A few mods/projects for my TaoTao Atm-50 A1 By glavey (Read 25,096 times)

[glavey]

Just got back from the hardware store; bought new set screws and an allen wrench. I put a new set screw in the pulley, put a little bit of loctite on the motor shaft, assembled everything and re-tensioned the belt.

I'm going to do a test print with a small piece so if my fix doesn't turn out to work I won't have wasted a bunch of filament.

I rode the scoot to the hardware store. The temperature outside is between 67F and 73F; the oil temp never got above 65C (149F), even when I was waiting for a train to pass for about 10 minutes.

The probes for the scope came in today; I roughly checked the calibration with the built-in probe adjust signal. It is very close to perfect; I only had to adjust the trace rotation a wee bit.

I bought 8oz of counteract tire balancing beads. I know I asked which brand/type to buy and then went against what was recommended, but the dyna beads are about 8x more expensive than the counteract ones.

[Guitarman]

I've seen and used Dynabeads but these look good too. I think I'll try them next time I change tires which is coming up very soon.

[richardv]

Which brand of balancing beads are you talking about?

[glavey]

The test print came out great. Tomorrow I will start printing the airbox again.

[Guitarman]

They are called "CounterAct" beads.

[glavey]

The first of the 3 airbox pieces is printing excellently; the pulley is staying in place and the print itself is looking great. I might go out for a ride today because it is such a nice day outside (although a bit chilly for my tastes) and I'm going a but stir crazy sitting in my room all day.

I find it very strange and counter-intuitive that even though I have social anxiety, I get stir-crazy enough to want to go out somewhere just to be out of the house. I can see now why almost everybody I meet calls me "weird" in a non-offensive way.

[glavey]

Just came back from a very brisk ride with temperatures around 50F outside. I realized that my headlight or more specifically, the light pattern/projection from the headlight housing isn't working for me. The housing I am using is one of a pair or auxiliary driving lights meant for installation in addition to regular automotive headlights. The projected light pattern is mostly a flat, wide strip of light that shines down the road about 100ft with some (maybe 25%) of the available light going toward the extreme sides of the road and buildings/cars/trees that are there. I need a more concentrated focus on light straight down the road, but not a spotlight like you get with a flashlight.

I do have some fog light housings that use the same bulb type, however the glass in those is tinted so that the light emitted from the housing is yellow. I can definitely tolerate yellowish headlights; I've used halogen headlights in all of the cars I've ever driven.

The fog light housing looks like it will project a much more focused beam of light. I'll take pictures of both tomorrow so I can show you guys the difference. If neither works, I'll have to look for an aftermarket headlight housing that uses read headlight bulbs instead of the H1's I'm using now.

Literally a few minutes after I came home from the ride, the first piece of the airbox finished printing. There was a problem midway through the print; I had 4 narrow columns that leaned over at about 40 degrees. about midway through the print one of them snapped off. I paused the print, got my hot glue gun out and glued it back into place as well as reinforcing the other columns. The plastic had a bit of trouble sticking to the hot glue, but eventually it started to print like nothing happened. Now I need to carefully pry this piece off of the print bed and either leave the hot glue in place or remove most of it and find a better suited adhesive.

One down, two to go.

[Bashan]

Sept 16, 2014 15:49:08 GMT -6 glavey said:

I find it very strange and counter-intuitive that even though I have social anxiety, I get stir-crazy enough to want to go out somewhere just to be out of the house. I can see now why almost everybody I meet calls me "weird" in a non-offensive way.

Maybe continued exposure to yourself causes selfie social anxiety, you don't want to be around yourself. I know I get on my own nerves.

When Americans call somebody weird it's a compliment. It's a badge of honor to be different in our society. I'm not making that up, I learned that in a psych class.

Glavey my chum, I plan on doing a build with a 150cc in a 250 frame. I plan on using your design in the build because I want to use my Frankenstein motor with the exposed cylinder. That way I can keep the temp down and not have a shroud on the engine. There, no thread hijack right? Rich

[richardv]

"I find it very strange and counter-intuitive that even though I have social anxiety, I get stir-crazy enough to want to go out somewhere just to be out of the house. I can see now why almost everybody I meet calls me "weird" in a non-offensive way."

I have the same issue. My shrink just calls it PTSD. Don't worry about it.

[glavey]

Here's a few pics of the first finished piece of the airbox. This is actually the piece that goes in the middle; I printed it first because it is supposed to take the least amount of time to print.


You can kind of see the hot glue fix in that pic

[glavey]

Sept 16, 2014 19:13:49 GMT -6 Bashan said:

Sept 16, 2014 15:49:08 GMT -6 glavey said:

I find it very strange and counter-intuitive that even though I have social anxiety, I get stir-crazy enough to want to go out somewhere just to be out of the house. I can see now why almost everybody I meet calls me "weird" in a non-offensive way.

Maybe continued exposure to yourself causes selfie social anxiety, you don't want to be around yourself. I know I get on my own nerves.

When Americans call somebody weird it's a compliment. It's a badge of honor to be different in our society. I'm not making that up, I learned that in a psych class.

Glavey my chum, I plan on doing a build with a 150cc in a 250 frame. I plan on using your design in the build because I want to use my Frankenstein motor with the exposed cylinder. That way I can keep the temp down and not have a shroud on the engine. There, no thread hijack right? Rich

When I was working in my first job, assembly-line manual labor type stuff, with my social anxiety I often could only talk with my inner-self.  After about a week of that I came up with a saying that encompasses that experience, " Even though I've lived with my brain for almost my entire life; when I am socially alone there is only me, myself, and my brain, and we almost never get along".

Once I wanted to, and still do want to, make a shirt that says, " I'm not stupid, I'm just weird". I've never taken offense whenever someone calls me weird or odd or unusual. Terms like creep, freak, what's-wrong-with-him do, however, get to me.

I'm glad my project could help you out.

The counteract balancing beads came in today. The website says if you are installing the beads in a scooter or motorcycle tire to remove any wheel weights already attached to them, so I'll do that. I'll put the beads in the tires, they recommend 1 oz for 10" tires but I'll probably put in 1 1/2 to 2 oz; their website says too much cannot hurt, and go out for a ride to a local car dealership. They sent out one of those flyers with a scratch-off code where 99.7% of people will "win". I'm sure I'll just get the lowest prize; a $5 gift card to a department store, but that is enough to buy some cheese!

After that, I'll start printing the next piece of the airbox.

[richardv]

This past year I've been getting those weird guy remarks when I mention my interest in scooters. Today a had lunch with a younger brother that recently sold both of his Harleys and is building this Corvair:

but, he understood where I was coming from and even seemed interested.

[glavey]

I put 2 oz of beads in each tire. I had a bit of trouble with the front tire; the bead unseated when I removed the valve core. I don't have an air compressor but I do have a 7 gallon air tank and a bicycle pump. I figured I would try and blast the bead back into its seat with 75 or so psi of air. After I got to about 30 psi using the bicycle pump I thought to my self, "there has to be an old-timers garage technique to get the bead seated.

I searched the internet and found that if I wrap something like a belt, rope or tie-down strap around the outside of the tire, it would hold the bead in place. I had an old belt lying around, but it wasn't big enough. For once I wasn't fat enough. I know I had at least 2 tie down straps around but I couldn't for the life of me find them. I ended up using some real thick paracord, wrapping it around the tire and successfully inflating the tire.

The bead stayed seated on the rear tire so no problem there.

While I was down in that area I changed the transmission fluid.

I also figured out why my bicycle speedo was showing the wrong speed. I needed to input the tires diameter x pi; its circumference. I entered the circumference x pi; so my speed was about 3x more than it should have been. DOH!

I finally got around to weighing my scoot's variator weights now that I have a sub-gram scale. The weights I have in it now, which are the ones from the factory, are all 5.0Xg. I also have 2 sets of koso roller weights, 5g and 6g I bought way back when I installed my BBK. The koso 5g weights all weighed about 5.20g to 5.35g and the 6g weights all weighed 6.0Xg.

I also put sharpie marks on the variator drive face so I can tell if the belt is riding up all the way.

With my newly correctly calibrated speedo I went out for a top end run with the stock-from-the-factory 5g weights. Top speed with little to no wind and no tucking was 40 mph.

I did notice the reduction in vibration from the wheels; it wasn't as much as I had hoped, but I could definitely notice it.

Tomorrow I will make more top end runs with the different weights.

As I am typing this I am preparing to print the second piece for the airbox. I'm having trouble getting the first layer to stick to the print bed. Perhaps fresh pieces of painter's tape will help.

Here are the pictures comparing the two headlight housings I have:

The one I have installed now


And the one designed as a fog light with yellow tinting


Can any of you think of any (chemical) ways to remove the color coating on the glass?

[jct842]

I seriously doubt if the tint/dye is on the outside. In fact it may be the color of the glass itself.

[glavey]

I'm sure the blue housing actually has blue glass, but the yellow one is almost certainly a coating; I can scratch some it off of the interior side of the glass with a paperclip.

One worry is that the chemical used to remove the coating will disintegrate the glue holding the glass to the metal housing.

Edit: the second print had the exact same problem the first one did; one of the small leaning towers snapped off mid-print. The same pause, hot glue, and resume trick seems to have worked... so far.

I just realized that all three of these pieces, once printed, will have taken up 1/3 of the new roll of filament I just bought. If this thing doesn't work, I'll just live with the noise.