Loggerhead Mike said:
Got any pictures of the motor and how you mounted the belt pulleys?
Here ya go:
Shot of the motors from the rear:
You can see a piece of angle iron between the 2 motors, across the top. The 2 motors are bolted to this angle, and this keeps them from wanting to tilt inward as they are put under load and torque.
This one shows the pulleys and the belts.
Yes, the welds are a little on the ratty side, but the thin-wall tubing of the bike frame is difficult to weld. You can also see that the axle shaft is 2 half shafts, originally it was one continuous shaft, but with 2 separate motors turning, the wheels need to also be independent of each other.
OK, this one shows the attachment points, which I'm about to explain in detail. You can see a cross-bolt on the upper part of the motors. This is bolted through a bracket, which is welded to the flat bar on the top, which is slotted at the bolt holes, to allow adjustment.
Then, in the middle, you see a large bolt with a nut, this is used to adjust belt tension. The bolt is welded to the bike frame, and so, as the nut is backed off, it puts pressure against the body of the tube frame of the motor. This was originally part of the tubular frame of the chassis of the wheelchair....I wish I had cut the **** thing a little longer, and more square :x But, it still serves its purpose.
Lastly, you see a flat bar on the bottom, and then a vertical flat bar. The vertical is a support for the motor, to keep it from sagging under torque. Although you can't see it, there is a tab welded to the bent edge of that flat bar, underneath the flat bar with the bolt going through it. This tab is also slotted, to allow for forward-to-rear adjustment when the belt tension is taken up.
Once the belts are tightened enough I can play a tune on them :mrgreen: then I lock down the support bracket bolts.
This is the controller that would normally be on the armrest of the wheelchair.
But since my girlfriend's dad only had use of the right side of his body, I rigged it so that he could run the motors by squeezing a control lever on the handlebar, which operates this cable rigged to the joystick. The return spring guarantees that it snaps back to its neutral position when released. It worked well enough for him, I left it that way when I re-did the trike.
I know what you're gonna say....WTF happened THERE, dude? Why are the brackets, etc, crooked? Well, the brackets that are welded to the bike, were the original brackets where the wheelchair chassis bolted up under the frame of the trike. Rather than cut all that stuff loose, I just worked off the existing brackets. No, the alignment ain;t worth a ****.....and that's the beauty of a belt drive vs. the chain drive. Already tried the chain drive, and I just couldn't make everything rigid enough, nor precisely aligned enough, for the chain to work correctly. Under torque, the motors wanted to "squall", which would cause the chain to jump off the sprocket. With the belt drive, if there's a bind, it slips, until it gets a bite, then it goes again.
