Day 9: Static tests of the suspension with a rear-mounted battery: with me sitting in the seat, there’s about 0.5 inch (1.2 cm) of vertical travel available. This corresponds to about 30 lbs (133 N, or 13 kg-force) of force. That doesn’t feel like enough of a buffer.
So, instead, I’ll be mounting the battery on top of the rear rack. As a future upgrade, I’ll mount it under the frame, just in front of the rear wheel. (1/2)
Day 10: I made the extension cables for the throttle and brake. These use standard JST-SM plus, yay open standards! Each cable is multiple wires all in heat shrink tubing for cable management reasons.
After, I installed these on the bike, along with the battery <-> motor controller. I slid them into some spiral wrap, which looks quite nice! 😊
Day 11: I installed T-Nuts to the rear retaining bracket for the battery mount, and I started to build the front retaining bracket for the battery mount. Which are fancy words for "things which go just under the rear rack, to hold the battery mount to the rear rack".
I also started designing a housing for the cycle analyst (front display) & all its connectors. The front light will also be mounted to that housing. It's very boxy right now, which I'll fix before printing it.
Day 12 of my recumbent ebike build: Refined the display housing. Much less boxy, and should be fairly easy to assemble once printed. That said, it's not terribly printable: requires supports, has to be printed at an angle to fit on the build plate, and will take ages (2.5 days at my desired layer height). I'll do a test print at 0.3mm layer height before I commit to a 2.5 day print job. This test print will still take 17 hours to finish. 😭
Day 13 of my recumbent ebike build: Back to working on the battery mount. Sadly, I think I've learned all I can from this... let's call it the prototype. I managed to get the prototype secured to the bike rack. But in doing so, I had to cut into the mount enough such that the battery isn't able to be attached to the mount. 🤦🏻♀️
Oh well, I learned a lot, and making the second version should go much smoother.
Day 14 of my recumbent ebike build: prototype for the display housing finished printing. I removed the supports, and went about trying to assemble it. Immediately noticed that the display is too wide to fit! D’oh! I continued to test the part and make notes on it, including mounting it to the bike. Where it looks pretty great.
I’ll definitely be making another prototype part before I make the final part.
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