Welding & Welding Slag

Yesterday I started welding the frame together.  Kirk and I spent a lot of time just trying to get the two bike frames to fit together squarely, thus I only spent about 30 minutes welding two rods on and 3 hours fitting them together.  But, that's the hardest part of the frame; the rest is just building off that and shouldn't be as hard.  I still need to work out the drive assembly though, so that will take some time once the frame is finished.

Top-side view.  Note assorted metal parts leaning on frame.

Close-up.  Note again the random collection of metal that's not actually part of the frame, but still on the frame.

First welding slag burn!  May no more follow!

NOW Do I Have Enough

They're the ring terminals from the dark side... the number you need multiplies exponentially directly with as many you use.  But somehow now, I hope I have enough...

Because. I can.

I'm not vain.  I just can.

Making Progress

Assembly Finished!

The other afternoon, I finally finished the controller assembly!  It took a little more work than I was anticipating, as after I hooked everything up and turned the throttle, the motor wouldn't spin.  After a couple hours of troubleshooting, many sparks, and finding and reading schematics, I was finally able to make all the right connections in the right order, and presto!  My motor now runs when I turn the throttle!  A major milestone has been achieved and a third of my project is completed!  The power source is assembled and operational, now I just need to finish building the frame, and assemble the drive assembly.  Here goes for being up and rolling by May day!

The controller assembly schematic.  Ohhhhhhhhh... so THAT's why it wasn't working before!

The finished assembly!

Today's Dumpster Diving Treasures

An old discarded shop light, to the untrained eye.  But to me, it is a reflector and housing for my Project's headlight.

And then there were three.  With matching tires, to boot!  How about that!

Turning Chairs into Seats

This evening I spent an hour performing surgery on my two chairs.  Armed with my trusty soldering iron, I melted a ring around the rivets holding the seat to the legs, trimmed the holes up a bit, and was left with two very fine Mystery Project seats!  I even washed them and discovered they were canary yellow, not golden mustard!

If those poor chairs only knew my purposes, they wouldn't have been nearly as willing to volunteer...

Left: remains of two chairs.  Right: two brand new seats!

Not So Musical Chairs

When I came home today after work, I was greeted by two old yellow chairs pulled out of storage for me.  These lucky two chairs are about to have new life breathed into them as I resurrect them for my project!

Megan Saves the Day!

As mentioned in my last post, I ran out of ring terminals for my controller assembly.  Then last night I was IMing with one of my coworkers who was down the hill in civilization and she asked if I needed anything from down the hill.  "Well," I said, "Since you asked..."
Then today, she delivered the last missing puzzle piece safe and sound!  Thank you Megan!

Controller Assembly

This morning I worked on making the controller assembly.  I finally found 4-gauge ring terminals after looking everywhere, and was able to stuff my 2-gauge wire into them.  Unfortunately, I only bought one pack, and then halfway through the morning realized I needed another pack... so I'm two wires away from finishing the assembly, but there's nothing more I can do on it for the time being.

Work in progress

(nearly) Finished!

Finally

I ordered these bearings nearly three weeks ago, and then forgot all about them shipping until I got home on Easter vacation, so they've been sitting in the post office for the past week-and-a-half waiting for me.  But at last, they are in my possession ready to be used!

Home Depot, Placerville

I finally found something that'll work!  4-gauge ring terminals!  True, I'm using 2-gauge wire, but I've looked absolutely everywhere for those and the 4 gauge is the closest I've come.  So when I get back home from Easter vacation, I'll be able to get started on the wiring rig, finally!!!