Fixing A Flevo Part 1

Aki and some of his bikes including the red flevo.  The small bike at his feet is very old and has "Dunlop Atlantic" tyres.

Hi

A few days ago, I went over to my friend Aki's place.  I'd been there a couple of months ago and tried (and failed) to ride his flevobike, and he can't ride it either.  We are both stubborn, and I agreed to pick up the Flevobike at a later date, with a view to modding it so we can ride it.  My plan is to use a set of vuong wheels on the back.  Meanwhile, I am a bit clueless on the dynamics of Flevo's, would it be easier to ride them with a shallow fork angle (seat down) or steep fork angle (seat up)?  I will put this to a forum I have just joined and see if there is any collected wisdom on this.  Regards

Steve Nurse

"Up"

"Down"

Transparent!

Cutting transparent side panels.....

in the loungeroom.

Fitted to the trike.

Back at Monash Uni, with the source of flashing lights.

The same scene with the lights on, slightly more recognisable as a human powered vehicle.

Hi, for a few years I shared an office with Yun Nam.  Both of us are close to completing our respective degrees now.  For a while I have been fascinated by his motion sensitive LED lights (see this post) and I got to wondering about putting a light show in the back of my leaning trike.  But I had slightly more serious things to think about, and the idea was put on hold.

Recently I saw Yun again, and asked him for some of his lights, and he said sure, take some, and I did.  I bought some transparent floor mat from Bunnings, then stripped back some of the cloth side panels from the trike to get to the timber frames underneath.  These were used as templates for cutting the floor mat. Then the clear sides were attached to the frames,  and the resulting pieces were attached to the trike.

A few days later I went riding on the trike after sticking the motion sensitive lights inside.  I'm not sure that the clear panels could ever be useful useful, but they are useful for showing off the trike, demonstrating that it can carry loads and show off outrageously at night.  I'll mke a film clip when time allows.

Regards

Steve Nurse

Cetus 3D Printer cover with pdf plan.

Outside with Printer installed

Inside, thermometer left, cable cutout top, peep hole and plug left

View through the peep hole with thermometer and printer.

Filament Side of Cover

Hi, If you are reading this and don't have a Cetus 3d printer, then you might want to  waste your time somewhere else.  But if you do, then this may be of interest.  The Cetus printer comes without a cover and also does not operate well in cold temperatures.  But if you put an insulating cover over it, the heat from the motors and extruder is kept in, and it can operate well in room temperatures of about 5 degrees C.  

There was a recent contest Cetus ran for the design of a cover, but I can't find the link for that, but anyway here is my effort.  This is a functional cover.  It doesn't put the printer on display as clear covers do, just does the job of holding its heat in and should not be too hard to build.  Here is the web folder containing the pdf plan.

The enclosure is designed with all the corrugations horizontal, and that should help with the heat transfer from the from enclosure: hot air can travel up the corrugations if they are vertical.  Here is a link to the material I used, I got mine from Bunnings. An alternative material would be heavy cardboard, and a recycled bike box (often given away free from bike shops here in Australia, just ask) would be ideal and plenty large enough.

The plan, download it from here

There is an opportunity for Cetus to help there users out here.  If the packaging the printer came in were made for reuse as all or part of a printer cover, or even if they printed a template for a cover on the packaging, it would help users get more out of the printer.  A few years ago I raised a patent for "useful packaging for cycles" which is accessible via the download spec. link here.  Exactly the same principles could apply for the Cetus packaging.

As far as the printer goes, it has worked very well for me.  I'm a mechanical engineer who is finishing a masters degree in industrial design , and since getting the Cetus a few months ago, I have been developing designs on it to help me get into phd studies.  Some of the designs are summarised here and you can follow the link to get to stl files for printing.  Look forward to your feedback on the printer cover design.

Regards  Steve Nurse

3d Print Construction Set

2 cubes that can be made with the Tribo parts.

Hi

This page gives some examples and techniques for a 3d printed modular construction set I have developed.  The files to print the set are available for $US 3.00 each from this page on cgtrader.com, and can be used multiple times.  This is the minimum price for cgtrader parts. As an introduction to the kit, you can look at this video, which shows you how to make the cubes shown above using printed parts and 2.5mm bamboo skewers available from supermarkets.

This sampler pic shows how the parts in the set can be connected together, with wooden skewers or with m3 or m4 bolts.  Parts themselves are labelled A, B, C, D, click on the links to download the respective files.

 Here are a few examples of assemblies made with sets of parts A, B, C, D.  In a few photos, I'm including a little bill of material that shows how many of each part are needed.

Dodecahedron, each wooden skewer is 250 mm long.

First crewed rocket to Mars!

Photo Frame Part 1, Assembled frame and adding corflute or cardboard to one side.

Photo Frame Part 2, Add a photo, then add some decorative bling, in this case a few buttons from my wife Christine's Collection.

"Retro TV"

"At the Drive-in"

5 sided prism.

Complex Column Structure. This uses assemblies of seven small triangles arranged in a crinkled up circle as a subassembly and was built after discussions with Monash University maths lecturer Daniel Mathews.

 So that is all I'm going to do for you today!  Here is the video link, please download the files for A, B, C and D, then please print and show me what you've made.   Regards  Steve Nurse,
steve (the @ symbol) modularbikes.com.au

A wooden trike to Monash

Trike as it was when I pulled it out from the side of the house

Glen Iris Bikepath sign

Now cleaned up trike leaning against a solar powered light.  Thingie

Newly opened Blakes Feast Cafe

Parked at Monash outside the main Caf.  Note orange and black gloves in "glovebox".

Ben starting off.

Hi,

During my recent Industrial design master's degree at Monash Uni I made 6 leaning trikes.  A few of these were development machines and were taken apart and the parts used to complete newer frames.  But I still came out of the degree with 4 trikes, and I can't use them all.  So I decided to give one away to the Monash HPV team, and after an email to their leader Piyath, he said ok, they wanted it.  The email exchange was last Friday, and I spent some of yesterday morning cleaning it and pumping up the tyres, and other bits of the morning riding it on errands to the chemist, bank, pathology lab and post office.  And it all worked ok!

This morning I headed off to Monash Clayton, just a lazy 24k away, and the trike worked just fine.  This ride used to be part of my commute, but I hadn't been along one part of the bike trail for a while, and was pleasantly surprised with some bike track upgrades.  Instead of being forced to ride along Brixton Rise in Glen Iris, there is now a nice bit of bike path with the Blakes Coffee Window at the end of it.  I stopped for a hot chocolate and to chat to some seemingly interested bike riders about the trike.

Anyway, the ride to Monash was uneventful, and although slightly wobbly at the start, Monash HPV's rider Ben didn't have too much trouble getting going.  Here is a short video.  Hope the trike goes well for you!

Regards

Steve Nurse

Tweaking the Timber Trike

At Mada Monash, Ply Bike on a Ply Wall

Piebald Chain, but it doesn't clunk

Shortened Seat Bolts

Extra Bolts inside, top bolt circled red

Cropped brake noodles

Hi

For the last few days I have been riding my latest timber trike, and its been a lot of fun, and given me the chance to iron out a few wrinkles.

Number one was the chain clunking on high gear.  I couldn't find any parts of the chain where the links were tight, but couldn't find any, so then changed the chain on one side of the quick link.  Still no good, and still clunking, however the new chain I had fitted was silver and during my test I could see when the chain was clunking: on the other side of the quick link.  Swapping another section of chain over fixed things, but the chain looks rather pie-bald now and I plan to replace it for a better-looking chain soon.

I shortened the seat bolts so they are more presentable, and added a few other bolts so the seat holds together better.  As well, I cut some metal off the brake noodles meaning the front wheel can be removed more easily.

So that's about it, except I have something coming up and have been quietly gathering parts.  A friend at Uni, Yun, had a project  and he let me have some balls enclosing motion sensitive lights he had made for it.  These are to go in the back of the tailbox, and I have bought some clear floorcovering material to go with them.  Woohoo!

Motion Sensitive lights

Clear Floorcover

Cycle Zoo Pdf

Hi

My book "An Illustrated Guide to the Cycle Zoo" is now available as a pdf download for $AUD 4.00.  If you read the blog regularly or even don't, and just want an inexpensive reference book about cycles, you really need to buy it and are only a few mouse clicks and an email or two away.  The link to buy is here,  click on the Purchase It tab and then the top "Buy Now" button and after that you are in the hands of Mr. Paypal.  Then an email rolls in to my inbox, a small about of money is shuffled electronically around the world and I send you the pdf.  Easy Peasey.

 Still Free!  (But please buy a book if you enjoy it at all) is the cycle tour boardgame I designed.  It says in a very roundabout sort of way that all human powered vehicles are equal, it doesn't matter what you ride, and sharing a ride with friends is a wonderful experience. To read more about it and download free, follow this link. 

My friend Dave Trickey got the ball rolling on this new pdf-buying scheme.  Thanks Dave!

Regards

Steve Nurse

O Bikes in Melbourne

A small invasion of O-bikes outside the Hive, Richmond, Melbourne

The bikes are a strange mix of high and low tech, this handlegrip is integrated with a bell

Front mudguard, light, generator and band brake

Back Wheel, Band brake and Ashtabula cranks

Obikes in Victoria St Richmond.

A bike in Coburg

Hi

In the last few weeks, there has been an invasion of bikes on our streets.  In competition with the official melbourne bike share scheme which has blue bikes, Obikes have started to appear.  They seem to be more widespread than the Blue bikes, but I have yet to see anyone use one.  But I have seen them parked outside shopping centres and sort-of getting in the way.

The bikes have a curious mix of old and new tech, for example they have Ashtabula cranks (now seen only on the cheapest of cheap new bikes)  and a single gear.  The brakes are band brakes, and I'm not that familiar with them, but they look out of place next to the shiny generator on the front hub.

Jai in his biking in a big city blog  has documented what looks like a similar hire scheme in Canada, and he even hired one.  Me, I don't even own a smartphone.  Good luck, Obike.