In the previous week of work on BurnoutChibi, I’ve fully completed the vehicle but have yet to get it out to really test. This thing really is too damned fast for our indoor.. uhh, test track. A motor quality issue also prevented me from blasting it around in our usual outdoor venue (for very long, anyway). These issues have since been addressed, so it’s almost time for more test video!

As previously discussed, BurnoutChibi is a refit of the derelict Chibikart1 frame into something a little more hair-raising, as if Chibikart 1 wasn’t bad enough already. Since the last update where I had just finished reconnecting the steering, I’ve finished mounting the braking system, the transmission shifter cables and linkages, and also completed electrical hookup. At the behest of some of my students, I completed it in time for CPW last weekend, though the aforementioned motor problem meant it was not out scaring parents and wide-eyed potential freshmen.

Here’s the story in the pictorial form.

I began with a little aside in order to solve the problem of how to mount the two “Sand Castle” controllers. They have no mounting flanges and both sides are made of heat sinks, so just gluing it to a plate would make for some pretty poor thermal design. I decided to come up with a “cradle” that held the two controllers right under a fan for some forced convection  cooling. The fan I selected was out of my plentiful stock of 80mm LED case fans.

This design was an exercise in designing a snap fit for 3d printing. While I could have made the base a little wider and added some through-holes to hold the two halves together, I decided to get creative and dovetail each corner post together. The angle is extremely steep – about 85 degrees – so the whole assembly could be pulled out with force, but otherwise snaps into place cleanly.

…and it’s printed out of PLA.

Yeah, so what if it’s going to melt at about 60 celsius? It’ll just smell like delicious waffles while the ESCs burn.

I decided to try the “translucent light blue” PLA which is sold commonly, and I must say it’s my favorite PLA color so far. It’s not the vaguely jaundiced-rainwater color of natural PLA, and I also don’t like solid color PLA. A tinge of blue helps, but is not overwhelming and makes me think it’s some real plastic.

Putting together some of the electrical deck and testing the fit of the ESCs. Result: pretty perfect!

I set aside the e-deck for a while to return to the transmission and drivetrain.

First order of business is to attach the sprockets to the wheels. This basically entailed making four standoffs which acted as the lug nuts (M6 thread) on one side, and regular 1/4″-20 on the other side. The standoffs hold the sprockets a set distance from the wheel so the chain clears the tires, and also holds them concentric.

Or so I hoped.

There is practically nothing concentric or wobble-free about these shitty caster wheels. I had picked them up since they’re $10 each, but I swear not even Harbor Freight wheels are this bad. While the sprocket seemed to have minimal runout (radial misalignment), the wobble from the poorly stamped wheel rims was incredible.

I literally had to take a dial indicator to the sprocket and hammer on the wheel rims to bend them around. I got most of the axial wobble out of the sprocket this way, but this meant it all ended up in the wheels themselves, which now are a bit “googly-eyed” as a result. It will look hilarious when running.

With all wheels mounted, the frame could finally support weight. It’s definitely lost the Chibikart look a little since it’s so far off the ground (in comparison…). I have an incredible 2.5″ of ground clearance now.

The brake pedal hookup was the exact same as for DPRC. This pedal design doesn’t have a spring return on the pedal side since it is handled by the built-in spring elements in the brakes themselves.

Which, as it turned out, weren’t quite strong enough, so the pedal felt quite mushy and also did not return all the way. I added a long compression spring on each side between the cable stops and the brake lever, and this made the pedal feel much more positive. The brake cables sit in barrel adjusters so the balance could be finely tuned.

Shifting to the back again, I’ve appended the Vex sprockets to the Vex transmission’s VHex output shafts. The Vex sprockets didn’t come with any set screws or other means of axial retention, so for a quick fix, I drilled and threaded three #10-32 screws 120 degrees apart. The three set screws will offer way more retaining power than just one. I decided to forego any other spacers and shaft end-tap screws for now.

 

Here’s a view of the shifter linkage. The mechanism is a spring-balanced cable setup where I provide the pull to shift into 2nd gear, and the spring pushes the shifter back into first.

This was simple enough, but I chose springs which were way too strong initially. I figured “10 pounds of force” at max deflection was enough, but that translated through the cable into the shift lever, times two, meant it was just too hard to throw!

I went to a hardware store and bought several sizes of springs in roughly the same length that were much ‘softer’. The replacement spring is about half the spring rate, and was also too long in that it could not compress enough. The solution to that was to really quickly dremel a few loops off the spring, just  like a good ricer. The shifter now has a positive click as the ball detents lock into place.

Once that affair was taken care of, I routed the chain and moved the gearbox up to tension it (the “goalposts” having slotted mounting holes for this reason). To lock the gearbox in place, I simply tightened the…

… Oh, I can’t reach those bottom socket screws.

Must have bought those hex headed screws for a reason! I was wondering briefly where they were supposed to go on this thing. With the hex heads accessible with a regular wrench, now I could actually tighten the drive up.

With both transmissions hooked up, I spent some time getting pushed around synchronizing the cables. I put another set of barrel adjusters on the shifter cables so they could be adjusted as needed.

What I (not surprisingly) discovered during this push testing is that the brake shimmy is pretty severe. This is caused by combination of factors, two of which include my “kinematically suboptimal” rotor retention method (two screws across a diameter) as well as the complete non-concentricity of the wheels. To reduce the severity of the effect, I had to dial the cables to different tensions. The braking is still effective, but it definitely feels like it’s trying to jerk all over the place.

Ultimately, I’m likely to ditch these drums and go to a disk brake setup with its own guide bearing on the front spindles to maintain concentricity. But for now…

…back to the electronics deck. Here’s the wiring mostly in place with batteries mounted. The batteries are my old 5Ah, 10S sticks. Two of them.

The batteries are secured by Velcro ties and sandwiched between two rigid plastic panels (the baseplate on one side, a 1/4″ thick polycarbonate strip on the other). A 1/8″ silicone rubber pad sits below each battery for shock absorption and more impact protection. Combined, this ought to ensure the batteries don’t move anywhere.

The ESC power leads directly into a 150A fuse junction, and ground has its own big brass distribution block also. Overall, this is the beefiest power system I’ve built since probably LOLrioKart.

At the point, the frame was flipped over for installation of the power electronics deck. The rest of the wiring, including connections to the motors and to the main switch, happened in-place after the installation.

The long run to the power switch is doubled-up 12 gauge wire in each direction.

The only other power side wiring was to make one motor extension cable. With main power wiring completed, I quickly hooked up a HV BEC to provide 5V and a servo tester to convert the foot pedal’s analog 1 to 4 volt output to servo pulses. These two components were heat shrunk and sealed, then attached with Velcro to the top of one of the battery pack plates. The signal electronics for this thing are extremely basic – no fancy signal processing is occurring.  One thing that could happen with this system in the future is converting to electronic shifting, such as with solenoids, upon which I think a system which cuts throttle before the shift and slowly brings it back in would be helpful.

After confirming the functionality of the ESCs and calibrating the controllers, the whole rig is put together.

Here is BurnoutChibi posed next to DPRC! The wheelbases for both vehicles are the same, but BC has a slightly wider track because of the pneumatic wheels. Otherwise, they handle alike and are mututally just as difficult to sit in.

testing

The first few test runs of BurnoutChibi were done indoors, in our Conveniently Circular Building hallway. Due to the extreme acceleration ability of the vehicle, I couldn’t really test it any faster than DPRC or original Chibikart, so we decided to not take video. More testing commenced in an underground garage, then our usual spiral parking garage haunting ground. Unfortunately, I really only got a minute or two of hard driving in before the left motor threw several magnets.

The high speed of the motor caused some serious sparking as the loose magnets scraped the stator and also cut up the motor leads. Unfortunately, the only video that was taken was not focused properly…

The accomplice vehicle is the (still unnamed) tricycle.

Since that test, I’ve reglued the magnets and repaired the wiring, and BC is currently operational. I am currently waiting for a day in Boston / Cambridge when all hell is not breaking loose (in fact, as I write this) to test in the garage again. These pictures and videos will be uploaded when they are taken.

In the past week, I’ve been managing to intersperse bits of BurnoutChibi work between hosting extra hours for the 2.00gokart students as they edge ever more towards completion. On Wednesday, the “Milestone 7” mechanical inspection occurred, where everyone had to demonstrate their rolling frames with steering and braking. The next steps for the students from here are focused entirely on assembling their electrical system. In fact, two teams have already blitzed their vehicles to completion, and more are surely to follow (parading them around during CPW is a huge motivator). I’m going to make a separate post about the progress of the class later – all I can say for right now is that this year’s competition is going to be awesome.

The first thing I had to do to build a new Chibikart is to disassemble the old Chibikart. Here’s the scene of the crime:

This work left me with a pile of redundant electricals – namely 4 more Jasontrollers and the massive A123 B456 battery. Needless to say, these will probably find their way into some other silly rideable thing.

The plan for BurnoutChibi’s electrical system is actually to use my left over 10S 5Ah lithium polymer packs, instead of making a custom pack or keeping the A123 pack. I decided to this mostly for the power and energy density of the lithium polymer packs (Chibikart 1 weighed 53 pounds because the big A123 bus battery module weighs almost 20!)  as well as the simple fact that said lipo packs have been sitting for almost 2 years, and I really don’t want to see them go to waste. The lipos themselves are from the erstwhile Deathcopter, so BurnoutChibi will surely be the health and well being hazard I envisioned it to be.

The first appendage to the old frame is the new style brake pedal. At this point, I haven’t even removed the old steering linkage yet, but I wanted to see if it would interfere with the new position of said linkage.

I started from the rear with fitting the Vex Ball-shitter transmissions onto the “goalpost” mounts. This whole ‘rebuild’ is essentially replacing Chibikart 1 frame plates with specially crafted DPRC ones. The only difference between this rear corner and DPRC’s is the goalposts!

I focused on getting the motors mounted and the rear end together. Here, I’ve mounted the NTM motors to my NTM-to-CIM converter plates. Eliminating units, the result of this evaluation is something which is basically like a CIM, but 4 times more power dense.

There’s only one problem. The NTM shafts need to have a 2mm keyway cut into them so I can easily used the keyed bore supplied with most FIRST OEM parts such as the Vex transmissions (The fact that I can say “FIRST OEM” is unsettling).

As it turned out, these shafts are casehardened. Wow, Hobbyking, you’re classy now – what this meant was I could not use my single HSS 2mm endmill to machine the slot. Instead, I went on eBay a few weeks ago and bought some 2mm solid carbide endmills. I recommend keeping a set of carbide cutters around for dealing with troublesome materials; the downside, of course, is that they are more brittle and need a stiffer machine setup.

I faced the slight issue of the endmill being too short and the Bridgeport spindle being too fat to reach the nether regions of the  motor. So I did what any self-professed machinist wouldn’t do, and chucked it up in a drill chuck. In my defense, I bought this integral-shank keyless chuck just to do dumb things like this.

I cut the keyway just a little short of actual dimensions because the NTM shafts were not long enough to use the included retaining ring with the gears. So I had to press the key in,and will need some creative gear pulling if I ever wanted to remove these gears.

And here they are mounted. I found the sheer number of hexagonal sockets on the gearcases a bit confusing at first, but now appreciate how versatile they can be.  Chain tension is adjustable using the slightly slotted mounting holes. I inserted locknuts (nylocks) into the opposite side hex sockets, so torque retention will be positive.

Notice how the seat mounts have been turned around. This was necessary because of how big the gearcases were. The seat mounting centers, and overall position, will remain unchanged.

Crawling up the side of the vehicle, I reached this build’s star attraction: The gear shifter. This came together amazingly well, and the feel of the ball detent plungers is extremely satisfying.

Heading up front, I popped out these new steering knuckles. In keeping with the tradition of doing the least possible work, these were specifically designed as drilling operations in a 1″ aluminum square barstock. The four flange holes will be where the drum brake mounts.

Continuing work on the front end, the drum brake mount has been attached and the new narrower steering…ears? are mounted. I’m not sure what to call them on Chibikart. They’re too short to be A-arms or wishbones.

Recall the new steering linkage arrangement – the crank arms are basically socket wrenches that fit over the hex head bolts. Motion is transmitted via giant set screw in the steering knuckle. To ensure positive engagement, I machined a deep flat into the hex head bolt shanks and picked flat-bottom set screws to maximize the contact area. To retain the crank arms, I center drilled a hole and threaded it for a retainment bolt. Otherwise, the crank arm is thinner than the bolt head and will be free to float about 1/16″ or so.

I moved on to chopping up the 90mm drum brake to fit up front. The mounting method I ended up devising would have been fine with keeping the giant torque arm, but the design would be cleaner without.

To maintain the cleanest possible lines, I brutally slashed the housing with a Dremel cutting wheel.

To attach the drum brake itself to its mount, I first had to machine the little round spacer which adapted the 14mm bore of the brake housing to my 1/2″ bolt wheel spindles. I sandwiched the brake housing between the mounting bracket and the spacer so it was reasonably centered. Next, it was a quick drill press job using the mounting bracket holes as a drill template. The steel housing on these brakes is just thick enough to hold a few threads of #10-32, so a socket cap screw was screwed directly into it through a standoff.

The mounting bracket itself involve one sheet metal bend to create a spot which will eventually anchor the brake cable. Well, I managed to bend it the wrong way the first time. Heating up the aluminum with a torch and carefully bending it back the other way worked, but the metal still cracked on one side. I had a buddy on MIT FSAE lay a quick TIG bead across it (see the irregular texture where the sheet metal arm bends left).

The brake drum mounting itself is what I’d call “kinematically suboptimal” very nicely. Basically I squished the slightly tapered stamping flat on a hydraulic press to get a flush mounting face on the bottom side. Then, two standoffs which each have a small shoulder that is precisely fitted to a mounting hole keep the drum attached to the wheel. On the top side, the standoffs have a 1/4″20 thread so I can use already available button head screws to retain the rotor. On the other side, the standoff is tapped M6 X 1 to interface with the original wheel lugs bolts.

The concentricity, needless to say, is less than stellar, but turned out way better than I had anticipated. I’m likely to replace this whole rig with a custom machined aluminum dish that has M6 x 1 holes tapped into it so I can just dismount the whole tire without causing loss of alignment. The brake does scrub, but only slightly and intermittently, and works very well otherwise. I have no doubt that this thing can lock up and skid.

And the front end is basically together.

Work now will move to the rear again with assembling the drive wheels and sprockets. I have an order of brake cables and associated parts coming, so I hope hooking up the whole drivetrain and shifter this week is a possibility.