Pictures and Video

Hi there!  So its been a few weeks now riding Rev 2. Here is a picture and a fun video cruising the neighborhood!

Onca Onca takes to the street - Rev2

Today, I managed to complete the assembly process and take Onca Onca out for her maiden voyage.  A Total success!!!

Here is what the assembly looked like:

Tight Fit

All went almost exactly as planned.  I had to get a new battery box bolt that was a .5" shorter.  Aside from that, it was just a matter of putting everything where it belonged, filling the tires with air, and going for a ride.

At about the same time i was walking out the front door, my friend and neighbor Dom arrived, along with my neighbor Mark.  We took turns riding down the street and around the block.  They were ecstatic!!!  I new what to expect, and had far higher expectations, but don't get me wrong, i'm super happy with the results.  Everything was flawless.  No chain issues, no wireless interference, excellent acceleration and deceleration....almost too good.  All my new part, designed by myself, performed perfectly, and that is a really good feeling.

Here is a rundown of my mental notes of improvements for Rev 3:

1:  Tune both accel and decel curves to be a little more forgiving on the early part of the curve.  I may do it via code on the Fios or on the Kelly or both, but right now they kick in with some bite, but are still very usable!

2:  Revise the remote to have a snap-together case with some more rigidity.  It works great, but its on my TODO list.

3:  Find a cooler deck.

4:  Paint (or find an artist to paint) the bottom of the battery/control box.

5:  Better integrate the switch(es).

6:  Update it to use only 1 ON switch, and power the receiver via the main battery pack. (this fell of the table for rev 2 for the sake of importance and time.)

For now, Rev 2 is awesome.  i'll likely put a little effort in to #1 and smooth that out a bit, but i'm not very concerned about the rest.  Spring is almost here.  I'm ready to plan a few longer trips, figure out my real range, and just have fun with it!

Rock on.

Ready for assembly

Thing have been moving a little slow around here over the past two months.  Partially because of time, partially because i've been putting off dealing with the final circuit, which joins the wireless receiver to the motor controller.  This weekend, I put that task to rest, and blew through it all this morning.  Thats not to say i hadn't been working on it.  In the weeks previous, I did make some more complex circuits, unsuccessfully.  Blew up a few components, but spared myself and my arduino and controller survived.

So i finally settled on a simpler circuit which does all i need it to do.  The only thing that it doesn't do is power the Arduino from the large battery pack.  I may change this down the road, but it will at least allow me to take the new motor mount for a ride, wirelessly.  

Here is a video testing the breadboard:

Here are a few pictures.