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Wow that thing is tiny! The engine is half the size of the entire frame. Makes me think of all of those franken-scoots/franken-bikes/franken-karts I see on youtube with gixxer motors shoved in them.

Is it going to be just for back alley bashing or are you going to try and race it?

Ok, I'll lie to you, but I'd be lying to you.

Many cars of my model year have the same problem; there was something like a defective top/clear coat on those specific cars.

As you may have deduced with my lack of updates compared to when I was working on the oil cooler, I am more mechanically minded than electronically minded. I've gotten into the electronics hobby only recently, but I've been building stuff as long as I can remember.

Also, my ADD combined with multiple projects, and the fact that once I start a new project I quickly loose interest in anything I was working on previously, makes progress slow and often unnecessarily difficult.

Here are a few of the things I've been working on, in addition to the tachometer:

Remember that laser engraver I talked about briefly? The limited work area got to me very quickly. I took inspiration from this product, which uses the same electronics as the engraver I bought, but has a much bigger working area. All I had to buy was the pieces of the metal frame, $2.88/each for 5 pieces, 2x stepper motors for $5 each (got a huge deal there, they normally go for about $15 each, 2x pulleys (in retrospect, I could have made my own) $8 for two, though I forgot I would actually need 3 Doh! , 5' of gt2 belt $4, and another Kg roll of printer filament (I was going to make all of the frame pieces myself) $20.

I won't go into the build process, but the end result, after about a week of designing and re-designing parts, is this:



Now the (safe) print area is 200mm x 200mm; 5x more per axis than it was before. I have yet to get any software other than what came with the original engraver to work with it, but I'm pretty close.


Next up is a very small project. As a soldering iron, I've been using one of those cheapo ones that plug directly into the wall, not regulated at all. My father used to make stained glass lamps and he used a dimmer switch to coarsely control the temperature of his soldering iron. I decided I would do the same. I salvaged an old computer power cord, connected it to a dimmer switch, and connected the dimmer switch to a dual outlet. I put the whole thing in a metal enclosure and printed a cover for the switches. Total cost: $2.05. I bought all of the electric parts minus the power cord from a local thrift store. I still need to buy/make a grommet so that the power cord going into the box isn't rubbing against sharp-edged metal. Here is the final product:



I tested it with the soldering iron I usually use, but that doesn't really make for good pictures as you can't see heat. Here it is with a lightbulb and an outlet adapter I keep next to the fuse box in case I have to determine which circuit a particular outlet or fixture is on:






The third project I've been working on is using a solar charge controller to regulate the charging voltage going to the battery, instead of what I have now, which is a variable resistor I set to keep maximum voltage at around 14.3. The solar charge controller almost as a float mode charge controller - it reads the battery voltage and based on that is determines with how much voltage to charge the battery. The bulk of the charge is done at the usual 14.7 volts and once the battery is fully charges, it goes down to 13.5 volts to keep it topped off. It needs between 17 and 25 volts DC on the (solar array) input to charge the battery. I hooked up the charger to the scooter by taking the terminal from the regulator/rectifier that usually connects to the red wire and connecting it to the positive solar array terminal and connected the positive battery voltage to the red wire that usually comes from the regulator. Both grounds from the solar array and the battery were connected together and wired to chassis ground. Here's a few pictures showing the charger hooked up with two multimeters measuring the voltage coming out of the R/R before going into the charger (on the left) and the battery voltage, taken right at the battery (right). The engine wasn't running when I took these pictures, so the left meter is reading zero. The solar charger can display battery voltage or charging current.





When I started the engine up the charger worked as it should. It took the voltage from the R/R, between 13 and 20 volts, and supplied the battery with up to 14.7 volts.

I knew that the R/R for these scooters is only a half-wave rectifier, so I was curious how smooth or not smooth the power coming out of the R/R was. Here's a shot of my scope probing the terminal on the R/R that is usually connected to the red wire. This is with the solar charger still connected.



Pretty darn messy. I wanted to see if adding another diode or perhaps a capacitor would smooth things out, but right before I got the chance to try either one of those, a quick torrential downpour of rain came across my neighborhood, so I had to wait a few minutes until the rain stopped and then a few hours to let the water that had come into the garage evaporate to go back and try again. The same darn thing happened again. Quick, violent downpour of rain that only lasted a few minutes. I decided I was done for that day. As you saw in one of the previous pictures, I had the solar charger tenuously connected to my scooter with very thin wires and alligator clips. Before I go out and test again, I need to make some more rigid connections and put the multimeters and the solar charger on a table so they don't vibrate off of the scooter.

Is it difficult to start turning/leaning with a square rear wheel like that?

I have that very same gauge installed on my scooter; a TAOTAO ATM-50 A1. It works great. I ordered a set of adapters from amazon to install the temp. probe in the drain plug mentioned above. Just make sure to use teflon tape when installing the adapter and the probe, or they will leak.

Here's a few pics of it installed:





Just a note, the temperature reading will vary depending on the battery voltage, meaning it might read one temperature while riding and having the battery charged at 14.5 volts, and read another temperature after the engine has been turned off for a little while.

I think I nailed it!

I went out, warmed up the engine with the 33 idle jet in the carb and the needle down one notch/clip one notch up from center. The hesitation and bogging were markedly improved, though still slightly present:



I lowered the needle/raised the clip one more notch to the top most position. Again, there was an even more pronounced improvement in acceleration from idle. The hesitation/bogging was only minutely present when the throttle was blipped after the engine had been idling for >30 seconds.



The engine was behaving excellently, but to get the highest idle, I had to have the mixture screw out 3 3/4 turns; a bit too much for my comfort. I put the 34 idle jet back in and moved the clip down to one notch above center.



The engine ran about the same as it did with the 33 idle jet and the clip one notch above center, but now there was almost no waiting for the engine to go back to idle after you snap the throttle closed, it just went straight to idle. Also, the mixture screw was only 2 1/2 turns out; perfectly acceptable.

Next I did what I did with the 33 jet, I put the clip in the highest position/needle in the lowest position, and retested. Perfection! Little if any hesitation, no waiting for the engine to come back down to idle.



I went out for a ride to test out the new tune. Much better acceleration from idle. I feel much less worried while at a stop light or stop sign with traffic behind me.

I am about half done with the oil cooler project summary; I'll probably have it done tonight. I'll post it in the tech contributions section when I'm done.

Ok, I will try to get that done today or tomorrow. I already have a thread for all of the mods I am doing to my scoot here, but it isn't focused just on the oil cooler. I'll type up a seperate summary dedicated to just the oil cooler project.

I'm off to try and tame the carburetor.