GSM and 3G networks out of the box. It’s paired with the MKR GPS shield to determine the bike’s location, and a ADXL345 3-axis accelerometer to detect movement. When unauthorised movement is detected, the tracker can send out text messages via cellular connection in order to help the owner track down the missing bike.

The tracker goes for a stealth installation, giving up the deterrent factor in order to lessen the chance of a thief damaging or disabling the hardware. It’s a project that should give [Johan] some peace of mind, though of course knowing where the bike is, and getting it back, are two different things entirely. We’ve seen creative techniques to build trackers for cats, too. It used to be the case that such “tracking devices” were the preserve of movies alone, but no longer. If you’ve got your own build, be sure to let us know on the tipline!