A few mods/projects for my TaoTao Atm-50 A1 By glavey (Read 25,053 times)

[glavey]

Hello all! Gather 'round and bring some cheese to snack on, this is gonna be an adventure.

I should start off by saying that I am terrible at following through and completing projects and I get somewhat easily discouraged, so it is entirely possible that I may stop posting in this thread. Nevertheless, I will try to complete what I am going to start and share the progress, pitfalls, busted knuckles, and broken parts with all of you.

There are really only 2 major projects here, but within each of those there are numerous little mods and micro-projects to be done.

The two big projects and smaller micro-projects are:
1. Add an oil cooler to my scoot.
    A. Add oil temp sensor
    B. Find best placement for radiator
    C. Find best hose routing
    D. Reserved for something I forgot or don't yet know about or involuntary temporary mental retardation
2. Create an analog tach powered by an arduino with movement from a stepper motor, capable of very fast updates, resolution, and speed.
    A. Get rpm signal from engine
    B. Power arduino and all supporting ICs
    C. Mesaure rpm within code in arduino
    D. Move stepper motor, through driver board, to correct location for a given rpm (this is gonna be the biggie)
    E. Make enclosure, gauge face, needle, and gauge housing for tach
    F. Add digital voltmeter to scoot
    G. Reserved for forgotten, unforeseen, or unknown things or brain farts

Bonus:
Not really a project, but I also bought a wheel balancer from amazon and will see how it works with my scoot's wheels.

I will probably start with the oil cooler first. But before I do anything, I have a small electrical issue to address first.

[cyborg]

a nice gouda and some goulden drak,,,,one thing i did notice about most , but not all people doing a build / mods is they try to do everything at once,,,one thing at a time ,,,complete then move on,,,,always works for me

[glavey]

Ah, yes. I used to have that problem. But then I realized I would just burn my self out on whatever I was doing and loose all interest. Now I at least try to do one thing at a time.

Oh, and I forgot to add another little mod; a bicycle speedometer.

[glavey]

Ok, let's get things started!

First I'll show everything I bought so far for these projects.

The wheel balancer:


All of the electronics: (tachometer I had previously bought; might use it as the housing for my arduino, oil temp gauge, relay board I had lying around from a previous computer water cooling loop, DC to DC buck converter w/ voltage readout, stepper motor (I bought 6 of those), arduino nano w/ headers, motor driver board, hall effect sensor board; bought 2 of those, arduino pro mini w/ headers, 0.030mm solder, and jumper wire kit)


All of the plumbing and equipment for the oil cooler: (radiator w/ baggie of mounting hardware, hose that came with radiator, hose bought from local auto store, check valve, transmission "add-a-plug", 1/8" npt female coupler, 1/8" npt nipple, 4x 1/8" npt to 5/16" hose barb adapters, 1/8" npt 4-way, 8x hose clamps, fuel/diesel/oil pump, 1/8" npt bleeder valve, 2x 1/8" npt street elbows)


And the bicycle speedometer: (I actually already had this lying around the garage)

Note that the wiring that is there is not how it came from the factory, that is my doing. Also, I made the reed switch housing.

Now some close-ups of some of the items.

Arduino pro mini:


Hall effect sensor:


Stepper motor: (penny for size comparison, these things are tiny!)


Motor driver board:


Arduino nano: (I bought 2 arduinos because I am fairly certain I am going to end up doing something stupid and end up  blowing one of them)


DC to DC buck converter with voltage display: (it's a good thing this had a voltage display because I also bought a separate voltage display module but I'm starting to think it had been lost in shipping)


Relay board: (again, I had this lying around because I used it to turn on a water pump when my computer started back when it was water cooled. I'm not sure if I am going to use this board in any of these projects.)


Radiator: (would also make a great cheese grater)



Now that all of that is out of the way, I can start to tell you what I have been doing the past few days.

I started by checking out the wheel balancer. I really wanted to make one myself, but I couldn't find any tapered fittings. Oh well. The rod is, I believe hardened steel. It isn't precision ground, but it is quite smooth and shiny. The bearing holders are made of aluminum and are very thick; at least 1/4". The bearings themselves are 628zz.

One of the bearings I received was horribly scratchy. It wasn't worth it to send it back and get a replacement or refund so I decided to replace them with some common 608zz bearings. I created some mock-up bearings that were the same size as the 608's to see of the steel rod would still rest on two bearings and not touch the aluminum base. Nope, it touches, but I can just grind a little bit of the base off between the two bearings and everything will be hunky dory. Here is a pic showing the difference in size:



I looked online to see the prices for 4 608zz bearings and it was around $15. Luckily one of my local hardware stores had skateboards on sale (skateboards almost universally use 608's and oddly enough my hardware store stocks them). $5 later I had 8 bearings, a deck, some hardware, and 4 skateboard wheels to use.


Now onto the oil temperature gauge.

The sending unit that came with my temperature gauge is a bit bent. The probe that extends out of the threaded part bends slightly to one side. At first this wasn't too much of a problem. My main concern was that the probe was going to stick too far into the 4-way fitting that the bleeder valve I was going to put on the opposite side wasn't going to be able to thread in all the way. That turned out to not be a problem. However a different problem reared it ugly cheese-hating head. the probe, when completely installed in the 4-way fitting, leaves very little room for oil to circulate around it. Here is a pic to illustrate what I mean:



As you can see there is very little room for the oil to flow around the probe. I can still blow air through the fitting if I plug the port opposite the probe, but it is restricted.

I thought about using a 1/4" npt 4-way and a few 1/4" to 1/8" adapters so there would be much more room around the probe. I bought a 1/4" npt male to 1/8" npt female bushing and a 1/4" tee to see if this idea would even be feasible. It wasn't. Because the probe was bent, when I tried to screw it into the bushing, it rubbed against the inside of the fitting, preventing it from being screwed in all the way. I tried drilling out the inside of the bushing and even sanding the probe, but nothing worked.

I returned the tee and the bushing and went back to the 4-way. Since I had sanded the probe a bit I tried to screw it back into the 4-way again and this time, even though I sanded only a little off, the room around the probe improved. It is still obstructing the flow some, but I will have to deal with it and hope the pump I bought will still be able to push oil past it at an acceptable rate.


Next, I was going to test out the probe by measuring its resistance while in air and in some how water. Here is a pic of the probe:


I started screwing on the requisite hardware onto the top electrically isolated threaded part, the when I started to tighten a nut onto it, the entire top threaded portion started twisting. Eek! I should have expected it from a chinese part. I'll just have to be careful with it.

I also have a very similar probe and analog gauge from sunpro. The probe is nearly identical externally, except for a longer length and a top threaded portion that won't twist. The resistances at room temp aren't the same, though. The sunpro is about 2.5k ohms, and the chinese one is about 1.5k ohms. I doubt that they are compatible, but perhaps for snits and giggles I will test both probes on both gauges and see what happens.


All of today and a little bit of yesterday I have been working on a wiring harness for all of the components I plan on adding. Here is a pic showing an unorganized mess-of-a-harness-in-progress:


And yes, that is my bed. I have been known to sleep with electronics. And computers. When I have projects like this, by bed becomes temporary storage space and my computer desk becomes by work bench.

That's all for tonight, my fingers hurt. Goodnight all!

[glavey]

I didn't do too much today. I tested the chinese oil temperature gauge and probe by sticking the probe in boiling water and comparing the reading to a digital oven thermometer. The oven thermometer read 99c and the oil temp gauge read 100c. Not too bad at all! Much better than the sunpro probe I mentioned previously; that read 180f in boiling water.

I messed with the carburetor a little; changed the idle jet to a smaller one but I'm pretty sure I need to go back up one because I am at least 3 1/2 turns out and still lean.

Before I begin the plumbing for the oil cooler, I want to install the oil temp gauge and get a baseline reading and see what improvement I get with the cooler.

I am a slight bit worried that my pump may not be able to pump a satisfactory amount of oil through the cooler; it is a diaphragm-type pump, not a normal centrifugal one. I have powered it up and it does create some pressure at the outlet, albeit without any fluid going through it. I still have yet to test it with oil. I suppose I can use the oil that is in my scoot now to test it; I have to drain the oil to install the temperature probe.

[cyborg]

I don't think the pump can handle it,,, just my opinion I may be wrong ,,, I think by the time it gets everything up and running to flow into the head the top end will be dry already and when it finally does get oil to the top the sump will be dry,,, you must figure out total cc's of the new plumbing I think there is a problem waiting

[glavey]

I've planned the plumbing in such a way that I can add oil to all of the external bits (radiator, hoses, pump) before starting the engine. And with the check valve, the oil won't drain back into the case and cause havoc on the next engine restart with too much oil in the crankcase.

[cyborg]

this can work with a judicious overfill with a check valve,,,then the only forseeable problem will be oil changes,,,getting the system drained,,,but nothing to it when you get the proceedure down

[glavey]

Ok, I've finished the prerequisite supporting wiring harness.

Now before I start mocking up locations for everything, I need to know if I should be using teflon tape/paste on all of the npt fittings including the ones that need to be able to conduct electricity with little to no resistance like the temperature probe.

[cyborg]

I've used both and both work ,,,i prefer the paste myself,,on eveything

[glavey]

So neither will create an electrical insulator?

[cyborg]

the paste just seals the surfacse between the threads,,there is still ample metal to metal contact

[glavey]

Ok, good. I guess I'll spend the day mocking up locations and designing/building enclosures and mounting hardware for the various gauges.

Hopefully another migraine won't impede my progress.

[glavey]

Well, no migraine yesterday but my allergies were hell.

Here are the gauge holders I made yesterday for the oil temperature and voltmeter:






I plan on mounting them to the scoot with zip ties.

Today I'll try and get the bicycle speedometer mounted, the oil temp and voltmeter gauges installed, and possibly go for a ride and see what kind of oil temps I get.

[glavey]

It appears the holder for the voltmeter I made had zip-tie cutouts that were too small and broke. I remade it thicker and with reinforcements in the middle.


It was a bit too hot to do much work outside and there is a storm coming, but I did manage to install the chinese oil temp gauge probe and test how well the pump moves motor oil. Quite well it turns out; I don't think It will have a problem moving an acceptable amount of oil. How well it performs at operating temperature still remains to be seen.